“Friends” (Operation Christmas Child Blanket #3)

November 8, 2019thegreensheep 4 Comments

It’s packing and shipping time for Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes! I really wish I had brought this up earlier, just in case anyone else’s wheels needed greasing to get rolling.

I say that because my wheels needed exactly that.

I had not *planned* on sewing a blanket for a shoebox this year. But a friend innocently nudged me in a different direction when, during an announcement at church about an Operation Christmas Child packing party, she tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, “Are you making a blanket?” I whispered back, “Not this year…” but then couldn’t stop thinking about another sweet blanket.

The thing is, it is SO MUCH FUN to give these little gifts. (I first made a shoebox blanket, “The Christmas Rainbow,” in 2016. In 2017 I made another, “Wacky Pockets,” simultaneously offering to folks on my email list a free course in how to make one if they’d commit to packing a shoebox too. In 2018 I sent a shoebox but no blanket.)

So two Sundays ago I went home from church considering how I could simplify the process in order to get a child-size blanket put together quickly. I decided to:

Use leftover strips, already cut (using only thin wools so the blanket can fit in a shoebox)
Use leftover binding from another project
Keep the pattern simple

It was a very good plan. Until I sabotaged swiftness by messing around with too many color drafts before finally settling on a likeable combo. But it’s done! And I had a lot of fun.

I chose the 5-9-year-old girl category. As I sewed, I thought about how important it can be to a girl to have a friend. And not just any friend, but a kind and understanding one. The blanket itself reminds me of those half-heart necklaces that fit together like a puzzle: its two halves quietly reflect each other, each with their pink-and-purple “pop” (the pocket, the “V” of a sweater), and the halves are clearly delineated by the skinny strip of pink stripe between them.

When shopping for additional shoebox items, I found these two little dolls. They are 1) just right for the size of the box, 2) just right for the colorful blanket, and 3) just right for a friendship. Here they are, testing what will be their cushy accommodations for the next several weeks until they arrive at their destination.*

Each time I pack a shoebox, I think of two particular children. They are actually adults now; a family we know adopted them from an orphanage in Russia many years ago. Four years before their adoption, while living in that orphanage, Marina and her older brother received Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. In Marina’s words, “The box gave me hope that there is kindness out there, there is love out there, and that I could have it. And I did have it…in a simple box!” Click below to see her tell the story:

This whole shoebox endeavor reminds me of the starfish story—attributed, I believe, to Loren Eiseley and adapted many times over—that goes something like this:

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?” The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.” “Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference!”

After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said…” I made a difference for that one.”

*P.S. Did you know you can “follow your box” when you purchase your label online? “The Christmas Rainbow” went to a girl in Zambia. “Wacky Pockets” went to a boy in Rwanda.

Where will this one go??

Two are Better than One

December 1, 2017September 21, 2019thegreensheep 2 Comments

Yep. Two are better than one.¹ But more like TWENTY are better than one. Way better.

Last month I hung out in a virtual classroom with several women who made a child’s blanket and packed it in an Operation Christmas Child shoe box in exchange for learning how to make a wool blanket, Green-Sheep style.

The thing that surprised me most? How much fun it was. Every day I looked forward to coming home from work, hopping on my computer and joining the ongoing discussion.

“How did sweater shopping go?” “What colors did you find?” “Who’s got a blanket ‘first draft’ laid out?” “Are you making yours for a girl or a boy?”

I miss it!!

Finally—here’s a little gallery of our work. I figure we were able to complete about 15 blankets, and here are 11 of them. The variety reflects the regions in which we live, what our resale shops held the day(s) we went shopping, aaaand…our many personalities. (Click on each photo to view it larger.)

The best part: how these bright and talented people made our virtual classroom feel pretty darn near to a real one.

Patti’s ready to ship

Ranae’s final draft

Ranae’s finished blanket

Ranae’s ready to ship

Linda’s finished blanket

Pocket finger puppets

Linda’s ready to ship

I love pockets :)

Ana Maria’s blanket

Annie’s with red border

Annie’s ready to ship

Annie’s black border

Timary’s first draft

Timary’s final blanket

Pat’s final blanket

Details on Pat’s blanket

Cris’ final draft

Cris’, awaiting binding

Cris’ finished blanket

Stephanie’s blanket

Diane’s finished blanket

My finished blanket

¹”Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor:
If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”
—Ecclesiastes 4.9-10

“Wacky Pockets”

November 14, 2017September 21, 2019thegreensheep 2 Comments

Argyle! Stripes! Patchwork! Puppy applique! There’s been a flurry of activity on the Facebook page where close to 20 creative women sewed their own sensibilities into felted wool blankets. I coached them with Green Sheep-style techniques and these sewists brilliantly took it from there.

