KasSnippets - July 2014
REPORTS FROM SOUTH AFRICA
WARMING OUR CHILDREN - INSIDE AND OUT!
The temperatures in South Africa have dropped to below freezing during the evenings in many parts of the country recently and there have been reports of snow on the mountains – we have been making sure that the little ones are all wrapped up warm in your lovely blankets! So, I am sure you will forgive us if the reports have been few and far between lately, but our energy is focussed elsewhere – I know you understand.
I recently mentioned a wonderful organisation called JAM International. Well, I am so pleased to be able to share with you the meaningful partnership we are developing with this organisation. But, let me talk a little about JAM first and then I will explain more about how we are working together.
To read the full Report, also discussion comments :
Other recent reports : There are no other reports for this month, but Ronda & Wendy have very good 'excuses' - for the past two months they have made 2 - 5 distributions each week, plus the Knitathon and their regular duties! The reports and photographs will arrive when things quieten down.
KNIT-A-SQUARE SHOP
This item is proving very popular and your support is very much appreciated.
Blanket support for a Gogo - US $5
FINANCIAL REPORT April - June 2014
Erica has produced the latest update on the KasCare finances. Over the past three months, we've averaged a little under $2000 US per month in income. This is a bit lower than we had in our first quarter, mostly because the first quarter included the Sorting Space Appeal. Fortunately, some of last quarter's donations were in savings, which we were able to use to make up some of the gap.
Once again, you can see how vital recurring donations are to our success. Over half of the people who have recurring donations, donated just $5 a month! It really does show how much of an impact you can have with a fairly small amount of money paid regularly. Thank you so much to all of you who have made a recurring donation, or made a regular donation, or bought something from the shop.
To read the full report : Please click here
KAS REACHES GREAT HEIGHTS FOR CHILDREN
A JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD !
This challenge is going to take us around the planet whilst reaching great heights & piles of squares - 178,000 to be precise, in order to reach the top of Table Mountain, Cape Town in South Africa!
We are going to need 50 squares for every foot climbed!
We've been dashing from continent to continent, and, back again in this past month. Germany twice, and, the strangely named Bungle Bungle Range in Australia! We been to London, the the Chrysler Building in New York followed by the Eiffel Tower Paris! We got some fresh air in Colorado USA, up the Sky Tow in Auckland New Zealand and across the Millau Viaduct in France. We have recently completed Uluru (Ayers Rock) Australia and then back to the Berliner Fernsehturm in Germany.
Currently we are climbing up the Empire State Building in New York, for which we need 62,500 squares!
Here is the link to KAS Reaches Great Heights for Children
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Andrea Palmatier has written a KasBlog
Purl One, Knit for Good
My mom taught me to crochet when I was seven years old. In my memory I learned instantly, although I know that isn’t possible. I’m sure there were challenging times where I was trying to catch on to the stitches and order of things. Since I’ve been crocheting for such a long time it comes easily to me; I can read a pattern like a book, know what type of yarn it is by feel and turn out a square in about an hour.
Knitting, on the other hand, is another story. I learned to knit last year, again thanks to my mom. I had tried to knit (unsuccessfully) for years but finally something clicked. My first square took three days. I made one more square after that and put the idea of knitting aside.
To read more of this lovely blog click on KasBlog
or you can find Andrea's KasBlog at anytime on the menu bar that goes across the Forum page.
KNIT A TANK TOP
Since April this year the Blind Veterans UK have had a knitting project on-going to cover a tank in order to raise much needed funds! They have been asking for 8x8inch squares to be sewn by volunteers and displayed at the Shoreham Air Show at the end of August.
After this event squares will be sent to the Knit-a-Square charity to make blankets for orphans in Africa!!!
To read more about the work of this charity please visit :
WHAT'S GOING ON IN
SOUTH AFRICA?
EMERGENCY APPEAL FROM
KWA-ZULU NATAL
Ronda received the appeal below from The Community Chest based in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu Natal. We sent them 2 large bags of beanies, 2 large bags of scarves and 1 box of gloves/mittens. Also in the consignment were 35 blanket packs for a group of 30 elderly ladies in Marian Ridge to sew into blankets. Plus we sent blankets, hand warmers and other goodies which were distributed by Chantel Hardy, who also co-ordinated the entire shipment.
In the photo Chantel is telling the children how the squares are made, and, reported back that they were absolutely fascinated by the texture of the blanket and kept coming up to feel it!!!
To read all the mini-report please go to Emergency Appeal
67 BLANKETS FOR MADIBA
lead by Carolyn Steyn
Carolyn Steyn with Ronda Lowrie (co-founder of Knit-a-Square.com) at the Knitathon last Sunday!
