Friday spotlight

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Every Friday, on the Knit-a-Square blog, I will be introducing you wonderful people who make up KAS, sometimes volunteers and sometimes, like today, our reason for being, the AIDS orphans of South Africa.

SWEETNESS

Sweetness, is a small AIDS orphan who is being helped by Ten Thousand Homes, a charity for children, in South Africa, for whom the knit-a-square community are knitting and crocheting.

Here is her story, by Brittany who works for Ten Thousand Homes.

Her name is Sweetness.

She is barely three years old and already her eyes reflect the harsh reality that is her life.

 

Orphaned as an infant, Sweetness has been passed around from relative to relative before landing on the doorstep of a widowed uncle.

Out of necessity, he is gone most of the day at work, leaving the three year old behind to fend for herself.

Infected with AIDS, his death will follow swiftly on the heels of her parents and Sweetness will soon be orphaned for the second time.

When I first started work in Kabokweni, Sweetness was shy and would not approach me willingly. She is too solemn for one so small and often stares at her feet rather than respond when I try to talk to her. Sometimes I pick her up whether she acknowledges me or not and hold her close. She doesn’t fight, but lays passive in my arms and keeps her head down. I feel the hard, roundness of her stomach. She looks like a pregnant toddler, but I know that this is often caused by malnutrition.

Yesterday, I was playing a game with about fifty of the kids. They were being loud and acting more rambunctious than normal, but still for the most part good-natured. There was a lot of noise, that amazing crescendo unique to children and, while I was laughing and yelling along with the rest of them, organizing a game was fast becoming impossible.

And in that moment of chaos, I felt tiny arms encircle my leg and a small body pressed itself close to me.

This alone was not unusual, but as I glanced down and saw Sweetness, her cheek resting on my thigh her eyes raised to me, I felt near tears. She stayed glued to me the rest of the day and I let her cling all she wanted. Or maybe it was she who let me cling.

This is why we knit and crochet for Knit-a-Square. Won’t you join us?

A NEW YEAR, A NEW SITE, and, SOME QUESTIONS

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Happy New Year, everyone!

Welcome to 2014.

 

I hope that everyone’s 2013 will be remembered fondly, and that you are all looking forward to another fantastic year.

 

I know the moderators have already planned all sorts of exciting new challenges and activities for the new year. It won’t be long now before the first distributions of 2014 start happening in South Africa, which I’m sure we’re all looking forward to. The new year is always an exciting time!

 

A New Website

 

Speaking of exciting times, I’m delighted to announce that the knit-a-square.com website has had a massive overhaul, and all of these changes will become visible to everyone at some point over the next six hours. Depending on which Internet company you use, you might even be able to see the changes now:

http://www.knit-a-square.com/

(If you are computer savvy, you might like to clear your browser cache to make sure that everything is showing up correctly. If you have no idea what that means, don’t worry. Your computer will catch up by itself, you just might need to wait a little while.)

 

The rework to the site has been a monumental effort, starting back in September of 2012. The project has taken fifteen months to get right, and we’re all really excited to see it working!

 

Special thanks must go to Pam Antink, Laurie Fortier, Linda Maltby, Anne Powell and Sandy McDonald for going through every single page on the site, checking its content, and updating it to be completely up to date. Thanks too to Ronda Lowrie and Wendy Hardy for writing several new pieces of content relating to the South Africa project, which have now been added.

 

Over the next few weeks there will be a few more changes. We’ll be migrating Laurie’s wonderful ‘one square at a time’ blog over into the new KasBlog section of the website, which also includes the South Africa Reports from Ronda and Wendy, the KasSnippets from Pam, and an archive of all our eZines and articles.

 

We hope you love everything on the new site. If you notice anything on there which isn’t working, or anything on the forum which doesn’t look quite right any more, please let me know. It could be that we missed something during the switch over, and it will probably be an easy fix.

 

Some numbers

 

At this ‘end of year’ time, I thought it might be great to share a couple of unofficial numbers. Most of these are not officially confirmed yet, and I’m sure more will be coming out in the next few weeks, but if you’re like me then you’ll probably be keen to see them anyway.

 

Squares

Anne has gone through the square lists from January through to November (the December list has not yet been finalized) and confirmed that this year we received at least 145,848 squares! That’s enough to make blankets for at least 4109 children. Once the December numbers come in, we’ll publish the full breakdown of all the wonderful goodies which have arrived over the year.

