Spring 2007

Here are some photos of the squares contributed for the Spring 2007 Gracious Parcels blankets.

Grateful acknowledgement to all who contributed to the blankets for the new Habitat family. I know they will treasure these “Memory Blankets” as I am calling them now.

They are “Memory Blankets” because of the precious tags, and the messages the tags bear, on many of the squares.

To get started on sewing the spring blankets together, I took all of the squares up to our church one evening so I could work on the blankets during the knitting group I was leading at the time. It was helpful to have plenty of room to spread all of the squares out and arrange them in color groups.

After I had them all arranged on the tables, I invited the ladies from the knitting group to come into the Fellowship Hall and admire the squares, the yarn, the handiwork, and the tags. Please know that your work was well admired. It was interesting to hear the “ooh’s” and “aw’s” as the ladies went around the table admiring yarns, stitch patterns, tags, etc.

Something very cool is that several knitters sent in squares featuring a heart stitch pattern. To begin the blankets, I took four squares with hearts knit into them, and placed each heart square on a separate table.

Then, the ladies from the knitting group each began picking up four squares from the supply tables and added them to the tables with the heart squares. In short order all of the squares had been arranged together for the blankets. I tacked the squares together just as they were placed, trusting in the random design of the moment to work out just beautifully in the end.

Next I used large zip-lock bags to hold groups of squares, ready to be sewn into strips for the blankets. I had to catalog the tags and which squares they belonged to, because the tags had to be removed in order to sew the blankets together without damaging them. Then, after the blankets were sewn, I replaced the tags. I used a photo record of which tags go with which squares to help keep track, but I also tended to remember which tags went with which squares (in most cases).

It is quite a lot of work organizing this activity even just to produce four blankets. But with the help of each of you who have contributed squares, and the assistance of helping hands at church, the work went a bit faster.