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Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Warm feet, warm hearts

Yesterday I mentioned that Rina and I were busy with a project the whole of last week. 

We'd decided to knit slippers for the oldies in the retirement center. 
The knitting team
Rina demonstrates how to stitch the slippers together
The slippers; we crochet a length and thread it through the ankle and you have laces

It was a great time of camaraderie while we knitted the slippers: we had ten pairs to knit. Rina knitted five pairs while I knitted four (OK OK, so I knit very tightly and use thinner needles)  For the last pair, we only had one ball of wool left. So we decided to knit the pair together. With me on 4 mm needles (instead of 3.5 mm) and Rina on 3.25 mm instead of her 4 mm needles we ended with two almost identical slippers. 
Rina and I knitted the last pair from one ball of wool; I drew from the center and she from the start on the outside of the ball
We stuffed the slippers with cotton wool and placed them in individual packets
Once we'd tied the packets with gift ribbon, we added a Scripture pertaining to feet
There are five Afrikaans ladies and two English ladies in the oldies' center

We duly finished the slippers on Sunday evening. On Monday I phoned the center and asked permission for me and Rina to come and treat the oldies as they gather for lunch in the dining room. We arrived with our basket of slippers, took three pairs to the frail care center. The sister on duty said she'd fit them onto the old ladies who are bedridden. 
Before we handed out the "surprise", I explained (paraphrasing the Psalm above) that the Lord keeps our footsteps firmly placed on a wide step and that with Him holding us, 
our feet won't stumble 
I explained this in Afrikaans and then in English
Rina handed out the gift slippers
Such a small gift but such appreciation from these dear sweet ladies
Hannie, a dear lady who came to Marquard in the early 60's as a young farmer's wife; moved away twenty years ago when she was widowed and has returned and retired in the MGO. She is MIL Pam's next-door-neighbor
We walked back to MIL's room with her where Rina tried on her slippers for her
Then she did a little jig to show how pleased she was with her slippers

Two of the ladies (one being Pienkie) didn't go to the dining room today, so we delivered their gifts to them personally. A great surprise for these two dear oldies as well.

I'm linking my post to Our World Tuesday here




10 comments:

  1. What a lovely thing to do for the ladies and a great surprise for them.anod scripture verse tp go with it

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  2. Muy buenas imagenes..muy familiares..un beso desde Murcia...

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  3. What a wonderful project. How great and loving of you and Rina to knit the slippers for the elderly women. God bless you both. xx

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  4. Hello Jo, you and Rina are so sweet.. and always seem to be doing some kind of caring act.. I love the slippers, I am sure the ladies will love keeping their feet warm too. Have a happy day!

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  5. What a wonderful thing you and your friends did!

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  6. what a sweet, loving gift for them!

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  7. this is wonderful and what a blessing to all of the ladies, plus you had the friendship of knitting together. we used to have several pears of these that bob's aunt made, but we wore them out...

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  8. oh how very very cool! I can knit but sadly only scarves, wish I was as clever :-)

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  9. The slippers are very pretty ! The old ladies were certainly very happy !

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  10. How sweet of you to do this!
    Our church has undertaken a project of making mats for the homeless out of plastic grocery bags. I finished one last week.
    Please come link up your lovely slippers at http://image-in-ing.blogspot.com/2015/04/at-keyboard.html

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