One of our knit-a-square Facebook members in Sao Paulo, Brazil, posted this comment : meninas do bem - translated by computer means "Girls of Good"
For once the translation was correct!
The Zibanjwa Zimaphuphu (meaning: Catch them while they are fledglings) Youth Club was started by Mabongi Msthali, a retired staff member of the KwaZulu-Natal Museum. The children are from the Landauville area in Caluza, Pietermaritzburg.
They started out as a sewing group and were soon inspired to be part of the global movement of 67 Blankets for Madiba, the project they are presently furiously working on.
The work that they have done so far will be featured in the KwaZulu-Natal Museum’s new Democracy Display, celebrating 20 years of Democracy. The display will open to the public at the beginning of August.
To see more of the blankets and distributions that have been taking place please go to the : 67 Blankets for Madiba discussion page.
The project now has a new official Facebook page,
here is the Link
REPORT FROM MAMA N'TOMBI COMMUNITY PROJECTS
Love in Action.... It was bitterly cold yesterday, but despite this the children turned out in numbers to attend the MNCP outreach programme. We were very concerned about this little boy who was shaking with cold. He was also obviously very, very hungry from the way he gobbled down his sandwiches. Val shared one of her jackets to keep him warm. Thank you Val. This is real love in action.....
As part of a school holiday programme, Solomon Qadi arranged football matches, the 5 top performers were rewarded with a blanket and the other participants each received a scarf - courtesy of Knit-a-Square!
To read more on this and other associate groups please go to
SORTED IN SOUTH AFRICA
Anita Koch and her daughter Karen (in yellow) have been helping KAS for ages. Anita lives in a retirement village in Vereeniging. She has organised a KAS group and they make scarves, beanies and squares - prolifically. Karen delivers by hand when she can as she lives close by in Sandton.
They are long standing KasFriends!
To view more office photos and arrivals of goodies please go to
What is going on in South Africa
The JBay Recycling Project for Children
& Stitch Witch News
In 3 years children have collected enough recyclables for 70 bicycles! After an appeal by David Cicotello they raised $750 - enough to purchase 11 brand new bikes.
Another hard working youngster obtains his much desired dream - a bicycle!
STITCH WITCHES RAISE MONEY FOR YARN!
A huge THANK YOU to everybody who attended the market and visited with the Stitch Witches We managed to raise R690.00 for yarn and the winners of the raffle are: 1st prize - one of our blankets: Loretha Kennedy - 2nd prize - a knitting bag: Christel Clarke - 3rd prize - a swirly scarf: Joyce (friends with Bernadette Bar) and a huge thank you to Helen Warren for manning the table!
To see more of the photos from the various Monday sessions please click on
JBay Recycling Project for Children
If you are a member of Facebook, then do check out the Stitch Witch page to view some of their recently created blankets and meeting session.
SPREADING THE WORD,
MEMBERS & GROUP NEWS!
HLM Knit-a-Square Initiative
Jo-Ann Oswin organised the Knitting Project at her workplace with HLM on 17th June to support Knit-a-Square.
As well as lots of lovely ladies, 3 gentlemen turned up as well! A 2nd event was held in Durban, with even more male contributors!
To read and see more : HLM Initiative
Gumnuts Group - Australia
Just an update from my previous good news story - - - we have now received the wool from the Peter Alexander store display window and there were 300 balls of wool in total. We have distributed a large portion of them to our most prolific knitters as a special project which after they have all been knitted up we will be sending in bulk.
Good news from the Gumnuts knitting group Canberra Australia – we have bundled up for sending today – 350 squares (10 blankets worth), 13 baby blankets, 1 toy, 4 jumpers, 4 booties, 2 socks, 8 pairs of hand-warmers. With that many squares we have now exceeded our 2014 target of 1620 squares by 35 squares!
That means we are going to achieve much more than we dreamt we could. We continually challenge ourselves to see just how much more we can knit and feel blessed to be able to contribute to this amazing cause - a photo below of what is on its way to our beloved friends — with Deborah Lawson!
Anne Powell (Canada) is taking Knit-a-Square into the
Pinterest arena!
Pinterest Knit-a-Square - we have several people following our July challenge and they are re-Pinning many of our squares to other pages
More importantly, our Pinterest Knit-a-Square South Africa page is starting to attract attention and we have had a large number of visits. Forty two people have become followers - well over half of them are NOT KASfolk - so we are attracting outside attention and many of these people have re-Pinned things to other charity focussed pages. Analytics show that seven of them have visited the KAS website.
