Lollies, lollies and more lollies!

As someone who has chosen to avoid eating foods which contain sugar, I've certainly been handling a lot of sweets/lollies/candy lately!

But it's all in the name of charity. 

For a few years now, Knitting for Brisbane's Needy members have provided mini Christmas stockings filled with sweets, to the various community groups who distribute them to the needy. This 'tradition' has grown from a few hundred to well over 2000 in 2013. Last year, the founder of the group, and her husband spent over $400 of their own money buying sweets for these stockings. After hearing how much of their own money went on buying supplies, I decided then and there that there had to be a better way. So I asked for help...from family and friends.

My wonderful friends, the Sunday Stitchers brought along a big lot of lollies at our October meet...

While doing election training a few weeks ago, a handful of sweets were placed on each work station...the others ate their pile...DH and I brought our booty home...this was one day's worth. They gave us more to bring home on the second day! Lol

Other friends and DH, cousins and in laws have also donated sweets. 

Then I tackled the issue of the packaging...the knitted stockings take a while to knit, so as I needed to increase production output, I trialled other ways of packaging these gifts. 

Simple felt ones...pinked edges...so easy and quick!

Mark 2... Felt with a ribbon decoration, and some Christmas fabric stockings...also pinked edges :-) 

Then I started thinking outside the square so to speak...I had leftover sweets cello bags from the 'making sweets for the church fete' days...and some bells left over from teaching days...

Then I wondered if we could package up the sweets in party treat boxes...Christmas stickers also left over from classroom days :-)

So last weekend, I played around with ideas and packaged up 81 gifts of sweets...

 Three friends had given me some stockings too. 

On Monday I took my filled containers of sweets to the Scarborough Knit and Natter...and you'll never guess...the ladies were filling Christmas stocking there too! 

A bag of empties waiting to be filled...

Busy busy...

We packed over 500 yesterday!

Last week at Zillmere over 200 were handed in...

Including the mini lollipops with the Santa hats!

I love the crocheted stocking in the photo above...crocheting is generally faster than knitting...mmmm...might just give that a go I think. :-)

(It looks like we need to provide 2500 of these stockings, bags, boxes judging by the requests that have come in. Including one from a former student who is a Uniting Church minister. There were huge bush fires this year in her parish in north eastern Victoria; she wanted something to bring a bit of cheer to her parishioners. Another of my students works/runs a mental health inpatient unit on the GoldCoast  with 21 beds; she has requested 21 stockings for her patients) we try to help as many as possible)