I’ve been doing a fair amount of charity type crochet over the past few months, and while I like helping people all over the world, I couldn’t help but also want to see about helping out a little closer to home. I did some web surfing looking for different agencies, but I wasn’t able to find anything in my county. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any groups around here, but I just haven’t had any luck locating an organized group that makes crocheted items for donations. Of course, living in Florida doesn’t help either since yarn crafting in general isn’t that big down here for obvious reasons….er…like…it’s hot!

I was mentioning this to someone at the college I work at and she suggested I call a local hospital and ask for auxiliary services. There’s a hospital in the county south of us that has a group that makes knitted items and that group is part of the auxiliary services, so perhaps there would be something similar around here. This was such a great suggestion. I had thought of calling, but I just wasn’t sure what to say or whom to ask for.

So since I’m on vacation, I made the call a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, no there was no yarn crafting group associated with the hospital, but….the woman I spoke with loved the idea of donated baby items. What was I supposed to say? Oh, well, too bad you don’t have a group because I’d make you stuff if you did. Of course, going along with my usual foot in mouth syndrome, I ended up agreeing to make hats, booties, and possibly blankets on my own to donate to the hospital. Yikes!

I am happy to do it, but the pressure has been on to produce enough that I don’t look too pathetic showing up with a handful of items. I’ve been making hats and booties like crazy, or at least it feels that way, and I’m proud to say I’m closing in on a dozen sets! Once I get them made, I then have to wash them in Dreft, block them (pictured above), and then I have been putting them in zip lock bags to keep them clean (pictured below).

I was stressing over the blanket idea, something she seems especially interested in, and finally I had a eureka moment and decided to whip up some flannel baby blankets rather than crochet some since that would be way faster. As it happens, Jo-Ann’s even had printed baby flannel 50% off this past week, so I’m now working on about a half dozen blankets too. Depending on how everything is received, I may work on some crocheted blankets for the future, but again, I wanted to show up the first time with at least something substantial.

So that is how I became an accidental volunteer crafter. Someone mentioned maybe the other hospital around here (we have 2 in our county) might have a group, but I’ve been too afraid to call until I get this donation behind me!