Looking for a craft project? Charity crafts!

[untonuggan]

Hello, wonderful Dreamwidth!

My friend is a Recreation Therapist at a Children's Rehab Center in Washington, DC. Her hospital sees a lot of long-term care patients after they leave the hospital, many who have things like Tramatic Brain Injury, birth defects of various ilks, etc.

She does really amazing work, and I was asking her if there was anything I could do to help out. We got started talking about crafting, and it turns out there are some crafted items she could use. I cannot possibly produce the volume she needs in the time that she needs them, so I am passing on the signal here (and in my LYS) in the hopes that we can get these kids some extra TLC.

There are options here for sewing, knitting, and crochet - however, if you don't craft yourself, signal boosts are totally appreciated!

Child Size Picc Line Covers (a knitting/crochet option)

Picc Lines are direct lines from an artery to your heart, and are used in select cases to deliver antibiotics or other medications. In kid's hospitals, a lot of kids grow to resent them and sometimes there are problems with kids pulling them out. My Rec Therapist friend is hoping to get about 50 Picc Line Covers (which she says would set her up for a long time) so that kids won't have such direct access to the Picc Lines, and also so that they look "cooler" for the kids.

If you (or anyone) wants to make these in a child-size or teen-sized (or even smaller, like baby size or toddler size) out of superwash wool that can also be machine dryed (so like Cascade 220 Superwash or something) in this pattern that would be awesome. Cables as decoration are also a possibility, but basically simple is better. Colored striped are also an option as long as all the ends are woven in.

Here is a crochet pattern that I found, although it's written for fingering weight...don't know if you can adjust it easily for the dimensions specified above as I don't crochet. See below for mailing directions.

Medical Play Dolls (a sewing/knitting/crochet option)

The other thing she definitely needs is "medical play dolls" that are shades of brown. Her rehab clinic got a donation of about 200 dolls a year ago, half white and half shades of brown. All of the brown dolls are gone, as most of her patients are kids of color. So, it would help if they had more.

Basically, a medical play doll is a basic doll form with no face or hair or clothes or decoration or anything. Something like this would be perfect. Her hospital needs more dolls in various shades of brown for therapy where the child decorates the doll to look like themselves (which is why you wouldn't decorate it), and then whenever the child needs to have a procedure done the Rec Therapist and the child act out the procedure on the doll first so the kid knows what to expect.

Some key points:

