Why do I make squares?

I know many of you have found me through my Facebook page & you all often comment on the pictures I share with you. I so Love that! It makes it even more fun for me to share what I have created with all of you. And I love it even more when I receive a lovely message from someone regarding something I posted.

The other day I was asked "Why do you make squares for this project?" & I really sat down & thought about it for quite some time before I answered because it is both simple and complex at the same time as to WHY I do it. I wanted to take the time to expand a little bit about that here.

I know I recently shared with you all about the Join The Love Ministry in this post; and as I mentioned before, this ministry is very personal to me. A few years ago I went through my own series of losses & I think if I had the type of comfort, love & support that we try to provide through the Join the Love ministry, it would have helped me immensely instead of me struggling through it on my own in such a dark place.

We receive the most heartfelt requests on the Join the Love page from the most amazing, strong, loving families that can only hope & pray for just a little piece of their child back. With our blankets, we try our best to give them something that is filled with things they loved about their child or that their child loved & was so personal to them. Each request comes with specific colors and themes that remind them of the child, or things that they would like incorporated into the squares.

Each one of our blankets is completely unique just like their child was. Each square is filled with love, hope & compassion that we wish to pour out on the families nominated. Each square is just a small piece of something beautiful that comes together in the end to make a much larger whole.

So to answer the question "Why do I make squares?", the answer is simple: "Out of Love". I donate my squares because it all becomes something far bigger than myself. My one or two little squares get added to 56 other squares to make it one beautiful piece that gets given away & shared. It becomes Love that can be shared then with every person in that person's family or circle. It becomes peace, comfort & healing to a broken family going through such a difficult time in their lives, that unless you have been through it, you cannot even begin to understand it. We try our best to make each blanket created like a big giant hug for the family receiving it.

So for me to donate my time, my yarn, my heart & my love to make something beautiful for someone else, it just makes sense to me! It's all a part of something bigger, something un-explainable in the sense of why I do it, but yet I love doing it. It allows me to give back just a little piece of something that cannot be replaced.

My 15-60 minutes of time spent making my squares or my few yards of yarn, are never as priceless or as precious as the final gift that is given to the families receiving that blankets. It brings me so much joy & happiness to be able to love on them in this way. To some it may just be one small 6" square, but to those that receive these blankets, it becomes something so much more. Something so indescribable that there are often no words for the love, gratitude & appreciation they feel when they receive the blankets.

So if you really & truly want to know as to "Why I make squares?", I encourage you to try it just once. See what it's like to give back to families like this & to experience for yourself the joy you feel when you get to hear back on your own from one of the families who are gifted our blankets & to see how happy they are to receive them. It's an amazing feeling and something far beyond words can express!

All it takes is one square for you to help! If you want to help let us know at https://www.facebook.com/JointheLove.page

Have a great day!

Michelle K
The Perfect Knot Crochet and More

Love, Compassion, Mission and Dedication - Join The Love

Do you have something that is very close to your heart that you put your crafting abilities into? I do.

I believe that God has given us all gifts and talents and ways to use them for a greater good.

One of my talents is my ability to crochet. I love it & most of all I love to be able to give back to others with this gift.

About a year & a half ago I became very heavily involved with a wonderful ministry called Join The Love. This ministry was started by some friends & myself after a very special friend lost her daughter.

A bunch of ladies who crochet, got together and all donated granny squares to help create a Personalized Memory Blanket in honor of this little girl. The squares incorporated her favorite things, colors, activities or things that reminded the mother of her daughter.
The response was so overwhelming & so many squares came in, & so many people asked how they could help.

After the blanket was completed there were many families asking where they could get a Memory Blanket for a child that they had lost. Very quickly it was obvious a need to be able to bless more families who had lost a child was there & in a short amount of time we were inundated with requests & knew we needed more help! There were so many grieving hurting families & we wanted to be able to bless each one in the same way we had blessed this first family.

So a small group of wonderful volunteers were assembled & as the requests came in we worked hard to create a group of global volunteers who's hearts were willing to help make the Memory blankets for these wonderful families. The group of volunteers has continued to grow & we continue to receive more and more requests from families who are nominated to receive one of these special Gifts in honor of a child that was lost.

With just a handful of less than 100 volunteers, we were able to make over 20 blankets in less than 1 year & in this year alone we have handled even more requests & have produced almost twice that number of blankets already, with more requests still patiently waiting! It truly is amazing to see what love pours out of these wonderful ladies who help to create these beautiful blankets!

We do not charge for our memory blankets & each one is produced solely by volunteers. Volunteers & other friends help us to fund our shipping costs, our assemblers yarn for joining & the memory booklets we create with the blankets. We create each blanket as a special gift for the families that are nominated. Not one person gets paid to be able create these beautiful blankets. Each one uses their time, talents, materials, supplies & shipping funds to bless one family without any thought of what they are actually giving of themselves! I have truly never met a more selfless group of people in my entire life & it truly blesses me each time I see a square being made.

Each blanket that is created is crafted with so much love, artistry, care, compassion, prayers & dedication in order to be able to create this beautiful treasure for one special family! Each project takes about 2 months to complete, but once it all comes together it truly is beautiful!

Each square is different & unique & the ladies who create them really do put all their hearts into each one to make them special. Things such as favorite colors, activities, cartoons, movies, family pets, special sayings, symbols, or other items that remind the family of their child are all incorporated into making the squares for each blanket.

Once all of the squares are collected, a volunteer assembles them all into one piece creating the blanket with their own special artistic touches into the blanket. You can really see the child's personality shine through in all of the squares combined to make the blanket!  It always amazes me how each blanket always seems to come together so beautifully & is a perfect symbol of love for each family to honor their child!

