An apologetic return and a few changes

It has been way too long since I've blogged here. Thanks to everyone who's posted comments here and/or sent e-mails of support to me offline during my absence. I can't exactly say I'm "alive and well", but I can say that I'm finally "alive and better". It's been a long, hard winter and spring, but I'm looking forward to the sun and warmth of summer.

I was re-energized this morning when I counted 7 new prayer shawls that have come in from wonderful volunteers over the last several weeks. They're beautiful and my heartfelt thanks goes to all who've so generously donated their time and talents to create these shawls. For those who've requested new kits, I'm way behind in creating the shawl balls, but I'll get more yarn out to you as soon as I can. I really need to host a local yarn-winding party to get this done. As a side note, if any of you live in the Richmond area and would like to help, please send me an e-mail off-line.

Of course, we can always use more yarn donations. I've got a lot of full skeins that it's going to take a while to go through, but if you've got leftover yarn from your stash that you want to get rid of (anything of 12" or more is fine), please feel free to send that to me for use in the shawls. In addition to helping you reduce your stash, getting the yarn in smaller increments is much easier for me in terms of storing all this yarn!

Also, I think I'd like to expand the reach of this ministry. While the shawls have generally been given to women who have been victims of sexual violence, there are lots of other women who are in pain who could be equally blessed. For example, depression and other mood disorders is another area where I think we can really be a blessing. Now that there are more knitters making the shawls, I finally at the point where I need help identifying recipients for the shawls. This gets tricky because we'll never be able to knit enough shawls to give one to every one who might be blessed by one (or who just wants one), so we still need to use some discretion, but I'd like to invite you to start thinking of people that you know or know of, who we might be able to send a shawl to.

It's not necessary to go into great detail, but in order to help if we end up with more names than we have shawls, please send a brief explanation of why you think the person you're recommending should get a shawl and of course, send contact information. Also, if it's someone you know, if you'd prefer to deliver the shawl personally, let me know that as well.

In an effort to try to better manage my limited time and energy, I'm going to have to bow out of taking the lead on Think Pink Challenge. I was amazed and ecstatic about the response to our first year of the project, and certainly hope that it will continue. Sadly, I'm just not able to take the lead. It's just gotten too big for me to handle on my own. Instead, I'd like to suggest that people continue to make the scarves and instead of sending them to me, deliver them directly to a local hospital, American Cancer Society, or other breast cancer organization in your area. If you need help finding an organization, please let me know and I may be able to help.

Thank you again for your thoughts, prayers and support of this ministry.

God bless!

Sydney