The Knitted Knockers Organization and How to Get Involved | Podcast Episode #48

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Why Knitted Knockers?

Knitted Knockers was founded by one courageous woman after hearing the diagnosis so many women fear – breast cancer. When Barb was unable to have reconstructive surgery, she found herself turning to fiber arts to feel “whole” again. Little did she know, this was the start of a new journey; a journey allowing her and a team of volunteers to help so many women simply by doing what they already love doing.

You’ll Learn About

• How Knitted Knockers began and what their mission is.
• About the patterns and resources available to those who would like to donate.
• The process of becoming a knitter or crocheter for Knitted Knockers.
• The required yarn for the most comfortable knockers.
• How you can get involved

Episode Transcript

Brittany: 0:00
You’re listening to the B Hooked Podcast, session number 48 with Brittany. Hi there, welcome to episode number 48 of the B Hooked Podcast. I’m your host, Brittany, and first of all, thank you so much for joining me today. The fact that you’re spending some time with me today, you’ve decided to listen to this podcast over some potential others in your playlist, well, that means the absolute world to me.

Especially for this month, January of 2018, my central focus is to… encourage you to crochet or knit for charity this month if you can do so. Oh gosh, it would just mean the absolute world to me. So throughout this month, I have organized, well, a couple of episodes.

If you go back three episodes to episode number 45, you’ll hear about some of my favorite organizations, some really easy ones to get involved with. Then followed by the next episode, you’ll hear from Mary from Warm Up America telling us all about that wonderful organization. And today, I’m going to be chatting with Barb, and she is the amazing woman behind Knitted Knockers.

Well, before we get into my interview with Barb, I want to remind you about a really big event that’s going on this month, actually in a couple of days. It’s going to kick off at BeHookedCrochet.com. Well, every single year we do a crochet challenge for Warm Up America. It is, yes, that organization that you were introduced to back in episode number 47.

And I am just extremely passionate about this event. It is my favorite pattern, my favorite event of the entire year. And I know it’s one of your favorites, too. I am asked about this event twice. When this time of year starts to roll around, people are expecting, okay, when’s the next challenge going to be? And it just warms my heart that you guys are so excited about this project.

Well, there is currently a list of supplies that are available, the pattern and the tutorial, at the time that this podcast episode airs. It is not available yet, but it will be in just a few days. On January 27th at midnight, the pattern and the tutorial for Crochet Challenge for Warm Up America will be available at BeHookedCrochet.com and that is your cue to get going with this project because we have a time limit. We have until February 24th to postmark our Afghans.

To find out more about this challenge, there’s a couple things you can do. The first thing that you can do that’s really easy is you can just go back one episode to episode 47, I chat about the entire process, what that looks like for that whole episode. So that’s one really quick, easy way you can consume that information.

Or if you prefer to read and kind of see it, you can go to behookedcrochet.com. You will find the get prepared for the challenge post right there at the top of the homepage. You’ll see it right there in big bold print. You can’t miss it. I will also include the link to that post in the show notes, which by the way, for this episode is BeHookedCrochet.com slash session 048.

You don’t have to memorize any of the links or resources I talk about here in the intro or my guest talks about during the interview. I will have all of that information for you right there on that page. So the only thing you have to memorize is BeHookedCrochet.com slash session 048.

Well, I am so passionate about this organization because I know that so many of us have been impacted by breast cancer, whether it be ourselves or a loved one. It’s so unfortunate that we have all experienced it in some way or another. And when I learned about this organization I just, I had to share it with you. It’s so amazing.

If this is the route that you would like to take to crochet or knit for charity this month and in the coming months, you’re really going to enjoy my talk with Barb. So I’m not going to delay anymore. Let’s listen in to Barb from Knitted Knockers. Barb, hi, welcome to the Be Hooked podcast.

Barb: 4:55
Hi, I am so happy to be here today. Thank you.

Brittany: 5:16
Who have had to deal with breast cancer, whether it be themselves or with their family. And I know that your story is going to inspire those people. The first thing I want to do is just hear a little bit about you. Can you tell me your story and how Knitted Knockers evolved?

