WISH LIST CHALLENGE RONDA'S WINTER DRIVE to ensure that KAS has enough stock ready for March-April 2013!
WARM TOPS - BEANIES - SCARVES - SOCKS (sox) - GLOVES OR MITTENS and, of course, CUDDLY TOYS NEEDED.
As most of us living in the Northern Hemisphere are beginning to experience the cold, wet, windy and snowy days of our winter, therefore we can really appreciate how much the vulnerable children of South Africa will feel when it arrives in the Southern Hemisphere in March-April.
Ronda has suggested that we have a 'Winter Drive' to ensure that she has a wonderful stock-pile ready for distributions and has provided a list of goods that would be the most valuable - focusing on children in the age group of 4-9 years.
In addition, Ronda has requested that email addresses are included with your name, address and a list of contents of the package - this will enable Ronda to acknowledge the arrival of your parcels on opening day. It also speeds up the unpacking process enormously. However, if you prefer to remain anonymous, a note of the contents would be very much appreciated.
After a heroic effort by Linda Maltby (Canada) and Carol Playford (UK) we have built up a stock of patterns than Ronda finds produces the garments that really are needed for the children. Ronda has been working at the coalface of KAS these past few years and many useful lessons have been learned during this period.
Thanks to Erica (our valuable techie), it has been installed on the Website, and, on the
Patterns tab on the menu bar.
Here are some of the Knitting Patterns
Zanny's T Sweater Knitted KasCuddle Heather's Winter Warmer
and Crochet Patterns
Hexagon Sweater Chain Stitch Square Front Post Hat
This is an important milestone in KAS development and we really need members to spread-the-word about the KAS Pattern Book as many of the earlier patterns have been updated to the sizes that are truly needed. We hope you will enjoy the presentation and the consistent layout of the patterns. plus the descriptive information.
No doubt, this book will evolve and there may be plans for an e-book at some stage, but for now we really do need to give a hearty cheer for Linda, Carol and Erica for taking KAS to the next step!
MONTHLY CHALLENGES - November & December 2012
We are going to continue the Plain Jane Challenge into December with the addition of Stash Busting & UFO's - all of which will add the Ronda's Winter Drive.
The In Celebration of the Plain Jane Square! has certainly fired members up. Also the Flickr Gallery has 93 photos running into two pages - well worth a visit.
RED & WHITE HAT CHALLENGE
The Red & White Wish List Challenge is progressing well and the Forum Tally has reached 411. However Ronda believes from the number of hats that have been received that we are actually fairly close to the 600, but do keep going! The Challenge will close at the end of January as the hats will be needed for distribution at the beginning of the football season which starts in February. Mary has created a Flickr Gallery for the hats, and, they do make a super collection.
TALLIES or ITEM COUNT
Squares - Knit-a-Squillion started July 2011 ends December 2012 has reached 215,394
Hats started January 2012 ends December 2012 total 10,209
Vests & Tops started January 2012 ends December 2012 total 3,963
Click here for the Current Tally , these figures will rise substantially once we have the Square Lists for September-October added to them.
DISTRIBUTIONS & BLANKETS
The lady above is so delighted to be able to help! The middle blanket was very very patiently made by Lorinda Jordaan using up all her 'Scraps' of yarn! Lorinda and her team have continued to stitch like crazy and photographed all the blankets for us to see. The teams contribution to the Blanket Album has reached an astonishing 95 blankets!
JBay Children's Recycling Project (Jeffrey's Bay - South Africa) Following the successful blanket and hat distribution via the Swap Shop, the Stitch Witch Group have already produced 4 complete blankets for the shop.
GCS (Pty) Ltd - Gauteng, South Africa
Ronda showing the blankets to the 'helpers' from GCS
GCS dropped off squares knitted from Mandela Day, which continued until today. Our drop off included teddies and some clothing. Knit-a-square is a great initiative, we loved each moment of it.
TREASURE BOXES are run along the lines of Santa's Shoeboxes
Knit-a-Square sets aside their contribution to TREASURE BOXES - thanks to Wendy for wrapping beautiful boxes and to Anne for coming to collect everything and taking them to be filled for the children. May they be greatly blessed by all your gifts, KAS supporters world wide !! Thank you, Ronda.
The presents will be shared by Pastors Willem and Natalie to outreach projects in extremely poor rural areas.
SPREAD-THE-WORD & EVENTS
Pam Johnson & Elaine Jones have organised with the Shrewsbury branch of Sainsbury's Supermarket on 16th December, to help the public pack their shopping bags and raise funds for KAS and postage - Pam has a caravan bursting at the seams with squares & garments! We are going to try and cover 15 tills for 6 hours!
The branch staff have taken KAS to their hearts and are already producing squares! Sainsbury's is the 3rd largest supermarket chain in the UK. Will report back in January how the event went and Pam will add it to her Members personal blog page once the event is over.