 

I also have to make a special shout out to the forum members participating in the “Great Heights” challenge. Together, you have already managed to make so many squares that, if they were all stacked one on top of another, they would be tall enough to reach the top of the Sydney Opera House. Inspirational!

 

 

The KAS Operations Shop

The KAS Ops Support items first started to appear in the shop this year, and your support of them has been fantastic. Since they first appeared, you have sponsored:

  • 20 months worth of Mobile Phone Subscriptions! That allows our volunteers to call creches and other distribution centers and plan ahead, to communicate with our financial sponsors in South Africa, and to coordinate all of the activity that goes on constantly in South Africa. 20 months’ worth is enough to keep two of our volunteers connected for almost a full year each.
  • Fuel to get the KasMobile to at least 28 distributions! That means picking up squares from the post office, taking them to be sewn up, and then driving them all over to place to be given to the kids. Fuel is absolutely vital to our ability to get your squares where they can do the most good.
  • Snacks for 44 creche distributions! Nothing makes a distribution into a party more than delicious snacks for the kids to enjoy while they wait for their blankets and toys to be handed out.
  • 97 Reams of Paper! Along with the pencils and crayons which make their way into our packages, paper enables kids to express themselves through drawing, and to learn vital elementary skills like writing and mathematics. The beautiful illustrations and cut-outs that the kids make are also perfect for brightening up otherwise dull walls in their creches and day care centers.

It’s worth remembering too, that if we are ever lucky enough to get more support for one Ops item than we need, those funds will go to fill a shortfall in some other operational activity. That way, we can keep everything running at peak efficiency!

We’ve also seen sales of 28 Teachers’ Guides, which only goes to show how powerful the idea of KAS is in primary and secondary schools all around the world!

 

 

The Forum

Pam has done some analysis on the forum itself, and discovered that over the year we have gained 1,503 new members. Hi new members!

  • 254 new members discovered us through the Internet
  • 112 new members found us through family and friends. Well done to everyone who has been sharing KAS by word of mouth, your efforts have been successful!
  • 124 new members found the forum through other avenues, including Facebook, Ravelry, and print media.

If you are one of these new members who hasn’t yet introduced yourself, it would be quite wonderful to hear from you. If you’ve just joined in the new year, welcome to the cause! We look forward to sharing this experience with each and every one of you.

 

And finally, some questions

 

Most of you probably don’t know, but when I’m not knitting or crocheting, I work in IT. One of the things IT folk like to do at the end of and important project or milestone is to hold a ‘retrospective’ meeting.

 

We review everything we’ve done, identify things that went well, things that we can do better in the future, and come up with ideas for things we might like to try. I’d love it if you would share your thoughts with us around those things.

 

If you would like some specific prompts, here are some questions to think about. Be as creative as you like, especially if you have new ideas! If you’re not comfortable answering publicly here, you’re also welcome to send me a private message. If you have any other thoughts or ideas which don’t match one of those questions, share it anyway.

  • What moment(s) stood out most for you during the last year in KAS? What about it made it stand out?
  • What do you think KAS does really well?
  • What do you think KAS should focus on doing more of, or doing better in the future?
  • Is there anything you would like us to do less of, or to stop doing entirely?
  • If there was exactly one thing that KasCare could do to make your KAS experience more engaging, easier, or more fun in 2014, what would that thing be?
  • Do you have any brilliant ideas for things we might try in 2014?

 

Treat this is a huge sharing and brainstorming thread if you’d like. How do we make 2014 the best KAS year yet?

 

Happy New Year everyone!

Help on Distribution Day (from anywhere in the world!)

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If you're like me, you often wish you could help out on a distribution day… If only I wasn't on the opposite side of the world!

 

Well here's some good news – now we can all help out with distributions in a very specific, individual way. There are three new, slightly unusual items to the Knit-A-Square shop today. These items let you purchase something special to support the day-to-day operations directly in South Africa.

 

For example, you could:

 

Provide snacks and fresh fruit for the kids!

 

When the volunteer team arrives at one of the KAS Creches, they take beautiful blankets, toys and hats for the kids, but they also take some fresh fruit and snacks to make the day extra special. For $25 (US) you can help the team to buy enough snacks for a whole creche full of kids!

 

 

 

or…

 

 

Put fuel in the car! 

