Spare wool & children's size coloured buttons for friend knitting clothes for refugee families

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Calling all knitters! - King's College Hospital NHS Foundation

The Falls and Dementia Teams at King's need your help with knitting twiddle mitts

(This is an update of the appeal which has been shared elsewhere).

ALSO A SHOUT OUT: If anyone can spare small coloured buttons for children's wear OR has any spare wool, please send me a pm, my dear neighbour Janet knits all the time will be creating hearts, but also baby clothing for refugee families. THANK YOU.

I am a junior sister working within Critical Care at King's College Hosptial and am a member of our End of Life focus group in Critical Care. I would like to ask for some help in what is a worthy and important cause...

When patients are nearing the end of their life, we have found that many of our relatives take great comfort from the little details in the care we provide. Something we began doing a few years back was giving family members a knitted or sewn heart pair. One of these hearts remains with the patient and the other is taken by the family member, symbolising the link and love that they have for their relative after they die.

Many relatives have kindly fed back that this act has given great comfort to them.

Usually we nurses knit or sew these hearts and we will continue to do this. We would like to boost our ability to do this by appealing to the public to assist in our cause.

The hearts are usually palm size and of any colour. Attached are examples of the design. We would gladly receive hearts from any keen crafters looking for a project.

If able and interested, please send hearts to

Christine Brown Intensive Care Unit

King's College Hospital

Denmark Hill

SE5 9RS

Twiddle mitt pattern

What you will need

Any left over and odd balls of yarn

Needles: 8mm circular

Instructions

Cuff:

Cast on 40 stitches using 2 strands of double knitting (DK) yarn (or you can also use 1 strand of chunky yarn)

Work in rib stitch (knit 1, purl 1) for 11 inches.

Mitt body:

Continue to knit further rows (don?t purl) and use up leftover wool in various textures, e.g. chunky, mohair, ribbon until work measures 23 inches

Then cast off

Push the cuff up inside the mitt body

Neatly sew together the two ends.

Decoration and finishing:

Decorate the mitt body with beads, flowers, zips, loops and pockets etc.

Please ensure everything is sewn on firmly and securely. Be careful to only sew through the body of the mitt and not the cuff inside.