Betty McKnit: American Angels Heroghans

I own and have been monitoring a knit/crochet list for friends and family of people in the military for - I don't know - maybe 5 years now? Some of the members of my list have been knitting and crocheting for charities that support our deployed troops in some way. This summer, when I was on a break from school, I decided that I wanted to join them, and I joined a bunch of yahoo groups looking for the charity that I felt comfortable supporting.

I have knitted/crocheted for the Warm Up America Project but I really wanted to do something for the families of military men and women who were killed in the line of duty. When Jay was a JO his community lost 2 planes in a year - and 10 people along with them - an experience I will never forget. My friend Olga lost her husband with a 4 month old baby at home. A few years later, she lost her life to cancer, leaving her youngest son an orphan. I have never forgotten her pain, and I was looking for something to help comfort people like her. I found American Angels Heroghans and have crocheted a few squares for heroghans this summer.

I should mention that I never can seem to knit or crochet to gauge, so I just make the square as written (usually going up 2 or even 3 needle or hook sizes) then add rows of double, single, or half double crochet to get my square to the 12" specified by American Angels. Sometimes I will try to continue the established pattern of the square (see the WTC memorial square below) until I reach 12".

In looking for squares to crochet, I found some favorite sites:
Chris Simon's Crochet Patterns

Crochet Pattern Centrao

Digital Granny's Virtual Afghan

The first square I made was Chris Simon's Star Overlay square:

Jay really liked the star squares.

After that I moved on to

Chris Simon's Birthday Flower

Then I tried the
World Trade Center Memorial Square. Sometimes designers will make a square and dedicate it to something. This square is by one of my favorite designers, Bonnie Pierce.