kathy borbas's Page

Hi Kathy

Sorry my dear, but you need to go to the bottom of the first page of the tally discussion and you will see there is a 'page 27' right at the bottom....click on that and bring up that page and it will show you the latest tally. You copy and paste (as before)and add yours to that total. Hope this makes sense...I'm hopeless at relaying instructions.

Kathy there are no silly questions....FYI means For Your Information.  Part of the shorthand of the Internet and I had to ask questions like crazy to learn some of them.  :)

luv, Jeanne 

Kathy, fall and winter will soon be upon South Africa as a lot of us warm up again. The children really need jumpers and vests.  We have patterns here, we only ask they be 3 inches longer than wider in the torso, to cover often swollen little tummies.  We do not generally need baby items, just FYI on that, but we do need all children's sizes, from toddler up to teen.  A lot of focus is on the creches, or informal daycare centers people start up to care for the orphans so toddlers and young children jumpers would be lovely. We try to avoid tie strings at the necks, and too many buttons as if they fall off and get lost there's no funds or way to replace them.  Again, just FYI. The vests worn close to the skin are asked to be soft, the outer garments are often made roomy to fit over thin clothing, most of the kids only have the clothes they're wearing and usually they don't keep out the wind at all.  There's so many lovely jumper patterns out there, I can't wait to see what you come up with.  I hear you about undoing a square being hard on the nerves...generally any square between 7.5 and 9 inches will fit into a blanket and so long as they're warm and hold together, don't worry about them being perfect, a dropped stitch is okay, so long as it's secure, better to forge ahead a few rows rather than unravel a few and get a square done.  :) Hope this helped!  Love, Jeanne xoxoxo

Kathy I'm not sure if the Internet just ate my answer to you or not but here is the link to the Slipover patterns available here.... http://forum.knit-a-square.com/forum/categories/patterns-slipover/listForCategory   A slipover is a vest...two rectangles seamed up the sides and along the top leaving armholes at the sides and a head hole at the top, or two rectangles with simple shoulder straps.  They go next to the skin to trap and conserve body warmth for HIV immune compromised orphans usually though sometimes they go over a thin t shirt.  I am going to ask for an updated list of needs so give me a couple of days to find out and then I'll post it in the Forum for all to see, or one of the other Mods will.    

The 40x40cm squares are almost 16" square, ie. each one equals four 8" squares put together so you could mail them as they are, with a note explaining they were donated to you at this size and equal four regular squares.  I'm quite sure they'll be used.  It is your choice which to do, slipover or squares, as both are needed. :)

luv, Jeanne 

Kathy here's the link to the ezine about the Jabulani Boys, you can hopefully see some photos there: http://www.knit-a-square.com/Square_Circle-street-kids.html   Kind people ended up getting them computers plus every boy got a sweater and blanket and hat. It was quite the project!  So, that jumper will absolutely fit somebody, if you can make heads or tails out of it.  Let me know how your puzzling goes eh?

Well, that's the thing Kathy, nobody was hurt eh?  After I found that out I had a good laugh too. My brother said they skidded the car to a stop and looked back at the cow moose.  She was a bit wobbly on her feet and rather dizzy but she recovered and walked off.  Her head dinged his driver's side mirror but that's about all.

So far, for Knit A Square, we've made Go-Overs (large cardis and jumpers to "go over" their threadbare thin clothes for warmth) and Slipovers, thinner soft vests to go under their clothes, particularly the HIV immune compromised kids.  We do make hats, to hand out with the blankets, we've also made Baby Cuddle Sacks...the very simple patterns for these, variations on the basic square, are listed under Patterns.  We clothe teenagers as well as toddlers and every age inbetween so if that jumper is hard to undo I suggest working it up in the size that it is.  The teenagers need warmth as much as the younger children, and also live in shelters. I have some yarn that definitely is a bear to undo, it's hairy and tangles in 2 seconds flat.  I'd say forge ahead, even young adult size or bigger is fine.  The Jebulani Khakaibos boys were all large and we did sweaters for them (jumpers).  Does this help any?  luv, Jeanne :)

Well Kathy, you've hit the nail on the head hon.  I was taught everything I know about computers by my kids, who are all adults now.  The link to add stuff to the tally is here: http://square-circle-forum.ning.com/forum/topics/2012-tally-for-items  I imagine a kangaroo "landing in your lap" is quite the mini-heart attack.  The deer do jump right infront of vehicles.  Thankfully the moose just stroll, figure they own the road, rather like the African elephants do but thankfully a tad smaller!  My brother actually drove under a moose once, lifted her right up off the road and put her back down again.  It took him a while to clean up his car as he literally scared the crap out of her.

I guess it's considered cold but it's a dry cold, unlike say in England where it's a damp cold and it chills you right to the bone...brrrrr, at 32F, or 0 C. 

Wow, Kathy, 31C and sticky?  Two days ago it was -31C here, well windchill.  It dropped for a few days.  It's going back up to about -11C or so.  As for squares and items you send, we rely on you, the members, to go to the Tally threads and add the numbers of items to the totals. It's really just copying and pasting the old tally into your reply thread and changing the relevant numbers.  However one of us can also do it, if you post and say "I mailed x number of squares and x number of hats, please add them." :)  If I've still got that photo of my oldest in the huge Go-Over well yikes, but the one holding my dog is our 2nd daughter.  She's trying to move out this week but hit a deer with her truck so has to now see to bodywork on it. One thing after another eh?