 

I'm sure you can imagine just how much driving is involved, getting all the squares and blankets to where they need to go. For $30 (US) you can help to cover the cost of fuel and ongoing maintenance the car requires to get the squares all the way from the post-office to a creche full of kids with blankets!

 

 

 

or…

 

 

Let everyone know what's happening!

 

Not only do the volunteers have to keep us forum-goers notified of everything that's going on, they also need to make sure that all the various participants (our crafters, sewers, distributors and creche organizers, to name a few) are also well informed and organized. For just $15 (US), you can help to cover the cost of a mobile phone and network connection for a month, to make this much easier on one of our coordinators.

 

 

 

If you purchase one of these products from the shop, you'll be emailed a PDF which you could even print out and pass on to a friend as a gift for a special occasion. All of the money from the KAS Ops Support products goes to keeping things running smoothly in South Africa, which I think everyone can agree is absolutely vital.

 

Of course, there are still plenty of other exciting things available in the Knit-A-Square shop, if none of these catch your eye. If you haven't browsed the shop you, please do take a look!

 

If you've got ideas for other aspects of KAS which you would like to see added as items in the shop, we'd all love to hear them. Also, if you have any questions about how the KAS Ops Support products work, I'm happy to answer them here.

Knit-a-square Teacher Resource

KasCare finances – January to March 2014

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Hi again everyone!

We’ve had some feedback recently that our donors and members would like to know a little bit more about how your donations are handled. To that end, I’ve put together an ‘executive summary’ for the last three months – January through March 2014 – to share with you all.

These three months have been a very interesting time, with a hugely successful fundraising push in February for the South Africa Sorting Space Appeal and some fantastic new shop options, but also a couple of unexpected costs. Hopefully by sharing this information with you all, you’ll feel even more confident in supporting KasCare and the Knit-A-Square project.

First though, a couple of very important caveats!

  • These results are not audited! We will not be auditing this information until the end of the Australian financial year, at the start of July.
  • These results and graphs are approximations. They’re drawn from real numbers, but there are things I haven’t fully accounted for in the graphs; things like fluctuating exchange rates between different countries. As such, I haven’t shown specific numbers, just approximate percentages.
  • This information is taken from the KAS Shop, the KasCare Paypal account, and the KasCare bank statements. If you have made a direct donation to any of the KasCare affiliated projects (like KAS SA or the JBay recycling project) without using an actual KasCare form, it will not be shown in these graphs.

Now, let’s get on to the fun stuff!

Where did KasCare funding come from?

Over the past three months, we’ve averaged a little under $3000 US per month in income. This has come almost exclusively from donations by members like yourselves, so we thank you humbly for your support.

About a third of our donations come from recurring donations from members. I really must make a special mention to these individuals, because they make it possible for us to plan safely and confidently for the future, knowing that this much at least will keep coming in every month.

The shop has also been very successful this year, although I’ll discuss that in a lot more detail very shortly.

I hope this graph makes it clear just how much we rely on and value your support as donors!

Where did KasCare funding go?

All of those donations allow us to do amazing things!

Over three quarters of the funds donated to KasCare went to KAS South Africa. This is the team on the ground who do the assembling and distribution of all the wonderful goodies that you produce! You can see the fantastic work that this team does in the reports from South Africa on the forum, as well as in all the beautiful photos from the sorting room!

As with all charities, there are running costs. PayPal in particular does come with a small fee on every transaction, but in exchange it provides a safe and low-risk way for people all around the world to donate. We want to make sure people feel confident in any online processes handling their money, so this extra security that PayPal gives us is very valuable.

You’ve probably noticed that purple segment with the * next to it. Most of this was a single, once off, but unexpected cost. It came about because of a small error made some time ago, which was only discovered earlier this year. That meant that a cost which should have been a few small payments made over several years, ended up being one large cost all at once! While it was certainly an unwelcome surprise, it is completely resolved now and you shouldn’t be seeing it again in any of our future reports.

The really good news is that even after covering our budgeted costs for KAS South Africa and all of our ongoing running expenses, we still had a small extra margin to put into our savings! This will become very important in the next couple of months, as South Africa is heading into winter and distribution costs start going up!

Which causes spoke most to us?

I mentioned earlier that I was going to speak in more detail about the shop. Here it is! The following graph shows the number of sales for each of our shop items (rather than the amount of money those items brought us).

The KAS Ops Sponsorship items introduced last year continue to go strong, with lots of support for sewing kits and paper for the creches.