To view the boards created so far, please go to :
Pinterest - Knit-a-Square and Pinterest - Knit-a-Square South Africa
Anne is keen to point out that these are works-in-progress, and, she herself is still learning! To read more about this new and exciting development please visit the new discussion page at : Pinterest
THE FRENCH CONNECTION
Les Myosotis Gouzon - residents support Knit-a-Square!
To read more of Valerie's personal blog, here is the link
SPREADING THE WORD IN JAPAN!
Yuma Matsumoto shared Knit-a-Square on his Facebook page in Japan to alert his friends to Knit-a-Square! [【執筆記事掲載＠トジョウエンジン】アフリカのエイズ孤児に”ぬくもり”を！ 世界中から募ったニットでブランケットをつくる「Knit-a-square」
http://eedu.jp/blog/2014/06/23/knit-a-square/ ]
KAS replied by posting on Yuma's page, the link to the KAS brochure that was translated into Japanese by Dawson.
Yuma has replied :
Thank you for your comment and sharing a brochure translated for the Japanese. I'm very happy to introduce Knit-a-Square to this country.
I was really impressed to see your awesome knitting for the first time and I felt that the concept of your project has a profound understanding and consideration of the children's situations and feelings.
Hope you keep a continuous support for the kids with volunteers' hands from around the world
THE AUSTRALIAN SHEEP & WOOL SHOW
18th, 19th and 20th July 2014
lead by Erica Smith
I had originally planned to keep everyone updated day-by-day, but I had clearly failed to factor in my own exhaustion levels! I'll be writing a proper report up for everyone in the next couple of days, but until then I wanted to call out a big 'hi' to all the new members who have signed up after visiting us at the show, and also to share a couple of my favorite photos from the three days.
KasSnippets will feature Erica's report in the August edition!
meanwhile here is the link to the discussion page
GROUP FOCUS
by Anne Powell
HERITAGE MANOR - DIANE RUTHERFORD - SASKATCHEWAN
Heritage Manor’s interesting story started when Diane’s sister, in England, was using up scraps of yarn to make a blanket for herself (with Diane’s help). She discovered Knit-a-Square on the Internet and let Diane know. Very soon Diane and a friend were making and sending squares.
Shortly thereafter, Diane heard that a seniors’ residence - Heritage Manor - needed something to focus some of the residents on, and Diane introduced KAS to them. The ladies decided to devote their usual Thursday afternoon meetings to knitting for KAS or work on projects of their own.
The local newspaper caught wind of this and published a photo of the group knitting - with no write-up or mention of WHY they were doing this. Diane, sent the paper a short article about KAS and mentioned that donations of yarn would be appreciated, and within a short time she had received bags and bags of yarn from the community.
Many of you may have noticed Heritage Manor in the Squares Lists. They continue to send parcels month after month.
The ladies continue to meet every Thursday, except during the summer months. The number attending ranges from about 8 to 22 depending on the day, and Diane says the ladies range in age from 50-something to 94.
As for many of us, postage costs loom large, but some of the ladies are able to contribute a few dollars. Diane helps by knitting Tragic Teddies and other things that she sells to help with mailing costs.
As Diane says, "This is a win-win for all concerned - for the ladies who knit and have a cause to focus on, for the ones who donate yarn and know they are supporting our work, for the blanket assemblers who contribute to their community in South Africa and for the children who receive our blankets."
Hats off to Diane and her group at Heritage Manor!
THE BLANKET ROOM COLLECTION !
We had a sad disaster recently when the 2014 Blanket Collection discussion page was accidently deleted! However, all is not totally lost, most of the photographs were still lodged in an email file, but we have lost all the kind comments from members. The collection is gradually being restored, but on 7th July Wendy sent a mammoth number of fresh photographs of blankets to add to the collection, so we'll be concentrating on adding these as we know members enjoy a bit of 'square spotting' as well as admiring the completed blankets will add more lovely and supportive comments!
Knit-a-Square's "67" blanket from Molly Orr (her 67th Knit-a-Square creation - in her own 67th year !!!) going to a child at Sunset Association Eldorado Park in Soweto ... with love and blessings from ALL at Knit-a-Square !!!!!
KAS MONTHLY CHALLENGES
STRIPES, TEXTURES, ZIG-ZAGS
plus Mandela Day Salute
lead by Anne Powell (Canada)
It’s been almost a year since we had our last Stripes, Zigzags and Textures challenge and it was such a resounding success that we are doing it again.
We managed to fill our Discussion with 156 pages of pictures and chat and we filled 2 ½ albums with photos of your beautiful squares.
