There seems to be a bit of theme of tea parties coming along - mentioned in the KAS Snippets Mar 2014 and Elaine Jones and I are about to hold our first Knit for Life Volunteer Tea Party on March 25th.
We have been overwhelmed with knitting from our local ladies - currently half filling a static caravan - so we decided to marshall some help and encourage our knitters to meet and socialise at the same time. Many of our knitters knit in isolation at home, some are housebound, some have no transport.
We are getting as many as possible to my local village hall and the Women's Institute, Mother's Union and the church groups have been helpful in promoting it. We are offering tea and cakes for the small donation of £1 and a raffle to raise funds to cover the cost of the hall.
We have assembled sacks of squares that need ends sewing in, sorting into sizes and putting together in blanket packs to save Ronda another job. This should highlight to the knitters just how important it is that the squares are finished off and tidy too!
There are still hundreds of unusable tiny jumpers in the caravan so Elaine has worked very hard unpicking the sides ready for volunteers to unravel and turn back into lovely balls of wool with our wool winders.
We will report back with photos and hope that this will become a regular event.
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More pictures from the latest tea party:
There's about 50 blanket packs on the table and they were still working! One of our lovely ladies even took a couple of boxes of squares home with her to "tidy" at her leisure.
Elaine, congratulations on the amount done!!
WOW!!! What a FANTASTIC transformation.....congrats to all.
I wish I was there it looks a very happy activity! Those 50 blanket packs are AMAZING, so many ends and sizing and knitting involved !
It was a very happy afternoon Sue. The happier they are, the noisier it gets! We finish at 3.30 so we can clear up and be out of the hall by 4 p.m but it's often difficult to get the ladies (and one gentleman this time) to actually leave - they always want to do "just one more square".
Very belatedly - I have to report that our first tea party was a huge success! 22 ladies turned up full of enthusiasm and sewed in ends, butterflied tails and sorted squares into bundles. At times the noise was deafening! We were so thrilled that so many made the effort to attend, with one lady travelling 12 miles by bus and taxi to come and help. We covered the cost of the hall and made a small profit butmost importantly Elaine and I were so grateful to have so many squares prepared ready to ship to KAS.
The next tea party is this Friday 8th August 2014 - eagerly awaited by our willing helpers. I will try not to leave it so long before posting another report!
Can I say that Elaine and I were feeling quite overwhelmed by the amount of knitting that we were receiving but were a bit reticent of asking for help. We were not sure if anyone would come to the tea party just to sew in ends but we have been proved so wrong. By seeing the great mountain of squares that needed sorting everyone is beginning to understand how much help we need and they are enjoying feeling part of a bigger team. They are contributing more towards the postage now too and were keen to take copies of patterns for the things that KAS really needs. Elaine and I started Knit for Life in the UK to support KAS but also to support the housebound, elderly or isolated who need a purpose in life and we are so pleased that we seem to be achieving both aims. So why not ask some people round for tea and cake - and see what happens!
From this ...
to this ....
because of this....
Thank you for sharing with us Pam. I agree with Bev and Sharon, you and Elaine are providing a great service to so many people.
Given that Elaine and I took these pics in our storage caravan last week - we can't wait for Friday and some busy hands to help!
Pam and Elaine, what a great job you are doing!! This sounds like a real feel-good experience for all involved.
We had another great tea party. 16 ladies this time due to holidays - but we ran a "Bring and Buy" table which was really successful and swelled the coffers a little. The ladies tidied and assembled enough squares for about 70 blankets so funds very much needed to ship to KAS. I forgot to take my camera but am hoping Pam A, Elaine and Lynn will have pics to post. What is so great is that the ladies now feel part of the process and are being more generous because they see the volume of knitting that we are trying to ship and by taking lots of KAS pics each time they know exactly how much they are helping children in need. When we started the tea party idea we had no idea that this sort of awareness raising would also help more with the fundraising. It is always difficult though - every time we "spread the word" we get more knitters and are almost at capacity for what we can manage at the moment.
See my new discussion Open Garden for the next idea ......
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