Open Day, North Yorkshire (UK) - Knitting for Africa Heidi Brady & Simon Kerswell took part in an Open Day in conjunction with "Carers Resources' on 18th October and managed to get interviewed by the local paper, plus the group were featured in the latest edition of LGC Knit & Crochet Magazine.
They have challenged the local people of Skipton to produce 200 squares by the end of the year- they need another 74! The read more about the group visit their website and read about their support for KASCare.
Maudie Bryan
author of the Wool-Girl and The Balls of Wool gave a talk on Saturday November 10th from 8.30-9.00 I will be one of three guests on Chris Wisbey's programme. I will be speaking about KasCare and Wool-Girl's work to spread the word and raise funds for a delivery van for Ronda and the team. The following week I go to Triabunna for the knitting day for KAS.
Report of this talk :
The ladies who came to help brought the little top and the squares. They helped me teach the children to knit. I taught the male teacher too so he could help. There were 22 children and three people from a aged care facility so it was over all ages. The Orford school has Wool-Girl and I gave the children a copy of the book each. They will re-visit knitting next year and may contribute to the KAS blankets.
Valerie Zalewski (France)
Gave a radio interview in France, although she didn't get many enquiries from future knitters, she did get 2 donations of wool. One from was a retired weaver who has given her 12 x 5lb spools of pure wool!
NEW GROUPS
new groups have formed recently :
Salobrena Senoritas - created by Marty Chamberlain (Spain)
Global Knitwits & Happy Hookers! - created by Jo Frost (Australia)
If any the existing groups would like to raise their profile please do let us know! Just post on the KasSnippets discussion page.
SCHOOLS & CLUBS
Emma Denholm (UK)
I help with a local Brownie unit, and, in the new year we are going to start knitting squares to send to you and hope it helps a little, there are 24 girls are aged between 7 to 10 yrs and 5 leaders so should make quite a few squares for you
Liesl-Anne Pienaar - Paarl, Western Cape, South Africa
Just have to share - schools outside of Paarl have heard about my challenge and are asking me to challenge them too! This is becoming REALLY exciting as people grab hold of the vision!
I am making up the first blanket - want to show it to the other schools and also our girls on 16 Jan, and also for the local paper - I have challenged the townspeople to get involved too and am going to have an article in the paper in January... I'm also putting up a challenge at the hairdressers in town, and at the old aged homes... Let's see how many people we can help!
I am making up the first blanket - want to show it to the other schools and also our girls on 16 Jan, and also for the local paper - I have challenged the townspeople to get involved too and am going to have an article in the paper in January... I'm also putting up a challenge at the hairdressers in town, and at the old aged homes... Let's see how many people we can help!
My husband and I are missionaries who are out of ministry till our son finishes matric - end of 2013, and I just HAD to do something !
The number of "Likes" is rapidly heading for 5,000 and currently stands at 4,777! We also copy the messages etc received on Facebook to the Forum if anyone is not a member of FB.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Erica Smith (Australia) wrote a wonderful article called Fundamental Human Needs for the KAS Forum in December 2010, but we felt at this time of the year it deserved to be highlighted, especially for members who have joined since that time and may not have seen it. It was based upon the work of Manfred Max-Neef in which he outlined the nine things which are the basic requirements for all human beings to be happy.
What makes this feature so good is that Erica related it to the work being done by KAS members around the globe!
FLOODING IN PORT ALFRED - SOUTH AFRICA - KAS SUPPLIES BLANKETS
Coastland Sales is assisting with the transportation of KAS blankets, clothing and toys to the people in Nlambe ( Port Alfred) who were affected with the recent floods that ravaged the town.
Intertown Transport kindly offering their services in assisting getting the donated clothes & blankets to the flood victims in Port Alfred.
THE NEXT GENERATION
The number of young people taking an interest and supporting KAS is growing all the time - this month we would like to feature the work of two teenagers, both from the USA. Lauren Lee has produced her first full blanket laid out, and, Haley has another stack of squares ready to go!
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FINAL THOUGHTS
Dianne Jones, a KAS member, living in Turkey, responded to the needs of the refugees flooding there in order to escape the Syrian crisis, by founding LILY (Love in the Language of Yarn). Having been inspired by the work of KAS and its members, decided to follow our example by asking for squares to make into blankets. Since March 2012 Dianne has managed to harness the goodwill of the knitting & crocheting community around the world, especially in Europe, and has supplied 3,257 blankets and numerous other hats and garments! Currently, there are 126,000 refugees, mostly women and children. What a blessing Dianne is for these families.
and finally
Our hearts go out to all the countries and people affected by Hurricane Sandy. Large portions of the Caribbean, Mid-Atlantic and North Eastern USA were devastated and other nearby areas to a lesser degree. We wish them well and that they recover speedily, especially those families who not only lost their homes, but loved ones as well.
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