Knitting from the Heart

Questions for this post: Do any of you knit for a charity? What about just volunteering your time and other talents to an organization in need? No pressure, but I'd love to hear from anyone who would like to share.

When I was growing up, my Mom taught me how to knit. I started with making things like wash cloths and then branched into making scarves and blankets. It was a lot of fun and something that I did on and off leading into my adult years.

I eventually challenged myself about 6 years ago to branch into some more skilled creations. One was an intricate baby blanket for my son and the other was knitting socks. (Blogs for these will eventually come.) The socks were the most challenging because they were on double point needles and you had to use all 5 of them for the pattern. Eek! This was a lot of action since I had only ever used two knitting needles. There is definitely an art to juggling those needles when you are first starting a piece. Below you can see a pattern that uses 4 double point needles, 3 that keeps the project on them and the 4th is used for knitting.

At the end of 2021 I decided that God had additional plans for me with my knitting skills and was challenging me to find an organization/charity that I could use my talents to volunteer for. I started by doing a google search for knitting charities I found this great link from Noble Knits. I started reading through the different charities and that is when "Knitted Knockers" caught my eye.

Knitted Knockers provides soft and comfortable prosthetics for breast cancer survivors. How amazing is that?? There are many breast prosthetics out there for women to use, but so many of them are heavy and uncomfortably hot. These are light weight and are breathable! The organization makes it so easy to be a volunteer. They provide you the knitting pattern on their website along with approved yarns that they've done a lot of vetting with. You know what the coolest thing is??!! They use double point needles. I think God was challenging me with the sock pattern to improve my skills with double point needles so I could do work for this organization! I was very excited and dove right into my knitting. Below you can see some pairs that I was able to donate to a local surgical center in our previous home state.

Here is another picture of a pair of knockers. The first one shows the bottom of the knocker. That is where you add the stuffing and then the string cinches it up. The second is one that has been filled with stuffing so you can see the shape. It's so neat because the woman can order the size she wants and then can still customize them by adding or removing stuffing based on their own personal preferences.

Since then we've moved and I am working on building up several sets of knitted knockers that I can take to local surgical centers in my new state and see if I can partner with one of them to provide this amazing option to women who are going through such a difficult battle.

Until next time, God bless and take care!