Barb: 5:34
Yeah. Well, it was in 2011 when I heard the words that no woman wants to hear, that I had breast cancer. And you know, it was the start of a journey that I was not excited to take, that’s for sure. But we don’t have a choice.

So I… immediately was concerned about losing my hair and I hoped I didn’t have to have a mastectomy. And I did have to have a mastectomy and I thought, you know, it’d still be okay. Nobody really needs to know because I can be immediately reconstructed. And due to complications, though, that didn’t happen.

And so then I was faced with what am I gonna do now? And I had not brought in my friends, I just was a pretty private person and didn’t want anybody to know. So I just really didn’t have that support around me that would have been helpful at that time.

But anyway, faced with the decision of what I was going to wear to get back to life, I made a phone call to a local cancer support group and asked, what can I get to wear? And I’ll never forget the voice on the other end of the line. said oh honey I am so sorry but you can’t put anything on that scar for at least six weeks and I was just like devastated six weeks I want to get back to work I need to get back to life six weeks it was truly the low point for me I it was the first time I cried.

And so it was later that week when I was in at my doctor’s office and I picked up a brochure for the traditional breast prosthetics and I was holding that and my doctor he looked at me and he said you know many women are not satisfied with that as a solution they can be hot and heavy and sticky and they require special bras and they’re pretty expensive.

And so I said to him well what am I going to do I have to wear something and he asked me do you knit I was stunned. I was like, yeah, why? And he said, because I’ve never seen one, but I’ve heard there’s such a thing as a knitted knocker.

So I went home and I called my dear friend Phyllis, who is a very avid knitter. And I said, Phyllis, have you ever heard of a knitted knocker? And she said, no, but I’ll find out.

And so it was the following week when I ventured out into public for the first time. And I was very self-conscious. I went to church. I put on a loose fitting jacket and I stuck a sock in my bra and went to church.

Well, here comes Phyllis, tripping into church with a Victoria’s Secret bag. How appropriate. And she handed it to my husband and she says, here, give this to Barb and don’t look in it.

Well, I knew right away what it was when he gave it to me. So I went into the bathroom and I pulled out the most beautiful knitted knocker. It was soft. It was light. It was beautiful. beautiful and it was made by somebody who cared so I whipped out that sock from my bra and plopped that in and it literally changed my life it just it it was just awesome.

So I went back I took off my loose fitting jacket and I went out and I re-engaged with life and I just knew then that we need to provide these knitted knockers to women everywhere. So when they’re at their doctor’s office and they’re at their most vulnerable time going through mastectomy, that they can pick out their own knitted knocker and take it home with them or pair.

If it’s a double mastectomy, um, we needed to be a Phyllis for everybody out there. And yeah. So I went to my doctor and I said to him, I said, if we provide these to you, would you hand them out? And he said, we would love to do that.

And so I, I, uh, got Phyllis and I got a few local knitters and we started making them and I’m just going to fast forward a bit for those of you wondering we also developed a crochet pattern for those of you shears yeah it’s awesome it’s beautiful anyway uh we um started making them and uh the patients loved them and the doctor loved them and we were just knitting away happily.

And then we decided you know this is too good to just keep for to ourselves and so we posted a pattern online we created a website knittedknockers.org and we posted the pattern online and encouraged people to make them for their own communities for their own doctors and such.

Well women started ordering knitted knockers from us. We created the option so that they could do that. And I started out of my laundry room, just gathering up these knitted knockers and stuffing them and mailing them out to women free of charge, wherever they ordered them from.

And so our little group grew and we kept knitting, but we realized that this was too much for any one group, that there were 50,000 mastectomy done a year in the United States alone. And with one out of eight women being diagnosed with breast cancer, we all know somebody who has had breast cancer.

And so as the word got out, the demand just increased tremendously. So we really got intentional and worked hard in order to inspire and equip people to make these knitted and crocheted shade knockers for the people in their own communities because we knew that together we could do it if we all just replicated this model.

So as time went on we realized that most women when they requested their knockers they would request a neutral color we gave color choices but the beiges and off whites and browns were definitely the most requested and yet the knitters and crocheters seem to like making these bright, fun ones.

