4 inches of love.

My blanket laid across the foot of my queen size bed.

For the last 6 weeks, I've been obsessed with 4 inches of love.  150 sets in fact.  I've been doing my annual knit for charity project.  This year it was 4 inch (10cm x 10cm) squares to be made into blankets to assist the Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.

Fistula is an obstetric injury which women can sustain during prolonged labour and/or unassisted child birth.  It can result in urinary and faecal incontinence which leaves the women who suffer these injuries as outcasts from their communities.  It can be fixed through surgery and 93 per cent of women are cured.

In 1974, Australian Dr Catherine Hamlin AC and her husband Reg established the Fistula Hospital and changed sufferers' lives with surgery and treatment.

Blankets and shawls are needed for the hospital and I have been told that when the women leave the hospital they are given a new dress and a shawl or blanket.

Initially I started just to knit up bits and pieces of yarn I had left over from other projects.  It takes 150 squares to make the required size blanket  of 1 metre x 1.5 metres.  When I was halfway there, I decided that I would keep going.  It took 4 weeks to knit the squares - mainly knitting in front of the television of an evening - and almost 2 weeks to sew them all together and finish off with a crocheted border.

One of the things I love about knitting is that every single fibre of the yarn has passed through my hands.  As I knit, I think about the person I'm knitting for and a lot of love goes into whatever it is that I'm making.  I feel a deep connection.

I don't know who will end up with this blanket that I have made.  I know it will be appreciated by the recipient and I hope the beautiful colours and warmth give them as much joy as its making has given me.

More information about the hospital can be found on their website. Ways to support this work are also detailed.

If you can knit, consider making a square or two ( you don't have to do 150) every single one will be appreciated.  Search for the "Stitches for Sisters" group on facebook or Ravelry.