Over the years I have posted about using up stash yarn on charitable projects. It’s now 2025 and yup, I’m STILL working on my yarn stash. At one time my yarn stash was HUGE. Not like yarn store big or anything, but somehow I had accumulated a lot more yarn than I had reasonable storage space for. So I’ve been working on it (for a number of years) a little at a time and I’ve recently completed six projects from stash that have been donated to a local charity. The charity is called North Georgia Pregnancy Services Center (The Center) and it provides some medical services and support to women who are pregnant and their newborn babies. When I stopped in the office to ask if they could use baby blankets I received an enthusiastic “YES!” as they like to include a handmade blanket in the package they give to each expecting mother using their services. I was super excited to hear this as I love to crochet for charitable organizations and very pleased to find a local organization to support.

Last year I completed two granny square baby blankets with no recipient in mind. They were made with stash yarn-super soft Knit Picks/WeCrochet Mighty Stitch 80% acrylic, 20% superwash wool. I stored them for a few months until I decided what to do with them. Once I found out The Center would like them, my decision was made but before I donated them, I wanted to make bears with the leftover yarn from each blanket. I remembered the Easy Peasy Teddy Bears I made a number of years ago for a group called Team Lewis, read about it here. So I took some more stash yarn (yipee! using more stash!) combined it with the leftover Mighty Stitch, and made some coordinating bears.

Since I had made the two blankets a few months ago, I wanted to wash them before I dropped them off at The Center. After a little research, I found some lingerie bags on Amazon that are huge. They are perfect for washing handmade baby blankets. I bought six and decided from now on I will include one of these with each baby blanket I donate or give as a gift. The blankets washed up perfectly and were safe in the bags from washing machine/dryer damage. The bags I bought were 24″ by 24″ and about $10 for a pack of three. After the blankets were washed and dried, I added the washing instructions by cutting the information off the yarn label and securing it to the blanket.

The two blankets and two bears were dropped off along with a third bear and blanket. I’ll post about them next time. The Center was having a staff meeting when I came by and they all seemed really excited about receiving the donations. I’ll be making more for them and have already started on a fourth blanket with, of course, stash yarn.

Pattern information:
The baby blankets are basic granny squares work with a pattern repeat of three rounds of main color and one round of contrasting color. Blankets were then edged with six-seven rounds (I had less blue than pink) of main color and finished with a round of sc and then a round of slst.

The bears were worked with either two strands of Mighty Stitch held together or one strand of mystery yarn. I used the Easy Peasy Teddy Bear pattern found here: https://blumenbunt.blogspot.com/p/teddybar-in-einem-stuck.html

Happy Crocheting!
Darleen