Several new patterns have been added to the Wool-Aid Designer Patterns section of the Patterns page on the website. These patterns all meet Wool-Aid Guidelines, without modification. All of our member designer patterns are free, and all can be downloaded directly from our website’s Patterns page.

Here’s a sampling of some of the new patterns that are available for you:

Be sure to check out the Bundles of recommended patterns for Wool-Aid, too. While all of these patterns are good to use for Wool-Aid, some will need to be adapted to meet Wool-Aid guidelines, so notes have been added where appropriate. Because gauge differs from one person to another, always refer to the Guidelines; if working on a sweater, be sure to refer to the Sweater Dimension Guidelines (downloadable for reference) as well.

We hope you enjoy browsing the recommended patterns and find something you’re excited about making for our Wool-Aid kids!

Wool-Aid is very pleased to announce that we are once again partnering with the Lamia Afghan Foundation to send warm woolen clothing and blankets to children in Afghanistan!

The Lamia Afghan Foundation is operated by retired Lt. Gen. John Bradley and his wife, Jan Bradley, who work with the Denton/USAID program to transport the Lamia Afghan Foundation’s relief aid on military aircraft. (A May 2015 article about the Bradleys and their work in Afghanistan can be found here.) Wool-Aid shipments will most likely be combined with relief shipments from other organizations that are providing food, clothing, and other aid.

We anticipate that Wool-Aid items will be distributed to children in orphanages and other institutions, where wool clothing and blankets are likely to be well cared for and passed down from one child to another, each item thus warming multiple children.

All of our Wool-Aid focus items—hats, socks, sweaters, vests, mittens, and blankets—are being requested for the children of Afghanistan, and we are being asked to send items especially for children who are ages 5 through 12. This includes child-sized blankets, as well as baby blankets.

Here is a picture from one of our early shipments to Afghanistan:

The Lamia Afghan Foundation has a primary distribution of aid in October/November, so that the children will have warm clothing before the harsh winter. However, if the opportunity to send a shipment comes up earlier in the year, we will certainly take advantage of sending what we can at that time. The Lamia Afghan Foundation has access to secure storage facilities in Kabul where items can be sorted and held for winter distribution.

From 2012 through 2014, Wool-Aid sent more than 4000 items to children in Afghanistan through the Lamia Afghan Foundation. It was only because the Denton program temporarily suspended approval for airlifting their relief aid to Kabul that we were unable to send our Wool-Aid items to Afghanistan in 2015. We are thrilled that this opportunity to help has opened up for 2016!

Wool-Aid wrapped up the packing of the big shipment to Mongolia for the Dulaan Project recently, our second shipment of 2015 for the children of Ulaanbaatar:

As you can see, the process was very carefully supervised by Miss Smokey from above and Mr. Fritz from below.

These 24 boxes (about 560 pounds worth) include a total of 1605 items:

839 hats
91 vests
122 sweaters
400 pairs of socks
119 pairs of mittens
34 baby blankets

This is about 300 items more than we sent in January of this year, for a total of 2912 items shipped to Ulaanbaatar in 2015! The current shipment is in transit and should arrive in Ulaanbaatar soon so that it can be distributed to the children. Current temperatures are already registering below zero there.

FIRE (Flagstaff International Relief Effort) included Wool-Aid’s contributions from earlier this year in their end-of-year newsletter for 2015: Received and distributed 1,307 donated hand knitted winter items to orphanages and the disabled.

This is what you have done for the children of Ulaanbaatar this year! Thank you!