So we really worked on getting the word out as to what the women requested. And I’ll just interject here that we do have an approved yarn list. We’ve developed and tested a number of yarns, and we have 30 different yarns on this approved yarn list.

If a listener is interested, they can find it at… knittedknockers.org and we Yeah, they’ve just been tested and approved for knitted knockers.

So, anyway, I wanted to tell a funny story. As we’re knitting along, making these beiges and off-whites, Phyllis, one day, she dropped off a bag of knitted knockers that she’s made, which, by the way, she’s made over 600 of them at this point.

Yeah, she dropped them by for stuffing and processing to take into our local doctor’s office. Well, there was this big, big, hairy knocker. I mean, it was made with eyelash yarn. Those of you that know what that is, it’s long, hairy yarn.

And it was purple with green hair and orange specks. And it was a big knocker. It was like a double D. We make all different sizes of knockers. And I thought to myself, oh my gosh, what is she thinking? Nobody’s going to want this hairy knocker.

But we stuffed it and we put it in the basket that goes to the doctor’s office. And we figure, well, maybe someone will choose that.

Well, it wasn’t any time at all. And I got an email from this woman. And she said, I just wanted to thank you for my knitted knocker. I was in at my doctor’s office and I was all dejected and depressed, wondering what I was going to do.

And the doctor brought out this bag of knitted knockers. And she said, as I looked through this bag, I saw one jewel that shone brighter than the rest. It was purple and hairy and it had orange specks in it. And it made me smile at a really dark time.

So I want to thank you for that. And then she went on to say, and my friends just marvel at the beauty of it when they whip it out and show them what I show them.

Brittany: 15:22
Oh, that is too funny. Who would have known that that fur yarn would be so popular? But I know it and feeling that it’s very soft. So I bet it’s very comfortable to wear.

Barb: 15:33
Well actually I need to finish this story because we do not distribute hairy knockers. It’s not on the approved yarn list. Most of our knockers are made out of cotton and not all cottons are the same. Some wash up stiff and some don’t wear as well as others and such, but we try to avoid allergies and all different kinds of things.

But anyway, I just thought that was a funny story. And with that said, if anybody’s thinking about helping us out, which we hope you are, we do have that list of approved yarns. We have guidelines as to what’s the most useful and the most requested. And so just go to knittedknockers.org and we can get that information to you.

Brittany: 16:21
Perfect. Wait, man, you have such an incredible story, and I love how you just told us that funny little story, too, as you were kind of working through the details and just kind of figuring things out as an organization probably early on. It’s really neat that you were able to just completely change somebody’s day with that one thing that you weren’t even sure anybody would want.

And what I want to highlight, though, is your mission. If you could sort of cliff note your mission, what would it look like?

Barb: 16:59
Well, our mission is to connect volunteer knitters and crocheters with breast cancer survivors to provide them with free knitted knockers. And so initially, our goal was to provide these great gifts of caring to women, the women that could use them.

But as time went on, we learned that there was more to it than that. As women started requesting their knitted knockers, they would tell us their story. They would say, oh, my gosh, where have you been? I’ve been wearing these hot, heavy, sticky things forever. And, you know, these are so wonderful. Thank you so much for making them.

And then they would go on and they would say, you know, I’ve had lymphedema or I’ve struggled with this or I’ve got stage three cancer or my sister is struggling with this. They tell us their story and it’s become a place of healing. And they know that we understand. So it’s not something you always talk about in public, your challenges and your struggles with mastectomy.

And so we’ve become a place where we can show we love and care about each other.

I, you know, I’ve been asked if we could manufacture these because with the demand being so great for them—we send out about a thousand a month many months and all over the country and we’re actually in 16 international countries now—but I’ve been asked if we could manufacture them and the answer is yeah we could but we don’t want to because it would lose too much.

Because the other side of the equation was that was somewhat unexpected is those of us that are making them—the value that it has brought to our lives—it’s brought passion and purpose to our crafting, our knitting and our crocheting that maybe we didn’t have before.

And me personally I was feeling very empty in my life and I had, I prayed to God. I said, God, give me a passionate purpose. Show me what you would have for me for this next stage of my life.