We have been virtually planning, sewing, struggling, encouraging, and finally FINISHING our blankets alongside each other. I am charmed to see the beautiful work of these women and to imagine their gifts in the hands of youngsters around the world, via the simple shoe boxes we’re madly packing to be collected by Operation Christmas Child this week.

I made a blanket right along with the class, filming the process as I went. I made it for a boy this time, in the 5-9 age range. (I wanted to mix it up, as last year’s was for a girl.)

This blanket has cashmere and merino wools, a striped bias binding, and best of all, two pockets that button. I called it “Wacky Pockets” because one of the pockets is upside down.

Or maybe the other one is. It’s hard to tell.

Anyway, it’s been fun to think about a little boy this year, especially for this mom-of-two-daughters. I enjoyed picking out small, interesting things to pack in his shoe box.

So much stuff can fit in there! Because I am a container lover, I bought three for this little guy. One for his soap, a lock-top one in which the socks are packed, and a round, screw-top one. The Slinky and some awesome rubber-tip clips (from the hardware aisle!) fit perfectly inside it.

And now it’s off. Wing your way, little box, to a precious boy who could use your stuff.

I’m pretty sure this wish is the same for all the other women in our class. May the kids be blessed as much as we have by this little project. ♥

©Joan Olson
“Wacky Pockets” (42×52″)
Felted wool sweaters

“Do you teach how to make blankets?”

October 28, 2017September 21, 2019thegreensheep 8 Comments

[I’m afraid it’s too late to join the class, but you are welcome to pack your own shoe box for a child in difficult circumstances. Follow this link and let a young person know someone cares. It means more than you can know.]

How could I have known how much fun I was about to have?

Two weeks ago, after brewing up the idea just days earlier, I launched a little online class. Well, I thought it would be little.

A still shot from my “Welcome” video, made in the guest bedroom. I accidentally got the bed in the frame.

I regularly receive questions from blog readers about making blankets: “How do you make your binding?” “Do you back your blankets?” “What kind of sweaters do you buy?” I do my best to answer these sewists, one at a time, generally through email. They are always enthusiastic and eager to learn, and are filled with questions. I love this interaction.

But each time I’ve been asked, “Do you teach a class somewhere?” I’ve simply said “No.” That limp answer started to bother me. What was stopping me? I knew: fear of the unknown.

The first frame of my third video. I’m still figuring out lighting.

Then I received a notice about Operation Christmas Child coming up and was reminded I wanted to make a child’s blanket again for a shoe box. It clicked. This could be the kick in the pants I needed! How fun would it be to create something beautiful for kids alongside a bunch of stitch-loving women?

I thought of other ventures in life I had waffled on because of fear of the unknown—going to grad school, starting a blog…having children :). Without a doubt, great outcomes, all. I certainly appreciate having my ducks in a row, but that can’t always be.

Two weekends ago, with me needing to master several things quickly, the unruly ducks waddled everywhere:

How do I use the format of a private Facebook group to teach a class?
How do I sequence MailChimp’s forms and confirmations to move people
into a virtual classroom?
How do I make videos, edit and post them?

The dining room set up with lights and camera for a session on laying out a blanket. I had to be careful not to trip on cords while taping.

Fortunately, I already had an outline of course content because Tara Swiger’s practical book Map Your Business recently propelled me to draw up action steps toward some goals (even though I was avoiding executing them!).

So I borrowed photography lights, watched YouTube videos about how to make a video, made two videos using my outline notes, and sent out an invitation to my email subscribers to join me in making a child’s blanket for an Operation Christmas Child shoe box.

I expected three people to join me, and I am not kidding. I was a bit off. Two dozen people signed up!

Scripts for the videos, often taped to the lower half of the camera.

Now there we are, over on Facebook, having a ball. A group of fascinating women teaching, learning, encouraging and spurring one another on. And doing our level best to hit the National Collection Week deadline of November 13-20 for our blanket-filled, lovingly packed shoe boxes.

I’m learning so much from these women! It’s spurring me on to make a plan for more teaching.

A still shot of some fancy graphics, before I learned more video-editing. The advice certainly fits my learning curve too!

Name That Blanket…Results!

