So sorry not been on here much lately – life has taken over a bit, but I’ve been sewing away on all the fantastic squares that have been coming through and along with Jeri, the “mission” founder and the rest of the Homemade Hugs team.

Jeri has done some work on finding a home in Japan for the blankets, ready to be distributed and this is what she has said:-

“We have now been in touch with a children’s charity who would be delighted to receive our blankets at some point in the future and respect what we are doing. However, like everyone else, they are in no position to receive deliveries of this type at this time. So like I have mentioned before, it could be a year before we are able to send them. Do not panic that your hard work will go to waste! It won’t! the blankets are sitting in a nice pile waiting for the special day.
And of course we will update you when the time comes. But for now, we have already acheived something amazing, just got to wait until the next plan of action can be implemented. We always knew it was going to be a long wait and I know it is frustrating to think that we can’t just send them off now. But i think everyone will agree that we want to make sure these blankets go to the right place and are not just disregarded as another shipment of stuff that can’t be distributed.
If anyone does know someone who is travelling to Japan to assist in the aid effort then do let us know if they wouldn’t mind taking some blankets for us.”

I hope to get some photos of the completed blankets up here soon.

Thanks everyone for your knitting and patience!

Amii & the Homemade Hugs team

I’m hoping to make stitch markers to start with and then gradually expand the range, but have been trying to think of themes to create ranges.
My first theme is going to be summery (inspired by today’s beautiful weather). Any other suggestions?

If you’re interested in taking part in this project, would like more information and would like to knit a square for charity please get in touch or visit our Facebook Page.

Our main intention of this project is not to provide aid, but to help the Japanese people rebuild their possessions and to send “homemade hugs” from the United Kingdom and the rest of the Globe.

We will not be sending the blankets immediately as we do not want to clog or congest any shipping ports etc which are trying to get the important emergency aid through. This is a difficult enough task for aid teams without us getting involved. We will be waiting until the situation calms down and we can safely get our blankets into Japan without compromising anyone else’s efforts.

We have recently contacted the Japanese charity, Second Harvest who we are hoping to will be the charity who will receive our blankets. We are currently waiting to hear back from them to see if they will accept our Homemade Hugs and once confirmed we hope to try to raise sponsorship to fund the shipping.

Failing the above, we know of other charities and worthy causes (many UK based) that will accept blankets or we may try auctioning them.

Kind regards & Keep knitting!

Amii & The Homemade Hugs team. x

Homemade Hugs Facebook Group

On the new group page, you will be able to post photos, videos; help of any kind! If you are a fantastic teacher, and have the means to do so, why not upload a video teaching others how to knit? Or perhaps you know of some great patterns that may make beautiful squares to send – post those too!

On there, we will soon be adding all the information regarding how to donate to ‘A Mission For Japan’ in terms of covering postage costs, and helping us get these blankets to Japan’s ‘Second Harvest’ charity, whom we are currently in the process of getting in contact with and arranging to send blankets to.

We thank ALL of you for being so patient with us as we work to get YOUR hard work back on course to be sent to Japan. We are astounded at how this little personal project has become such a huge event for all those wishing to do their little bit for Japan.

We salute you ladies and gentlemen!!!

Dear all who read this….

A friend of mine has decided to make up knitted blankets to send onto Japan who have been affected by the recent terrible earthquake and tsnuami. I’m desperately trying to help her and her friends on this quest and hope I can enlist some fellow knitters (or crocheters!) with this mission.

If you would like to help we are knitting square blocks that will be sewn together into blanket size. Any squares can be sent to me and I’ll bundle them up and send on. Alternatively donations of yarn would be welcome too.

Squares need to be approx. 8 inches x 8 inches (20cm for the metric ones of us) leave a long tail at the end after casting off so they can be sewn together quickly. I’ve found that if I cast on 35 stitches in a DK weight yarn it’s roughly 8″ across.

If you would like to help, please get in touch and I can send you my address.

A couple of points to note…. apparently it’s best to avoid white as it is the colour of mourning in Japan but red is lucky and yellow and pink are meant to represent happiness. Also if you do make enough squares to make up a blanket, try to avoid the sewing the blocks together in groups of 4 or 9 and those numbers are considered to be unlucky

Many thanks for listening!

”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””

UPDATE 15.03.11

After much advice from many helpful people we have come up with a few possible solutions on how to get the blankets to Japan (although more suggestions are welcome). We are invistaging viable options and hope to update everyone soon. The main thing is we have to hold off sending the blankets (which means we have time to make more blankets) until the shipping ports have calmed down as we do not want to stop important aid getting through.

Many, many thanks to everyone who has offered to help so far and to those who are considering getting their needles and yarn out for a good cause!

They were made very easily with orange Fimo, gold jewellery wire and green embroidery thread. I got a bit carried away making them so I’m not going to be short of stitch markers for some time!

Forgive the photo – I took this on my iPhone as they were drying.