Monday May 5th

Bec and I had hoped to be able to have a lot of what she has collected sent down to me this weekend but unfortunately Dysons didn't have any room on the bus for our stuff so we'll have to try again next time I go to Lakes Entrance.

Today I collected another great batch of squares from Stitches & Things in Lakes Entrance. They have been doing a marvellous job. I even got to meet one of the ladies that have been knitting, she walked into the shop with a few more squares just as I was standing there with a great boxfull sitting on the floor in front of me. Karen and all the ladies in Lakes have donated so many squares, I'd hate to work out how many but suffice to say there will be a few people just a bit warmer this winter because of them.

Just as I was leaving the shop Karen came up with a wonderful idea and even volunteered to do all the work for us. She has an embroidery machine, she does custom embroidery for anyone, and offered to make up small labels with our logo and a brief message that I will sew onto each and every blanket. Along with the printed sheet explaining it all these blankets could end up making an interesting story for someone in the future to read about. Especially as this blog is going to be stored in the Library archives about the bushfires. So thanks Karen. It's a lovely little shop and Karen also takes mail orders so please log onto her site and see what she has to offer.

Last week I spoke to Chris Payne, a lady with the Traralgon Rotary Group. She is visiting all the bushfire victims in this area, having a chat with them and finding out what they need. When she heard about our Blankets of Friendship she was very keen and thought they would be just what the people want to boost their morale a bit. I shall be making a big delivery to her as soon as I have sewn on the labels that Karen is making and typed up the synopsis to go with them.

As the squares have been donated from all over Australia as well as a few overseas donors as well I believe that the recipients of the squares should be from all fire affected regions, not just our Gippsland ones. For this reason I shall be donating about half locally and the other half I will drive to the other areas to distribute. At the moment I still have many, many, many squares to be made into blankets but I'm going as fast as I can. With winter approaching (what happened to Autumn, we went straight from summer to winter) I want to get them distributed as quickly as possible.