November 25, 2016September 21, 2019thegreensheep 1 Comment

Thanks, everyone, for stirring up your creative juices to help name this blanket! You guys are great. This is the blanket that got packed up in an Operation Christmas Child box a couple of weeks ago. But as I was writing the blog post about it, I suddenly realized it had been sent out without a name. But names matter! Many of you came to the rescue, adding ideas on Facebook, Instagram, and this blog. A couple of you emailed me.

These are the wonderful ideas that came in. Making the final choice was difficult!

Blanket of Love
A Bright Beginning
Christmas Child
Promise
Pastel Peace
Colors of Love
Quiet Rainbow
Heaven’s Hues
God’s Perfect Promise
The Christmas Rainbow
A Rainbow of Love
Vibrant Love
A Box of Sherbet
Ribbon Candy
A Rainbow Promise Pocket

After much deliberation, the WINNER IS…

♥ THE CHRISTMAS RAINBOW ♥

I realized I wanted it to be a name that worked from a child’s perspective, so I tried to think like a little one. “The Christmas Rainbow” rose to the top because 1) I could imagine a child thinking it; 2) both “Christmas” and “rainbow” hold all the significance of the promise within each one of those; & 3) the blanket is not REALLY rainbow colors or rainbow sequence, but it is unusual, like a rainbow at Christmastime would be. Credit for “The Christmas Rainbow” name goes to Melissa Dugan.

And now this blanket can find its proper place in the world, since it has been named :)

[Click here for the full story of “The Christmas Rainbow.”]

A blanket for a stranger

November 19, 2016September 21, 2019thegreensheep 11 Comments

(“Strangers are friends you have yet to meet.”)

This is the final collection weekend for Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. OCC is a faith-based global effort that sends off gifts packed in shoe boxes to children whose lives have been touched by disasters, war or poverty. I’ve known about this activity for years; I even know two wonderful young adults who were significantly affected by the shoe boxes they received as children in a Russian orphanage many years ago.

But I sheepishly admit I never packed a box myself until two weeks ago.

A few weeks ago, my church made available empty shoe boxes from OCC, and my small group (a baker’s-dozen of great women) decided to have a packing party of our own. We each volunteered to shop for 13 somethings–toothbrushes, toothpaste, pencils, pads of paper, candy, toys, wash cloths, bars of soap, socks, cards and more–and bring them together to pack boxes. (I picked up some of Ikea’s colorful children’s tableware.) We were each to also add one “Wow!” gift to our own box. My “Wow” gift was a soft, sweet-eyed, stuffed-animal puppy.

A few days before our packing night, both of our grown daughters (and 10-month-old granddaughter–gah!) happened to be visiting for the weekend. Saturday evening we popped in the DVD of a film recommended to me by a co-worker: The Drop Box. The seed for the film was planted when a young Los Angeles filmmaker (with Sundance aspirations) was eating breakfast one morning over the LA Times. On the front page, he read a story about a pastor in Korea who rescued unwanted babies by building a small warming box in the wall of his church, a “drop box” for newborns. The film is interesting, surprising, and to me, very moving. I came away with a renewed sense of the deep value of every single life.

As often happens in my brain, the experience of the film mingled with some other information up there in my head. In this case, I was thinking about a woman named Gift I’ve gotten to know a little this past year. Gift is from Zambia, and every year she raises money to send to her village for blankets for the women and children, who often do not have one of their own.

Sunday morning I woke up with one thought on my mind: I wanted to pack a wool blanket in my little shoe box, to let its young recipient know that she is one-of-a-kind in this wide, wide world, and someone somewhere was thinking about her.

So that Sunday morning I pulled out my stacks of already-cut strips of wool sweaters, to see what child-friendly combination I could assemble. But it wasn’t working. I needed to start from scratch. With those bright Ikea dishes nearby, I chose a rainbow of saturated colors and got to work. I had just been working on a custom-ordered child’s blanket with diagonal stripes and decided to repeat the pattern. I love its youthfulness and sense of movement.

As I was limited to the interior of a shoe box, I knew this blanket couldn’t be thick, so I chose cashmere, merino wool, and lambswool. The result? It’s exceedingly lightweight and yet cozy and warm.

I hope it can feel like a cuddle to a little girl.

I made our deadline and packed up my box. (In the photo, it looks like the blanket is taking up the whole box, but all the practical items are rolled up in the blanket.) Unfortunately, there was not enough room for that precious puppy. (Not for lack of trying, though! I even bought a bigger plastic box, but realized this would not feel fair to a group of kids on the receiving end.)

Of course, I likely will never meet the “5- to 9-year-old girl” this box is destined for. But I did learn from the woman at the collection counter that among the countries this batch of boxes is headed toward is Zambia :). Godspeed, little boxes!