• as a lot of medical procedures involve injections, the dolls need to have wide arms so that syringes (minus needles) can go into them. Thus, no patterns with i-cord arms or very skinny arms.
• Same goes for bellies - very large bellies, even if they are out of proportion to the rest of the doll, would be very helpful.
• The dolls need to be machine washable and dryable, as it's a hospital and that's how they clean things. Acrylic, wool, cotton, whatever is fine. Just be sure to label what material you use so a wool item doesn't go to a kid with sensitive skin.
• The dolls should be the same color throughout the doll.
• They don't have to be huge, maybe 8"-10" high would work well.
• Any shade of brown yarn/fabric is okay, because the best thing is to have a diversity of dolls for kids to choose from.
• These can obviously be sewn, crocheted, or knitted as long as they meet the requirements above.

~~~If you do decide you want to make these, PM when you're done and are up for mailing them and I'll send you my address and/or the address of her Rehab Center donation area once I get it from my friend.

ETA: Here is a great basic doll knitting pattern mentioned by rokeon . Just remember to make the doll the same color (a shade of brown) throughout the doll, so that the child can decide how to decorate it, etc.

Comments

[jjhunter]

This looks like a strong candidate for a Radio Free Monday advert...

[untonuggan]

Thanks for the link! Have passed it on. <3

[inchainz]

I cannot possibly produce the volume she needs in the time that she needs them,

What's the time frame? I'm not the fastest knitter, but am in between projects & I've been looking for an excuse to go to my LYS. A football-knitting (read: tv-knitting) project is exactly what I'm looking for!

I've never knit anything plushie-like, but I could definitely do the PICC line covers -- they're just fingerless gloves without the thumb hole!

Ah, where'd all my knitting icons go! :)

[untonuggan]

Well, for the plushies, she uses them with about every kid she comes across, so preferably she'd like as many as possible - but I think she said she went through about 150 in a year. So another 150 would be awesome, and she is completely out of the brown ones right now.

For the PICC line covers, there's a little more leeway, as not all kids use PICC lines. She generally has between 1-12 kids with PICC lines at a time (as it's a long term rehab facility), and obviously they cannot be reused. She said that if we made 50 it would probably set her up for the next 5 years or so. However, there is a Children's Hospital in the area where patients come to them from (if that sentence even makes grammatical sense) that has more patients with PICC lines, so if we get extra she says they will probably want them for their kids.

^_^

They are great TV knitting. I'm going to see if I can sew some of the medical play dolls myself, because I think that would be a lot faster than knitting all of them. Crochet may work really well for those, too.

Thanks so much for considering participating!

[lighterthanair]

The medical play dolls like the one in the link look like they could also be made out of felt, or really any other stuffed fabric so long as it's machine-washable. Does it matter if they're knit or crocheted, or would something sewn be something that the rehab centre would also use?

[untonuggan]

Sewn is totally fine! I think I mentioned that somewhere, but maybe it wasn't clear enough. ^_^;;;

[lighterthanair]

Nah, you were probably clear. I just hadn't had enough sleep! :p Thanks!

[untonuggan]

You're welcome!

[zombie]

I might be able to help out with the dolls.

[untonuggan]

Awesome! Let me know if/when you need a mailing address, or more guidance if what I've posted is unclear. And you know, no pressure, I know life hits all of us so if it doesn't end up happening that's ok too.

[rydra_wong]

Okay if I post a link to this in sewing? Or would you like to?

[untonuggan]

Would be great if you would - I didn't want to spam too many crafting comms all at once. Thank you!

[rydra_wong]

Done!

[untonuggan]

Thanks so much!

[rokeon]

This looks like a good plain doll pattern for knitters- http://weefolkart.com/content/basic-knit-doll-6-sizes

[untonuggan]

Perfect, thank you! As long as the body and the head and everything are all the same color, that is. (My Rec Therapist friend explained this is important for the therapy, apparently.) In terms of construction, though, it looks exactly what I was looking for. \o/

[bare_bear]

Here via copperbadge. I might be able to help with the dolls. I'm not a fast knitter, but I'm sure I could come up with a few of them. When would you like them for? And I'll contact you once I have a few done for a mailing address. :)

[untonuggan]

Yay! Honestly, my friend has a constant need for them, and I can keep supplying them whenever, so I would say if you can provide them within the next 6-9 months that would be awesome? ^_^ Is that too soon?

[bare_bear]

Oh no, haha 6-9 months is excellent. I was thinking more in terms of days and weeks. :D I'll go pick up some wool and start playing with the doll pattern linked above.

[untonuggan]

Yeah, I see J pretty much a lot of the time, and I figure it may take awhile to get the volume of dolls, but as long as we have some brown medical play dolls and some Picc line covers coming in soon then it's all good. ^_^ (Or even some at all - the response I'm getting is super exciting!)

[bare_bear]

Do you mind if I reblog this on my sewing journal? I have decent readership there, and some of them might be willing to help out too.

[untonuggan]

That would be totally awesome!

[soc_puppet]

I am 100% on crocheting dolls. I've got a pattern I made up a while ago that I could probably alter for this as well; it's over here if anyone wants to get a look at it as is (skip the hair, the wings, and the *ahem* extra anatomy, obviously; belly button + bottom are up to the crocheter). My old one is 10" tall at ~3 rows/inch, 3.5 DC/inch; my stitches have tightened up, but I can probably still manage 8" tall.

[untonuggan]

\o/ Awesome, thanks so much for sharing this! Just shoot me a PM when you're ready to pop some in the mail.

[sinesofinsanity]

Do you have a knitting pattern for the dolls? I'd love to help out but need a pattern to be able to knit anything.

[untonuggan]

Here's a basic one, just don't do hair or eyes and make it all one color instead of the two colors in the pattern. 6-8" should be fine. Thank you so much!