or maybe it does….

As part of their ongoing drive for more blood donors NHS Blood & Transplant enlisted an army of knitters to raise awareness of the need for new blood donors (around 200,000 new donors are required each year just to keep numbers stable).

The goal of the ‘Blood Doesn’t Grow on Trees’ campaign was to raise awareness of the issues surrounding blood donation by yarnbombing various locations around the UK with thousands of red, woollen blood drops. The organisers supplied knitting patterns for small, medium and large 3D and 2D blood drops which you can still download from their website here.

The campaign has been a real success. They were expecting around 700 blood drops to be knitted and received more than 8000! Have a look at the photos of hundreds of knitted blood drops adoring trees here. It really is something special. I love it when yarnbombing is used to raise awareness for a worthwhile cause!

Even though the campaign has now come to an end you can of course still register to be a blood donor. Find out more about donating blood here.

I wonder what NHS Blood and Transplant have planned for the next awareness campaign? Hopefully whatever it is will include some crochet patterns. If knitters made a whopping 8,000 blood drops for a yarnbomb, just think what impact a nationwide yarnbomb by knitters and crocheters will have! Whether the next campaign is knitting and/or crochet, I want to be part of it.