I’m also delighted to see that we’ve had a few teachers coming through the shop, picking up copies of the KasKids Teacher Guide for their schools. Our teachers do a fantastic job of sharing both a love of knitting and a passion for KAS in their students, so they get double kudos here!

One of the new initiatives we kicked off this quarter was to move appeals into the shop too. You may have noticed that the Sorting Space Appeal had a specific page for donations, set up as part of the shop, rather than us simply asking you to use the “Donate Now” button. This allows us to identify exactly how much of the donated money was sent to us specifically for this cause, as opposed to just being a general purpose donation. That makes it easier to ensure that it is used for that cause, and for us to gauge how strong your support is for that particular cause. Clearly, everyone really supported the Sorting Space appeal. Thank you for your enthusiasm for this milestone change!

In closing…

In closing, I want to thank everyone for your ongoing support of KAS, whether you are a regular donator, an occasional donator, one of our dedicated crafters, or even just spreading the word. We appreciate the efforts of every single one of you.

This is the first financial report of its type, but hopefully not the last! It is my intention to provide similar sorts of details to everyone after each financial quarter.

I’d also love to hear feedback from you about these reports. Is there something I missed which you would like me to talk about? Would you like more detail? Less detail? Too many words, not enough pictures? 🙂 (I do that, I know!)

If you have questions about this, please ask them below and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Here’s to another exciting quarter coming up!

The Colours of our Mettle

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For the first time in Olympic history, Canada has topped the medal standings at the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. This goes for the Summer Olympics as well. We’re now tied for second place but for quite a few days we stood at the number one spot.

Medal Standing

I don’t typically watch sports but there’s something about the Olympics that turns me into a tense, raving, rabid patriot. David thinks I’m crazy for yelling at an athlete to go faster or for being concerned when someone crashes on the luge track. I guess it’s because I have a competitive streak and I’m a proud Canadian. I’m flabbergasted that we’ve done so well, being used to Canadians getting shut out of a medal in fourth place or not making it to the top ten. I’m so proud of our athletes and wish the athletes from around the world all the best.

GO, CANADA, GO!

Here’s a photo of blanket three for Michael’s:

BlanketThree

And here is blanket four:

BlanketFour

KasSnippets – October 2013

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KasSnippets – October 2013

 

Reporting KAS in South Africa : KAS Helps Children outside of Gauteng

 

 

Last week you heard about Oliver and Hotel Hope and the wonderful work they do for orphaned children in South Africa.  KAS also supports other organisations who do the most amazing work with children and who are only too pleased to partner with KAS in order to touch the lives of children in desperate need of help.

 

The first of these organisations I would like to talk about is the Lindelani Reformatory School and how they have partnered with KAS to make a difference in the lives of children in and around the Stellenbosch area in the Western Cape.  Elna Otter, who is an Occupational Therapist working for the Western Cape Government at the Lindelani Reformatory near Stellenbosch, has been receiving blanket packs and other items from KAS in Johannesburg.

Elna with all the the goodies sent to her. 

 

To read the rest of the report please Click here

 

For the other recent reports :

 

What we got up to at KAS today!

 

Blast from the Past 2009-2010

 

We headed to the Vaal Dam this week…..

 

 

THE KNIT-A-SQUARE SHOP

 

Please go to the Knit-A-Square Shop today and purchase something special to support the day-to-day operations (KasOps) directly in South Africa. 

 

Ronda with the paper purchased via your generous donations through

The KAS Shop !

 

 

"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!

 

 Our very first target for members to reach is the top of The Liberty Bell in the USA, Philadelphia – 150 squares will be needed to sound the bell!  Once the pile has reached the top of the bell, then we move onto The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen Harbour, Denmark therefore the total will need to reach 200 squares! Next will be Venus de Milo in Paris followed by Greyfriars Bobby, Edinburgh Scotland at 375.  Then it will be the turn of the Long Walk to Freedom Statue of Nelson Mandela in South Africa at 575 squares. You've probably got the picture by now!

 

 

to

 

 

 

KAS has a surplus of hats & beanies, therefore please would those of you who make hats switch to squares as essentially, 1 hat = 3 squares and will help build the piles to reach our target just that bit quicker!

 

Here is the link to KAS Reaches Great Heights for Children

 

 

WHAT'S GOING ON IN SOUTH AFRICA?