And, you know, I didn’t think the answer was going to come via breast cancer. Not that I believe that God gave me that. Not at all. But, you know, the passion and purpose that has come out of reaching out to help others really took the focus off myself and really became a positive part of my life.

Factor and we hear that from so many of our people that are making these knitted knockers. So the mission to provide these to others, knitters and crocheters, I mean, to provide to women that have had mastectomy also encompasses to provide passion and purpose to those of us that are willing and able to care and use our skills and talents to help others.

And I like to share the story of Anne. Anne is an elderly woman that came to our group. We have about 25 people that meet every Wednesday at our local yarn shop. And we are processing knockers, getting them ready to mail out that week and fill that week’s orders. And she came and she just quietly sat down and started crocheting a knocker.

Brittany: 20:38
Mm-hmm.

Barb: 20:38
She didn’t hardly say a word. And we’re just jabbering, having a great time, laughing and everything. Well, when it came time to leave, I followed Ann out to her car and I said, Ann, I said, it was so great to have you here today. I’m just so glad you came.

And she said, looked at me and she said, you know, I lost my husband a few years ago. And she said, I’ve been grieving just awful ever since. I’ve gone to support groups. I’ve gone to counseling. I’ve gone, I’ve tried all kinds of things.

And she said, nothing has helped like this has, knowing that I can still make a difference in somebody else’s life.

Well, Ann came back every week after that. And she was the most gregarious of the bunch. She’s laughing and engaged. And I just think that’s a good illustration of what happens when we start caring about others.

And so this has become a vehicle for that.

Brittany: 21:40
Man, I got goosebumps when I just heard that story and how it changed her life. That is amazing.

When people think about crocheting for a charity or for an organization. I mean, yeah, we kind of get all the good vibes about it. But for the people who are physically doing it, I feel like the impact and their story about that is going to be so much better than what you could imagine as sort of somebody on the outside looking in.

So I really do encourage people to just… extend a hand and help even if it’s just making one knocker that’s just do it once just make one and see how you feel and I can probably guarantee you probably get multiple donations from the same person.

Barb: 22:32
We do. And we work very hard to show our appreciation to people. We make it as easy as possible for people to help. We have video tutorials on how to knit and how to crochet great knockers and what to do with them when you’re done.

And, you know, it’s really a fun project because it’s so portable. You can throw it in your purse. You put it in a baggie. It’s so small. Most of the knockers you can make in two to three hours. Me, I’m more of a three to four hour person.

But it’s an intermediate knit project because it’s knit on double point needles. I’m not a crocheter, but I’m told it’s a very simple pattern for crochet. And it’s fun to knit them in public because somebody will walk along and they’ll say, what are you making?

And you’ll look at them and you’ll go, uh… You may not want to know, but you tell them what it is, and most everybody will say, oh my gosh, my mother could have used that, or I could use that, or my sister, or I would like to help.

And so it grows. We have over 200 groups in the United States that are making knitted knockers for their own states and filling orders for their states. And so it’s great to plug into those groups. So we can use lots of knitters and crocheters.

But here’s my most exciting thing that we’re moving into now. We’ve been doing this for about six years. And so we get, you know, hundreds if not thousands of orders every month coming in for knitted knockers at knittedknockers.org.

Well, what we do is we forward those to our groups from their states to fill those orders and so we have 200 groups that are actually filling orders that come in from women in their state. We help facilitate that and that’s just awesome.

But we also have not lost sight of our desire to provide those knitted knockers at the doctor’s offices where women are the most vulnerable going through breast cancer. And so we have signed up over 500 medical clinics across the country where we support them by providing them with sample knockers to show their patients and information where women can go online and then order their knitted knockers.

But that’s not my most favorite thing. My most favorite thing is when we can have a group or an individual adopt one of these medical clinics to provide the knockers directly to them, just like we do to our doctors here in Washington State.

So, you know, we have information to help them with that. We have the print materials we provide free of charge, the brochures for the doctor’s offices. We have the care instructions that get added to the knockers.

We just need the knockers, somebody to knit them or crochet them, stuff them and take those into the doctor’s offices for them to hand out.

