charity crochet

Today I would like to share something very special with you. Recently, I was contacted by a lady called Emma who works for a very special organisation – the North West and North Wales Paediatric Transport service (NWTS).

The North West and North Wales Paediatric Transport Service transports critically ill children from their local hospitals to regional Paediatric Intensive Care Units for ongoing care. During Covid, when they were unable to have parents traveling in the ambulances with their children, they asked knitters to make matching hearts for the children and their families.

The team carry sets of three hearts – one for the child and one for each parent. The child receives their heart while the team stabilises them before the transfer, and the parents are encouraged to hold their hearts during this time. Before the transfer, the hearts are swapped over, so that each family member holds the other’s heart.

Emma explained that although this may seem like a little thing, it helps families feel connected at such a stressful time. The NWTS team has the goal of having 3 hearts to give to each family they work with, so their hearts remain together even if they cannot physically be together during the hospital transfer.

Currently, NWTS’s supply of hearts is running low and they are asking for help to boost their supply of yarny hearts. Emma contacted me to ask if she could share my amigurumi heart pattern for crocheters to use, naturally I said yes and asked if she would like me to spread the word about the appeal.

So here we go, if you have the time to hook up a trio (or multiple trios) of matching hearts for this very special cause, please do! You can find my little amigurumi heart pattern here. It’s a pretty small pattern which is perfect for using up little odds and ends of yarn and a teeny bit of toy filling to make it nice and plump. It works up very quickly, so you will have your hearts made in a jiffy! Also, if you are going to be joining me with my Summer Craft Challenge this year, these little hearts are the perfect palate cleanser mini project to slot in between your other wips.

“We would be incredibly grateful for help from anyone who enjoys crocheting, to create matched hearts for the children and their families. Our team carries sets of three hearts – one for the child and one for each parent. Right now, our supplies are running extremely low, and any contribution – no matter how small – would be deeply appreciated. The goal is to provide three hearts for each family: one for the child and one for each parent, so their hearts remain linked even if they cannot be together during the transfer” – North West & North Wales Paediatric Transport

When you have made your hearts, please send them to this address:

NWTS, Room 005, Newton House, Birchwood Park, Faraday Street, Risley, Warrington, WA3 6FW, United Kingdom.

If you do decided to make some hearts for NWTS, and you share them on social media, please use the hashtag #Hearts4NWTS so we can see all the beautiful hearts as they appear.

I would be so grateful if you would please help me spread the word about this yarny heart campaign to help make a very difficult time a little bit easier for poorly children and their parents.

Thank you,

Lindsay x

It’s 25th October, so that means it’s 2 months to go to Christmas! Apologies for using the C-word so soon but there is a very good reason for it….

Earlier this year, I started a new job. It was working for FareShare Greater Manchester an organisation which rescues tonnes of good-to-eat food from going to waste and then redistributes it to over 200 charities and community groups across Greater Manchester who are feeding those who need it most. It’s a truly amazing place filled with amazing people. You may have heard about it back in the pandemic when Manchester United footballer, Marcus Rashford came along to help the operation here with his Mum.

Last year, FareShare Greater Manchester rescued almost 2,000 tonnes of perfectly edible food from going to waste with the help of more than 21,000 volunteer hours given by our amazing team of volunteer supporters. That food went to more than 300 charities and community groups across Greater Manchester, into parts of Derbyshire and Cheshire too and was the equivalent of 4.6 million meals which would have gone to landfill or some other form of waste management.

At a time when an increasing number of people are facing the difficult choice of whether to spend money on heating their homes or feeding themselves and their families, this work is needed more than ever.

I was so inspired by the things I see and hear about at work each day, that I wanted to do something special myself to help support that vital work, so I picked up my hook and yarn. I decided I had to make something food related and started thinking about Christmas food in particular. First I crocheted a sprout and perfected a design for it, then some pigs in blankets and before I knew it I had a whole crocheted Christmas dinner.

I then thought about what would be the classic Christmas decoration, and settled on a wreath. A wreath cover was made, the Christmas dinner was added and hey presto, the FareShare Festive Feast Wreath was born.

The next dilemma was how would I be able to make money for FareShare Greater Manchester with this wreath? It would take too long for me to make wreaths to sell, but I could sell the pattern and send the money raised from that to support the FareShare operation. So that is what I have done.

Supported very kindly by Jane Czaja, who has tech edited the pattern, and with the full support of FareShare Greater Manchester, I have launched the new pattern on sale in my Etsy shop today.

I would be so very grateful if you would help me spread the word about the FareShare Festive Feast Wreath on your social media channels and tell all your crocheting friends about it. I would, of course absolutely love it too if you would buy a copy of the pattern and make a wreath(s) yourself!

You can find the FareShare Festive Feast Wreath pattern for sale here.

If you would like to find out more about where the money I raise from the sale of this pattern will go, you can check out the FareShare Greater Manchester website and I took my microphone into work with me to record a Making Stitches Podcast episode all about FareShare and my wreath pattern, you can listen to that here.

Thank you so much for your time and for your support in this, I look forward to seeing how much we can raise for FareShare Greater Manchester together!

Lindsay x