John and I are back from our visit to the Royal London Hospital where we delivered 17* crochet blankets to the Renal Ward Sister today. Looking at them together in this collage it really makes my heart very happy to be part of such a great group effort.

Everyone who saw the blankets were blown away by how beautiful they are and the generosity of everyone who gave up their time and talents to crochet squares and blankets. I was promised that the blankets will be distributed to the dialysis patients at Royal London Hospital (and their satellite dialysis units) who are frail and/or a bit depressed and could do with cheering up and a warm handmade blanket.

Thank you to each and every one of the 26 ladies from six countries (England, Ireland, Portugal, Germany, Australia and the USA) who donated crochet squares and blankets. I wish you bucket loads of blessings for the good work you have done!

On recommendation of one of the Renal ward nurses, we will make blankets for Whipps Cross University Hospital and their satellite dialysis units next year.  Yes, you read that right – there will be Crochet For Kidneys Part 4! I think we will stick to the same format as for Part 3: 15 cm squares with white borders which you join up in strips of 6, or you can make complete blankets of 9 rows of 6 squares. I will launch CFK4 in August 2014 so that we can hand over the blankets around 27 November which is when John has his yearly living donor check-up.

Thank you again to everyone who contributed a piece of crochet for charity. I don’t think you, or I, can know how much it means to the dialysis patients.

xxx

 If anyone wants to give a monetary donation to the Royal London Hospital Kidney Patients Association (read more about them here), you can do so on their JustGiving page here.

*I will be sending a 18th blanket by post to the hospital as soon as it arrives from the USA. You can see Cindy Flishman’s cheery blanket in the bottom left of the collage.

Last week I didn’t get round to posting an update on the squares and blankets you’ve been sending me. (Self-publishing a crochet book tends to take up a lot of time in the days before you hit the “publish” button!) Now that Crochet Pretty is live, I had time to photograph the four, yes four, blankets I received as well as the three blankets I joined up with your strips of squares.

The lovely Cecilia used my Granny Square In Bloom pattern to make this blanket. It’s the first time ever she’s made a whole blanket. I am so honoured that she used CFK3 to challenged herself and I’m immensely proud of her.

Pauline was a huge contributor to CFK2 and this time she did it again by making a whole blanket. Those psychedelic squares are great!

Wendy only found out about CFK3 two months ago but managed to crochet us a whole blanket. She felt she wanted to be part of the charity project as she has two family members with kidney problems and her grandfather passed away of renal failure. Thank you Wendy for your beautiful contribution.

Suzanne had a bit of a Sizing Drama with her Delicate Daisy Square blanket but pulled it out the bag in a fabulous way with the addition of a funky border and two extra strips of squares.

All your strips of squares have now been made up into blankets. Yes, all of them! I was such an eager beaver I didn’t even wait to photograph the individual donations that I received for the blanket below. Between Cathy O’Keefe (CelticCathy on Ravelry), Heidi Lett and S. Jordan they had sent me nine strips and the colours went together so perfectly I just started joining them up straight away.

As I said last time, I know the blankets look a bit wobbly but that’s because each strip of six squares is trying to line up perfectly with someone else’s strip of six so it’s really impossible to get it right. When the blankets are being used and lying on a bed I’m sure no-one will even notice a few bubbles – they’ll only see the lovely bright colours and interesting designs.

Now you’re probably wondering what our Blanket Count is. Well… there are three more blankets on its way to me, so counting them, plus the seven completed blankets you made and the squares made into blankets, there are

17 blankets for the dialysis patients of Royal London Hospital!!!

Isn’t that fantastic?! I’m so grateful to each and every one that sent me squares and blankets. You guys are the best!

Before we hand them over on the 25th of November, I still have to make tags that explain CFK3 and give the care instructions, tie ribbons round each blanket and take a last couple of photos of the 16 blankets. I’ll blog about the blankets again after we’ve handed them out to the dialysis patients

Remember to join the Crochet For Kidneys Facebook group where you can see all the blankets and tag your blankets from the Photo Album.