One special day JULY 18 – MANDELA DAY
As usual this particular challenge has produced a bounty of amazing squares and it has proved impossible to select just a few for KasSnippets, however here are some of this months contributions!
Here is a selection of the recent single colour squares - which are the backbone of KAS blankets and provide a wonderful frame for the above more exotic squares:
Here is the list for the rest of the year!
SEPTEMBER - VARIEGATED YARN - Bev Jeffery
OCTOBER – FAVOURITES – favourite yarn, patterns etc - Gloria Grandy
NOVEMBER - BUGS, SLUGS & HUGS - Linda Maltby
DECEMBER - UN-CHALLENGE - time to relax, have fun, and get ready for the holidays - Susan Haines
SQUARE LISTS
TALLY or ITEM COUNT
The Square Lists for June are now available!
Squares received in June totalled almost 22,000 ! This tops, by 192 squares, the total for the same month in 2013. All these squares mean more warm children !
June 2014 Squares List graph for squares : 21,915 squares
The graphs for beanies and tops are available at
AUGUST PATTERN OF THE MONTH
by Linda Maltby
Zanny’s Basket Weave Square
- a knit pattern by Zanny Lovemore Blew (Australia)
The basketweave pattern by Ronda’s sister, Zanny, is an easy pattern to knit. It uses simple knit and purl stitches and is a great beginner’s stitch.
The stitch also gives a warm texture to the square.
This blanket’s worth of Zanny’s squares will delight a vulnerable and orphaned child as well as protecting her from the cold.
Zanny’s Basketweave square
is one of many patterns available in
the KAS Pattern Book
If you find another pattern in the book you would like to try, please do !
SQUARE HEART OF THE MONTH AWARD
Edited this month by Gloria Gandy
The Square Heart Award for July 2014 is for
Beth - Canada
Beth has been a member of the Knit-a-Square Forum since July 2010. Since then, she has been quietly working away to keep the children warm.
Her beautiful and colorful squares are always a welcome sight in our photo section and in the Monthly Challenge Discussions.
To read the rest of the award please click here
KAS FACEBOOK PAGE
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THE GREAT KAS CONTEST (KonTest??)
In a moment of madness, Anne Powell has thrown out a Challenge to the members in the form of this contest.
Check out her discussion at The Great KAS Contest (KonTest??)
THE OBJECT - guess how many squares Anne can make from the mess in this basket before July 28
THE PRIZE - Anne will treat the winner to a $25 shopping spree in the KAS Shop - winner can choose what she wants to buy
Please join the discussion and join in the fun!
Additional good news regarding the KonTest - two wonderful members have volunteered to sponsor $1 for every square Anne makes over & above their initial guesses to
help raise funds for KAS!
Look out for the winner's announcement on the Forum next week!
FINAL THOUGHTS - several actually!
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MEMORY BLANKETS
We have created a new special discussion page where members can post their personal blankets dedicated to a member of the family who has 'moved on' and a testament to the person the blanket is dedicated to. We have captured as many blankets as we can find, but if you have created such a blanket since KAS started in 2008, please do add to the collection on : Memory Blankets
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Oh, how we love our hand-warmers ! Thank you (siyabonga) to all who contribute to Knit-a-Square's distributions of warmth, love and hope to orphaned and vulnerable children in SA.
Replies
Thanks Pam for another great report about all that KAS does !
The hand warmers are just perfect !! Love that quote and thanks so much for another wonderful bunch of snippets.
Your squares are beautiful Sharon and will keep a child warm :-)
What a full and inspiring issue of KAS Snippets!
What a wonderful report! There is so much happening because of KAS that it makes your head spin. I am constantly amazed at the creativity that people bring to this site, not just the knitting and crochet, but every aspect of the project.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for putting together these reports -- so beautiful and inspirational!
You've done a lovely job once more, thank you so much Pam !
Love from all of us here in SA xxx
Thank you to all for another great KAS Snippets
You can certainly feel that things are happening in SA; it's like our own Woodstock. Kudos to Team SA from Ronda on down.
I agree 100% Mili, what a great report and the team on the ground in South Africa is amazing, from Ronda and her fab volunteers to the Go-Go's who stitch, to the churches there who help, and the G4 prison and the employees there, to the Stitch Witches who help with J'Bay...it's a longer list than that too. Huge thanks to all of you! You're giving us the privilege to help out these wonderful children, God bless you!
I love seeing the picture of all the handwarmers....never realized that these help the children when they are in their unheated schools doing homework. What a wonderful photo and very encouraging! If ever you've got a bright or loud color you're not sure will fit into a blanket then please do use it for handwarmers as it's ever before the kids as they play and do schoolwork and will cheer them immensely.
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