So if anybody out there is listening, is interested in adopting a clinic or has a connection with a clinic that perhaps hasn’t heard about us, encourage them to register with us at knittedknockers.org.

And if you’re interested in providing to them register with us as a knitter or crocheter at knittedknockers.org and say you’re interested in that and we will help you get started to doing that.

Out of those 500 medical clinics, we 367 of them want to be adopted. So we have them all over the country and we are going to some medical conferences in March and May where we’re going to be connecting with a thousand more clinics.

So it’s so exciting to me because to me that is people helping their own communities, the women of their own communities, you know anything we can do to facilitate that we just are all.

Brittany: 26:56
A wonderful idea that is. That just, like you said, it gives people a great way to connect and help people in their own community. But having that kind of system in place, I imagine that is going to have a prolific effect. And it’s just going to send a ripple of knitted knockers across the country. Because if one group adopts one clinic, I mean, wow, that’s… You’re covering all your bases there. That’s amazing.

I’m curious a little bit about kind of the technical side of things for us as people who are donating. Can we talk a little bit about, well, you’ve mentioned that you have patterns available. Maybe could you let me know where those are available? And I do want to get into the yarn. You talked about the yarn list. Maybe you can name a few off the top of your head. I know a lot of us have some spare cotton in our stash. And maybe if we have the right cotton, then we could just go ahead. We don’t have an excuse at that point, right? We can just go ahead and make one with those scraps.

And the care instructions for people who receive those, I’m really curious about that, too.

Barb: 28:08
Yeah. The patterns are freely available. You can download them for free at knittedknockers.org. Make sure it’s .org. There’s no .com. And so knittedknockers.org, we have the patterns, we have the tutorials on how to make them, and we have the approved yarns list.

As much as we’d like to think, hey, we’ve got all this leftover yarn, we can use that, it’s unlikely that most of that yarn is going to work because there’s nothing that’s worn more intimately and more often than this knitted knocker and it’s against sensitive scarred skin in many cases.

And so we have literally tested these thoroughly—these yarns—and we’ve tested over a hundred yarns and we have a list of 30 approved. Of those hundred you’d think looking at them, “Oh, this should work, this is soft,” but there’s a number of criteria we look at, so we’ve done the work for you.

I hesitate to list some names; I’d rather they would go to the website and if you download the pattern, the approved list is right with it. It’s right there for you.

And unfortunately, we’ve not been able to find many yarns that are at the big box stores. We’re excited there is one that’s rolling out soon and there’s another one, Peyton’s Grace, I think. I am going to throw that name out, I believe, is available at some of the big box stores. But most of them can be found at your local yarn shops.

And we have 400 yarn shops signed up with us offering approved yarns at discounts and such. And also on our website are some links to get some yarn at discounted rates if you wish.

It costs about a dollar twenty to two dollars to make a knitted knocker in yarn off of our approved list and that’s at full price. If there’s a discount, you know, it’s even better sometimes. Sometimes like our local yarn shop, Apple Yarns, has been a great supporter of knitted knockers and they’ve been running an amazing deal but I think that ends at the end of January, so if you want to get yarn there—yeah. I’m not trying to plug anybody. I really want to support everybody where they’re at.

But anyway, if you knit or crochet knockers but you don’t know what to do with them, we help with that too. You knit or crochet them, you don’t need to stuff them, you don’t need to do anything except for put them in an envelope and mail them to us and we’ll take it from there and make sure it gets into the hands of the people that can use them.

If you are interested in connecting with a local medical facility you let us know and we’ll help you do that too.

Brittany: 31:19
Perfect. I’m curious, too. Are there any online stores maybe that carry—yes? Okay. Are those listed on the website, too?

Barb: 31:27
They are not. I’ve really worked hard to not try to– I want to include everybody. So if you do a search for the yarns online, you will find online stores.

Brittany: 31:40
Okay. You bet. Perfect. You betcha. That’s an easier route to take. Okay, great. So all we have to do is make them. We don’t really have to stuff them. You make it so easy for us, to be honest. What happens on your end? So once you receive it, then what happens? How do you know like where to pair it and who to take it to?