Tumi (a regular KAS volunteer in South Africa) discovered a needy 'girls shelter' in her area and a dozen Jenny Nesbit blankets, which were specifically saved for a smaller group of older children.  We will have more photos of the girls later. Tumi is always on the look-out for shelters etc and she is to become a member of the KAS South Africa Board. 

 

 

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM KAS DISTRIBUTIONS

Ronda has sent some photographs from a distribution to 

Ba Jabulile Daycare Centre – February 2010 – pronounced "Bah jah boo lee leh".  She says, "There are some dear little faces in this batch…… I remember them like it was yesterday! 

 

The twins, before and after!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mama Ntombi Community Projects recently sent us the photographs of some of the 300+ hats KAS sent them in August.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blankets – Lorinda has continued to add more completed blankets (now up to 229 from her team of stitchers since joining KAS in 2012) to  The Knit-a-Square Blanket Album – you may even spot your squares!  

This blanket is from Cheriel's team – one of Ronda's groups.

 

 

John Crane House for Girls

 

Many of you will recall our report earlier this year when KAS supplied much needed items including blankets and cuddly toys.  The house is well established and the 18 homeless girls (many who had been abused) are thriving. Below is a lovely comfortable bedroom for 3 girls

The Board of the Soul Provider Trust is delighted to announce that 82% of the required funding for the Boys House has been secured and it has been decided to commence construction!  

All the children will be cared for by a House mother/father and they will receive an education. It is hoped that construction will be completed before mid-December this year.

 

No doubt KAS will provide much needed blankets & cuddlies for the homeless boys when they arrive.

 

The JBay Recycling Project & Stitch Witch News

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kyknet visited the JBay Recycling Project for it to be highlighted on the TV program Kwela on Kyknet. They interviewed some of the volunteers on 14th October in the morning.

Gitta commented : The crew from Kyknet got so caught up in the project that they only left at 17h30. Exhausted and dirty, but they enjoyed themselves. The children always enjoy the dentists (not like me, I would run) and you can see that it makes a difference, because the following weeks after a dentist visit, the toothpaste and brushes fly out of the swop shop. We are still waiting for the statistics from the dentists like how many children they were able to treat and when they will be back again. Hopefully soon, because there is a huge demand. One of our 15 year old recyclers has never been to a dentist before!

 

The Mobile Dentist (eeek) arrives!

 

 

 

 

SORTED IN AFRICA

Here are a few of opening day photos, To see more open day photographs please go to Sorted in Africa

 

 

Flashback photo from the early days of KAS

 

We recently received photos taken by Madeline, a 14 year old Girl Scout from Germany – who chose Knit-a-Square as her project towards gaining her Silver Award.  In the process Madeline taught 17 people to knit!  We are very grateful and proud that this lovely kind-hearted girl chose Knit-a-Square.

 

 

Over the years Ronda has received lots of wonderful and charming letters from school children who want to help.  We'll share them gradually that came from the 3M class, Ambleside, Tasmania Island (Australia) :

 

Nixon Street Primary – Tasmania Island, Australia

 

 

KAS GROUP NEWS & SPREADING THE WORD

The USA Group has been having a Fundraising Drive for Nancefield Creche and they successfully reached their goals!  

Ronda hopes to purchase the tables and chairs and have them installed at the Nancefield Creche 18th or 19th November – do look out for the photographs!

Well done everyone involved, a tremendous effort that will make such a difference to that cavernous gym – making it so much more welcoming and homely for the children.

 

Member Sonja Shaw has been organising and sending  squares for the Dept of Human Services Knitting Group in Australia for a while now. She reports this week : Today we are mailing off another 100 squares which means that around 10 of our packages are in transit and it brings us to a total of 1100 since we commenced in May this year.  We will blitz through another 100+ before the end of the year.  In addition we have sent through lots of beanies (and have now stock-piled the rest because KAS has beanies enough for now), vests, wool, new underwear and socks for the dear children.

While we are gearing up to summer and the expected slow-down in knitting we still anticipate being able to maintain around 100 squares a month and who knows just how much more we can do in winter next year!!

 

One Square at a Time can be found on the Forum menu bar KasBlog

Laurie Fortier (Canada) has generously agreed to write and update a blog for KAS which will help spread-the-word!

She writes : Knit-a-Square allows me to give in an extraordinarily personal way. I may never meet my KASKids in person, but the squares I knit with my own hands will. They will be wrapped around the shoulders of an orphaned child and she will be told, “Someone from across the world, that you don’t know, loves you and wants you to grow and be happy.”

