Practice random acts of knitting

This picture has nothing to do with today's post.
But I loved the combination of red shoes and bright yellow socks on this little girl.

The first time I heard the term "microcharity" was in the 2009 Knitting Calendar by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka The Yarn Harlot). Microcharity is a person-to-person chance to do good, without any middleman involved. As the Yarn Harlot put it, "knitting lends itself ... well to the concept of microcharity." If you see somebody who is cold, give him a hat that you've knit. If you notice a child in your neighborhood without gloves, knit her a pair.

We have a woman in our knitting group that lives her life based on the theory of microcharity. We tease her about it, and have even taken to calling her the Knit-Crusader (Look, up at that fiber. Is it a ball? Is it a skein? No, it's SuperKnitter!) But really, we all think she's wonderful.

The first time that we heard about her microcharity tendencies was last fall. Knit-Crusader was at a local department store, and the cashier was very much pregnant. KC (Knit-Crusader is too long to keep typing) struck up a conversation, and soon learned that the woman was expecting her first child, a little girl, and had no family in the area. Well, KC went home and cast on an adorable baby sweater. A couple of weeks later, KC had a sweater, hat, booties, and blanket for the baby. She took them back to the store, and left them at the service desk with a note "For your baby. Enjoy."

So you see, KC will knit for random strangers that she meets in the store.

But it seems that waiting to meet people to knit for wasn't enough for KC...

She was driving in the car -- Wait, don't tell me that she stopped at a red light and passed a scarf out the window to the car next to her.

No, let me finish. And she wasn't actually driving the car. Her husband was driving, and she was the passenger. They were riding along and KC saw one of those Stork signs, the ones announcing a birth, in a yard. -- Oh, no. Tell me she didn't stop.

Well, no. They didn't stop. She wanted to, but her husband refused. So she waited until they got home, and then she went back out to where she had seen the sign. It had just happened that she had recently finished a baby blanket. She went up to the door, and when the new mom answered KC introduces herself, tells her that she noticed the sign, and hands her the surprise hand-knit gift. -- How funny.

Oh it gets better. Mom is overwhelmed. They've only been home from the hospital two days, and mom can't believe that someone would do something so nice for her and the baby. She invites KC in, but KC says "No, thank you." Then KC goes on to give mom a lecture on how it isn't safe to invite complete strangers into the house when there's a new baby. In fact, mom probably shouldn't have even opened the door since she doesn't know KC. At this point mom is probably just standing there with her mouth open, and KC turns and leaves. -- Wow. There's nothing else to say to that.