Barb: 32:01
Yeah, well, that’s a great question. You mentioned pair. We encourage people to make pairs—two of the same color—and if you get bored with making beiges and off whites and browns, change up the color on the back, have fun that way. But I don’t think that’s what your question was—how do we take it from there?

We have a great video that is The Journey of a Knitted Knocker which takes it from the start where somebody’s making it all the way to the end user. But in a nutshell, or a quick review:

Those knitted knockers are mailed to us. We open the package, we take them out, we review them to make sure they’re approved yarn. We ask people to put their yarn label in with it or at least tell us what the yarn is so we don’t have to figure it out.

And if there’s a flaw—if the nipple’s too big or there’s a flaw in it or we see something not correct—we have a team that sits there and fixes those knockers. And one of our volunteers generates a thank you note to that person to say, thank you so much for sending these to us. They’re great. We appreciate you.

Or we use that as an opportunity to, in a positive way, we hope to encourage them to do something a little different. For instance, if the nipple’s too big, you know, we might encourage them to make them without nipples, which is an option or whatever.

Then that knocker is handed over to the stuffing team. There’s a group of ladies—and we have men involved too—that will sit there and stuff these knockers. Then they will get sorted by size and we have a room where we accumulate those singles and pairs and brights and neutrals.

Then we have a team that actually fills the orders that have come in online and actually takes them and physically puts them in the bags. A volunteer has printed the labels and off they go in the mail.

We have a volunteer that takes them to the post office and we take huge bags to the post office. It’s pretty amazing, the operation.

Brittany: 34:21
Yeah, it sounds like you’ve got it down to a science now. I definitely want to link to that video in the show notes page so people can take a look at that because I’m sure that’s a very cool resource that you’re offering there. So I want people to just be able to consume that. Yeah.

Barb: 34:41
That’d be awesome, love to do that. Also, all those videos you can find them on knittedknockers.org. There’s a how-to link and under that it’s got the patterns, it’s got video tutorials, it’s got lots and lots of fun videos.

We’ve had some pretty tremendous publicity. We’ve got links to fun things there. We were chosen as the charity of the month by the Seattle Seahawks NFL team which they had a bad season this year so it’s not as great—but we were chosen two years ago and that was a great honor and it got the word out to a huge segment that we wouldn’t have been able to reach otherwise.

And Dear Abby ran a letter about knitted knockers and we had 10,000 orders come in from that. 10,000 women go, oh my gosh, where have you been? And it took us three months, but we filled those 10,000 orders.

Wow, that’s incredible. Yeah, yeah. It was quite a feat, but it was a joy to be able to do it.

Brittany: 35:54
Absolutely. Well, let’s say somebody knows that they want to get involved with this.

Barb: 36:01
Yes.

Brittany: 36:01
What is the first thing that they should do?

Barb: 36:04
The first thing they should do is to go to knittedknockers.org. And they should, you know, review a couple videos, make sure it’s something they want to do. But then register with us under the registry that says Knitter Crocheter.

Now, there’s no commitment with registering. That’s just giving us your information. And it’s going to generate a response from us that says, basically, we’re so happy to hear from you. Here’s ways you can help.

And we attach a picture of a perfect knitted knocker and crocheted. We attach the approved yarn list and we attach a pattern packet of information.

And then if we never hear from you again—no problem. We don’t bug you.

If you see one of those ways to help that you’d say, yeah, I’d like to do that, I’d like to be listed on your directory, which we have over 500 groups and individuals listed on our directory so people can find me and we can network together to help.

Brittany: 37:15
Okay.

Barb: 37:17
That’s one of the ways that they can respond and say, yeah, I want to be listed on the directory. Or, yeah, I want to help provide to a medical clinic. We can help them get plugged in. That’s the best way.

Also, a way that people can help is to share on Facebook. We have a great Facebook page. We have about 32,000 followers. And we post about once a week. You’re not going to get a tremendous long line of posts. We only post knitted knocker stuff, which is inspirational in its own self.