To visit the blog click on One Square at a Time above, or to read more about Laurie, click here !

 

 

 KAS MONTHLY CHALLENGES

 

The Un-Challenge, suggested by Dave Maltby, has proved very rewarding indeed – UFO's galore!  Thanks to Mary Anne Fellows, this has certainly turned into a fun challenge, plus several members have been able to alleviate their guilt with regarding incomplete squares and projects!  Here are some of items posted on the Photo tab :

October theme - UnchallengeOctober 2013 "Un-Challenge" ThemeOctober 2013 Unchallenge UFO4 squares for October unchallengeUnchallenge squares #3

 

OCTOBER 2013 UNCHALLENGE - Seven moreOctober Un-Challenge SquareOctober Unchallenge Diagonals2013-10-05 15.06.29October 2013 - The "Un-Challenge" ThemeUnchallenge Squaresunchallange challangeimageOctober challengeFirst teddy and friend!

 

The November Challenge is being lead by Laurie Fortier

"Toys and Games Squares & Knitted Teddies"

 

Here is the list for the rest of the year for those of you who like to snap up

bargain yarns in preparation!  The list can be accessed on the Forum : 

Challenge Themes for 2013

 
For those of you who are anxious to see the Challenges for 2014 that have been prepared – Anne Powell will be posting them on the Forum as soon as her computer is returned from being repaired – hopefully this coming weekend!

 

 

SQUARE LISTS – TALLY – ITEM COUNT 

 PLEASE DO NOT FORGET TO ADD "NO COMMERCIAL VALUE, CHARITY ONLY" ON YOUR PARCELS – SOMEONE FORGOT RECENTLY AND SOUTH AFRICAN CUSTOMS CHARGED KAS 100 RANDS! 

SEPTEMBER CHALLENGE 2013 KASLoveGrannies For Peace EducationSEPTEMBER 2013 CHALLENGE - ColoursSept Challenge 11Beanies with "Knit-fun loom"

 

Go-Over - finished at last!Gus the soccer playerSEPTEMBER 2013 CHALLENGE - BARGAIN SLIP-INSNever promised a rose garden, will a daisy one do instead!!!Little Brown Bear

 

 

Square Lists for September is ready for viewing. 

Received in September : Squares 10,720 (306 blankets);

Tops 213 and Beanies 615

For further details go to the discussion page Square Lists – Tally – Item Count for previous months.

 

Please don't forget to include your email address so that you receive an acknowledgement once the parcel has been opened!  The files that Erica created for the Package Inventory to make parcel opening day easier for the team in South Africa, and for keeping track of all the items received, are in the lower left hand corner of the discussion. These files can be downloaded.

 

NOVEMBER PATTERN OF THE MONTH

by Linda Maltby

 

 Teddy Bear Hand Puppets

Knit puppet pattern by Shelley Pearson (UK)

Crochet puppet pattern by Andrea Palmatier (Canada)

The children in South Africa have few, if any, play things. As well as being a toy, a teddy bear puppet can be a companion for a vulnerable child, especially one who has recently suffered loss.  Puppets will also stimulate the child’s imagination and creative play.

As you can see from Michelle’s knit puppets [in the above photo] they don’t have to be traditional teddy bear colours.  These delightful puppets are already in South Africa, providing great comfort to lonely children.  Safety eyes and noses are very securely attached and will not fall off. 

If you prefer, you may add yarn eyes and noses.

                                                                           

Puppets by Lisa Marie

Both the crocheted and knitted bear puppets are easy to make and will bring such joy to the children.

                            Link to knit puppet pattern                                         Link to crochet puppet pattern

 

The puppets are two of the many patterns to be found in the

KAS Pattern Book

If you see another pattern you would like to try, please do!

 

 

SQUARE HEART OF THE MONTH AWARD

Edited this month by Laurie Fortier

 

This month the Square Heart Award goes to

Three Close Friends

 

Kathy Chantrell  and  Kathy Platts

plus Marian

creator of absolutely adorable cuddly toys!

 

 

KAS FACEBOOK PAGE

We have received an additional 125 Likes on the Facebook page so far during September/October taking our total to 6,319!    We also copy the messages etc received on Facebook to the Forum for anyone who is not a member of FB.

 

 

 

FINAL THOUGHTS