some more details about needing yellow yarn

Why did we need yellow yarn for the baby caps? Well, here are a few more details from my contact.

"The program provides home based and palliative care to people living with AIDS and their children and and for children orphaned by AIDS some of whom who are HIV positive themselves.

"The yellow would be a happy color for the babies in the program.

"Either cotton or acrylic would be just great. Babies born to HIV positive mothers are often low birth weight, and some are born HIV positive.. sometimes the mothers have little to no milk so the little ones have to be bottle fed and in spite of Mozambique being in a tropical area, they feel the cold so the caps will help them stay warm -- the babies receive nursing care at the Kuwangisana communuity based child care center … I will ask my colleague there about other items that they may need for the little ones, (little bed jackets? booties? receiving blankets? ) as I am not sure what the local care givers are used to. I will be going out in October and could deliver them personally. It would be great to have a photo of you to show them as well.

Warmest regards and heartfelt thanks,
Laura van Vuuren

Senior Advisor HIV and AIDS

Medical Teams International

www.medicalteams.org

503-624-1000

lvanvuuren@medicalteams.org"

So there you are. Yellow is a hard color for us pasty-white caucasians to wear, but it looks splendid against a beautiful brown skin. I'm trying to get blogger to load the photos that Laura enclosed, but success seems beyond my grasp. The school children in their brown uniforms with the cheery yellow collars and trim is especially engaging.

The baby pictured is wearing a bonnet-type hat, (tied under the chin,) rather than a stocking cap that is so easy to pop off. Actually, the bonnet looks like a couple of squares seamed along two sides and gathered along a third side with strings extended for tie-downs. Easy-peasy!

I stopped at JoAnnes with a 40% off coupon yesterday and got a pound of acrylic worsted for under five dollars. I should be able to get several itsybitsy hats from that. And I bought some yellow dye which has transformed a pound of white cotton and dacron handspun into the start for a blankie. This should keep me busy for more than a few weeks.

(And as long as I was getting things at discounts, I stopped at Payless Shoes and bought two pairs of closeout summer skimmers for less than $16. Can you believe that they're getting ready to start the back to school sales and it isn't even August yet?)

Again, I need snail mail addresses from Bells and Galad, Donna Lee and Shan, Warrior knitter, and Nancy at the Jersey shore. You may have given me your addresses already, but I have a brain like a rusty seive, and I don't know where I put them.