But go on Facebook and just go knitted knockers and we should come up. We have a pink ribbon in our logo. Like us and you will see the posts of what’s going on and various groups and such. Share that—share our posts—because not only does that reach other knitters and crocheters, it also reaches women that may not have heard about knitted knockers that may go, oh my gosh, I could use this.

I see comments all the time from people sharing it with Susie. Susie, could you make me one of these? You know, this sort of thing.

Brittany: 38:37
That brings up another question, too. We focused a lot on how people can get involved as far as making them. But for the person who might be in the audience who knows somebody who needs a knocker or they need a knocker themselves, what does that person do? Do they have to go through a clinic or can they request one directly from the website?

Barb: 38:59
You can request one from the website. You bet. We give away 1,000 a month, as I had mentioned, at knittedknockers.org. There’s a “Request a Knocker” link. You fill out a shopping cart, just like you’re shopping at Amazon. Wow. But it’s free.

You get to choose your size—A, B, C, D, double D. You’ve got to put your band width in there, too. Band width, band size. So, like a 38C, that sort of thing. It helps us guide for sizing, whether you need a single size or a pair.

You have three color choices: the brights, the neutrals, or the darks. That order will be forwarded to someone from your state who will mail you the knitted knockers. And if they have any questions or concerns, they will contact you via the method that you’ve selected—either phone or email—if they need more information.

We also have a newsletter list that you will be subscribed to unless you opt out. And don’t be afraid of that. I think we send out about one email a year. Yeah. But anyway, you can totally opt out of that at that time. I didn’t—shouldn’t have even gone there. But anyway, we just want to stay connected if we can.

We have sent out, I think it was, 38,000 knockers this last year via the website. So that’s not counting ones that have been handed out directly through the community. So a lot of women are utilizing this service.

And then just to throw out some numbers—don’t glaze over—our patterns have been downloaded over 800,000 times. And the videos have been viewed over—oh, now I drew a brain fade—I think about 380,000 times, something like that.

We’re in—we have knitters and crocheters in all 50 states, but we have state providers that are filling for their own states in all states but four. And we are in 16 countries internationally. We’ve got a lot of exciting things happening worldwide.

Brittany: 41:14
Yeah, I’m curious. I’m going to totally put you on the spot here. And if you don’t have the answer right now, then we’ll coordinate after we’re done here. Do you know those four states?

Barb: 41:26
You have put me on the spot, and I don’t. I have such awesome volunteers that handle this stuff. They’ve just told me we have four states that are not. I’m pretty sure North Dakota is one of them. It seems like that part of the country, we have not had that much publicity, so the word is not really out there.

And I think—oh boy, I better not even— I was going to say Montana too, but I could be wrong. Somebody out there is going, no, no, no, I’m the state provider for Montana.

Brittany: 41:56
That’s okay. I don’t want to completely put you on the spot. My reason for asking is I want to challenge listeners that if they live in one of those four states, that they be the person to sign up for that, to register, to adopt a clinic.

And what I’ll do, since we don’t have the answer right now, we’ll coordinate after we get off the line here. And I will, I’ll let you all know here in just a few moments, actually in the outro, because these interviews are pre-recorded. So I will let you know what four states those are and challenge you that if you live in one of those states, that you be the person to stand up and say yes. Does that sound good?

Barb: 42:37
Yeah, and I just want to clarify, you said an adopted clinic. What we’re talking about here is actually filling orders by mailing them out to the women, the requests that come in.

So a state provider is somebody that has agreed to send out orders that come in and fill orders that come in from through knittedknockers.org from the women in their state. And it’s not a scary thing.

Some people think, oh my gosh, I couldn’t do that. I might have to send a hundred knockers out. I can’t do that. No, no, no, no. You’re usually not the only one. Many states have 10 or 15 providers in them and they all share the “burden.”

But the beautiful thing is, is we always have everybody’s back. Like for instance, Texas got inundated because of the publicity—there were some TV spots and some newspaper stuff about knitted knockers—they got inundated with orders.

And so we had state providers from other states that have said I’ll help out Texas, so they step in and they help fill those orders. But if it’s too much for them, we at our headquarters here in Washington always will fill those orders that can’t get filled locally.