This ministry is very personal to me because I myself have been in the same situation as the families nominated for the Memory Blankets. I appreciate so much what these wonderful volunteers do & how selfless they are to give so much to these families.

I can tell you, that receiving a blanket brings so much joy & comfort to these grieving families! When you see all the notes & cards that are included with the squares sent for the blankets, & the memory book that the assemblers create, & how far & wide the squares have come from, its all just very overwhelming, beautiful and very emotional!

Below is more information about the Join the Love Ministry. If you are interested in any of the areas mentioned, please click through the appropriate link.

If you would like general information on the Join the Love ministry, you can visit the main page here:
Join The Love Main Page

If you would like to become a volunteer square maker to help create squares for this ministry, you can find out more information here:
How to Become a Square Maker

If you would know of a family who has suffered a loss of a child within the last 24 months & would like to nominate them for one of our Memory Blankets, you can find out more information here:
How to Nominate for a Join The Love Memory Blanket

All of our Memory Blankets are produced by volunteers, we are a totally non-profit organization & we do have our share of hard costs with each blanket. (It is estimated that it costs upwards of $600 to produce one blanket when we add up yarn costs to make each square, yarn costs to join the squares, shipping funds for each square, shipping funds for delivering the blankets, the cards, memory booklets, the assembler's time & so much more.)

If you are blessed enough to be able to help us in this ministry financially & would like to help support Join the Love in this way, you can find out more information here:
Supporting Join the Love

If you would like to see some of the finished memory blankets we have made, you can find more photos of the blankets here:
Finished Memory Blankets

Memory Blanket

This really is a very special ministry that Join the Love does & it has been a huge blessing to be such a big part of it. I am blessed every day by the love that this group produces!

I pray that it continues to grow & bless these wonderful families that are nominated & comfort them in their time of grief.

To some it may be just a small thing to make a granny square, but when they are all connected & joined together with love & prayers, to these families they mean the world!

Thank you for reading & for supporting the Join the Love ministry whether it is in prayers, squares, financially, nominations or in any other way possible.

Have a great day & God Bless!

Michelle K
The Perfect Knot

It's the Little Things...

 

You're going to have to excuse me if I make a mistake here & the quality of the images, as this post is written strictly out of pure emotion & love & even as I write it, my eyes are still tearing up.

 

 

A few weeks ago, I saw a dear crochet friend post a picture of this beautiful little crocheted thread box with pretty little roses on it. I thought it was really beautiful & I thought my Mom would have loved one. It truly reminded me of the things she used to love & decorate her house with.

 

I contacted my friend Cara & asked her if I could place an order for one. I told her it was a gift for my Mom & I had planned to give it to her for Mother's Day. I told her Mom's favorite colors were peach, pink & purple & that I thought it might be a nice gift for her.

 

 

As I've mentioned before my Mom has Alzheimer's & I take care of her full time. I didn't know if she would like the gift or even understand what it was, but I still wanted to give it to her & tell her I loved her. If nothing else, I thought it would be something pretty for her to look at & something she might enjoy.

 

Well, the package got here today & I knew I couldn't wait for Mother's day to give it to her! I figured time for her doesn't really exist anyway & I thought it might make her happy. So I opened the box & I gave it to my Mom & her eyes cleared from the fog she usually lives in & she smiled. Not a fake smile or a glossy glazed over one, but a REAL honest to goodness Mom Smile! The kind I miss so much seeing every day!

 

I had no idea she would have that kind of a reaction. It just melted my heart & brought tears to my eyes. I grabbed my cell phone & I snapped a couple of quick pictures of her with the box.

 

I asked her if she knew where she wanted to put it & she pointed over to the Precious Moments figurines on the table that have always been her "special" things. So we put it on the table with them & she stood there & looked at it for a few minutes. Then she managed a "That's pretty" & she bent over to pick up the box again. I wasn't really sure what she was going to do with it, so I just kind of stood back & watched her for a second.

 

She shuffled back over to the couch where she sits with the box & she held onto it. I asked her if she wanted to put it on the arm of the couch where her little lamb she calls Fuzzy is & the little crocheted Angel I made for her at Christmas time. She nodded her head & she got this great big little kid smile & set it down next to the little lamb & angel.

 





At that point I knew she really loved it because anything she really cherishes or wants to see every day goes right there on the arm of the couch.

She picked the box back up again & gently touched the little roses on the top. She set it back down & she looked at it again & smiled. For the next few minutes that was the pattern; pick it up, touch the roses, put it down, smile.

A few minutes later, she looked up at me & she smiled again. She touched the roses on the top & said "that's pretty" again & then she looked at me once more & said "Thank you".

I just smiled at her & said "You're welcome Mom. I love you." She nodded her head & said "love too."

That is the most she's said to me in probably a week. At that point I couldn't hold back the tears & I just started crying & thought about what a wonderful gift my friend had made for my mom.

 

It may be just a pretty little crocheted thread box to someone else's eyes, but to me it's a beautiful gift that made my Mom really truly smile! It doesn't happen often, but when it does, its precious & I cherish those kinds of responses from her.

 

I sat there & thought for a little bit about how wonderful it is just to know that sometimes it's the little things that make her smile for real. So to my dear friend who made this beautiful box, I thank you. Not only for the box & the beautiful gift you made for my Mom, but even more so for the priceless Smile you gave her today.

 

I thank God I was able to capture it for real & that now this piece of my Mom is forever with me.

 

 

 May you all remember to cherish the little things.

 

God Bless,

 

Michelle K

The Perfect Knot.