Knit with Love

In March 1996 I wrote a short article about knitting sweaters for refugee children, which ended by asking if anyone wanted to join me. Many of you know this story--but I love to retell it--GUIDEPOSTS readers responded with an outpouring of brightly colored sweaters that arrive every day at the GUIDEPOSTS offices.

Since then, you have made more than 300,000 sweaters for what is now known as GUIDEPOSTS Knit for Kids, warming children around the world.

From your letters I  learned that you formed groups across the country to work on the project. In churches, living rooms, and retirement communities knitters have come together and called themselves "The Knit Wits" (many of those), "The Nimble Thimbles," "The Sweater Girls," "Coats of Many Colors," the "Knotty Knitters"...you name it. Spare yarn has been donated from closets and yard sales. One knitter wrote to say, "We are certain the yarn itself is multiplying because no matter how many sweaters we make, the box of yarn continues to grow."

The warmth and companionship of the knitting groups has done as many wonders for the knitters as for the kids. Barbara Grieger from Portage, Michigan, described a group her mother formed. It included a "severely depressed knitter whose tense hands gripped the needles and pulled the stitches tight, who learned to trust in God's promise never to forsake his children, and her stitches began to relax."

I know exactly what she means, for I have knitted my way through my own ups and downs with four friends for almost a decade. We get together every few weeks to knit and chat. Sometimes I pick up dropped stitches for Alice or just watch Ellen who can actually knit an Aran pattern. Is it the quiet clicking, thoughts of the children, or just being together that brings such peace?

I am often asked why I think GUIDEPOSTS Knit for Kids has touched so many hearts and moved so many fingers. First, it is the children. Helping a child who is needy and cold is something we feel honored and delighted to do. Drienie Hattingh from Eden, Utah, writes that her Knit Wits "feel wanted" and belong to a family that makes "thousands of little children feel loved and cared for at the same time! How incredible is that?"

Second, the sweater is very easy to make--just two large T's back to back. Knitters of any skill level can create one, and many have learned to knit just to do this. Carol Greco in Sacramento, California, was taught to knit by her grandmother and now passes her skills on to the next generation, "teaching young women how to do these almost lost arts."