We don’t want any woman to go without her knockers. And we try to fill them out within two weeks. And if an order gets longer than that, it goes to a separate status where any state provider can pick them up.

And trust me, we have states that are gung-ho and they’ve got more knockers than they do requests. So they’re happy to fill those orders.

Brittany: 44:24
Let me ask you this. Does the state provider have to be an individual or could it maybe be a group?

Barb: 44:30
No, most of them are groups. A lot of them will start as an individual, but they’ll gather up their knitting guild or their church group or a group. Yeah. And most people are just knitting out of their homes and filling these out of their homes.

But a beautiful way is to connect with your local yarn shop because the yarn shops—we love to equip them to promote Knitted Knockers as their charity project, too, because they can sell the yarn that’s a natural yarn, place where people gather.

They can meet there usually once a week to fill the orders and that sort of thing. And we have all kinds of materials set up to help with that. We really have tried to make it easy for people to help out in whatever capacity that they have.

Now we have plenty of state providers and so we’re not really seeking a whole lot of those. But those four states, I really tell you, we really could use them. I wish I had that—who those were—in front of me. And I don’t have a quick way to access that or else I’d tell you right now. But I’ll get those to you.

Brittany: 45:39
Well, that’s no problem at all. Like I said, I’ll include it in the closer so people know right off the bat. And we’ve talked about—well, we’ve covered a lot of ground. We’ve talked about a lot of different resources.

And I just want to remind listeners that you don’t have to memorize any of this information. It’s all going to be included in the show notes. I want to link to or at least provide information for how people can register if they want to get involved, where the videos and the patterns are located, how they can register to adopt a clinic—that’s something else we mentioned—and the journey of Knitted Knockers video.

So I’ll include all of that stuff in the show notes for people to have easy and quick access to. And I just want to thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to come on the show and share not only your story, but the incredible mission behind Knitted Knockers.

It’s been such a breath of fresh air to… and motivating, really, for me to just find whatever time that I have to be able to donate what I can. So I want to thank you for that, and thank you for motivating the listeners as well.

Barb: 46:47
Oh, it’s been my pleasure. I would love to just summarize three ways people can help. One is if you can knit or crochet, make knitted knockers. The second is share on social media. Get the word out.

And third, donate. We are a nonprofit, 501c3, no paychecks anywhere. We’re all volunteer, and we only survive because of donations, and that can be done on knittedknockers.org or mailing in.

So anyway, it’s been a great joy sharing our passion and purpose with your listeners, and I just hope that somebody’s been inspired out there to help make a difference.

But not only that, if you are a listener and have a question, have had breast cancer, have had a mastectomy or a lumpectomy, got a chunk out of your breast, these work great for you too. We’d love to help you.

And if this is not the project for you, you can still help us by sharing about it. Thank you so much.

Brittany: 47:54
If you would like to get involved with Knitted Knockers, just head over to the show notes page. I’m going to have all of the information there, including those four states that we’re really trying to encourage somebody to step up in and be the person who can provide for those orders.

Once again, the show notes page can be found at bhookedcrochet.com/session048. And again, I’ll have all of the links and resources there. You don’t have to memorize a single thing. I want to make this process as simple and easy as possible for you so that you can use your valuable time making it a knitted knocker or a crocheted knocker.

The last thing I want to remind you about is the Crochet Challenge for Warm Up America that is kicking off January 27th at midnight. The pattern and tutorials will be available for you to dive in and take part in this amazing movement, this ripple that we have created at BHooked Crochet and for Warm Up America.

It’s a wonderful cause. It’s a pretty low barrier to entry. You’ll need to buy your yarn and pay for the shipping to send your afghan to Warm Up America. But man, it is for such a good cause.

If I can answer any questions for you whatsoever about taking part in this challenge, don’t hesitate to drop me an email, brittany@behookedcrochet.com, or you can leave a comment on the resource page that is currently available for that challenge.

Once again, you can find that linked in the show notes, BeHookedCrochet.com/session048. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today. I just want you to know how much I appreciate you and how grateful I am that you tune in week after week.

And I will look forward to serving you in next week’s episode of the BeHooked podcast. I’ll see you then, guys. Have a wonderful weekend. Bye-bye.