Sunday, September 04, 2011

Hearts and other things for Christchurch

It is a year now since the first of the big earthquakes hit Christchurch.

I have written before about the heart quilts that many have been making for families affected by the earthquakes but today I thought I would share another point of interest.

About two years ago, Countdown, one of our local supermarkets did a month long drive for people to make beanies and booties for newborn babies in the Wellington area.

At the time I knitted quite a few and after the drive was over continued to do more of the same. They were small projects and easy to do in the evenings while watching television with Mum but at the time I did not have somewhere to send them so they accumulated and ended up in my stash.

Recently, when our Sweet Peas quilting group met, one of the ladies shared that a local radio station was doing a drive for booties and beanies for newborns in the Christchurch area and so I felt, at last, I had a specific use for my knitting efforts.

I contacted Canterbury District Hospital and in turn received a nice thank you letter for items sent.

About a week ago our brother, Norman, sent us a box of carrots and parsnips from his garden and when I was putting the box out to the rubbish I happened to notice an article about hand knitted beanies for babies in Christchurch. Nothing specifically to do with the beanies I had made but lovely to see that this was a news worthy effort by the people of New Zealand.

You can read more about knitting beanies for the hospital and the internet abounds with free knitting patterns for newborns so if you have the urge apparently the Christchurch hospital needs about 500 beanies per month to keep up with the demand.

2 comments:

Cherie said...

Oh what a wonderfuly deserving cause ... yikes does that show how cold it must be down south when you say 500 beanies a month? Lovely idea, if only i had time :)

Cat said...

What a wonderful kind thing to do - I too have been co-ordinating and making quilts and woolen hats scarves etc for Christchurch