I looked up charity knitting on Ravelry and found that handmade items often don't make it to their intended recipients. Afghans for Afghans, however, kept coming up as an organization that handles this well.
Because it gets quite cold in Afghanistan, and because washing machines are rare, Afghans for Afghans asks for wool items rather than cotton, acrylic, etc. So I mined my stash for wool and found some ball ends of Noro Kureyon. I used a kid-size mitten pattern from Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. It was fun to try to make non-identical but still matching mittens. Here's the result:
Mittens knit up delightfully quickly. Good stuff. These were done in perhaps 4 hours total.
This has me thinking about other charity knitting or craft projects. More locally, there's Project Linus, which collects handmade blankets for kids staying in hospitals for extended periods. They take crocheted, knitted, tie-quilted, and other blankets. Different requirements to learn (more emphasis on softness and washability than warmth), but this is a project that could be fun with a group of crafty friends, knitting squares to join, or tying a quilt together.
On the parenting side, my 3-year-old DD has lots of questions about who is getting these mittens. It's a good chance to provide some information about poverty and war, and to try to do it in an age-appropriate manner that educates without overly alarming. This is part of what makes me think about Project Linus -- it would be a chance to see more directly, or even participate in, giving to others we don't know who are in need.
No comments:
Post a Comment