Guided By Love Socks - Only a Week Late!
Finally, a week after my planned release date the stars have aligned to allow me to upload the PDF file to the Ravelry store so that the file can be served to those who purchase the pattern.
This isn’t just another sock pattern. This is a sock pattern with a purpose. A pattern that has lots of personal experience in it. It is a pattern with a story that I hope will do some good for others.
In the later winter of my eighth grade year my mom boarded a plan for New Jersey where she was to stay for an entire month, leaving my dad and my sister and I to fend for ourselves with help from the extended family as needed. My mom was spending a month in Morristown, New Jersey at a special school. She went to Seeing Eye to be trained to use and to take home a Seeing Eye Dog™ (dog guide is the correct generic term if you are unsure whether the dog came from Seeing Eye or not). But her first dog, Sootie, was a black lab who loved the entire family and was as much a part of the family as any of us.
After getting Sootie mom’s world expanded greatly. She has always had a very independent spirit, but living 7 miles outside of a small town on a dairy farm does not lend itself to being terribly self-sufficient. With increased independent mobility mom took on many new obstacles such as learning to use a computer with a screen reader (this was in the DOS 3.1 days). Once she got fairly proficient in computing she even got an associates degree from the area community college.
Today she has had her second dog, Gaston, for about 5 years. She now works part time for the family farm. She speaks to any area church groups, clubs, and scout troops that ask her as long as she can secure transportation. She is also active in a book club at the public library and has been a mentor. All of these she did little or none of before getting Sootie or Gaston. She even travels alone to Colorado to visit me and takes the shuttle so we don’t have to drive to the airport!
The Seeing Eye was the first school in the US to provide dog guides to the visually impaired. Students pay $150 for their first dog. This includes not only the dog and some of the initial supplies such as the special harness and leashes, but also their airline ticket and room and board for the duration of their training session. Successive dogs cost only $50. Students are not allowed to raise funds to pay for their dogs as it is a method to ensure that the new owners can afford the annual upkeep of their dogs. But, as you can imagine $150 (let alone $50) doesn’t even come close to covering airfare let alone the year’s care of the dog during training or the room and board for 28 days. Thus The Seeing Eye is a non-profit organization seeking funds to continue this service for visually impaired persons across the country.
The last I knew, there were ten schools (including Seeing Eye) around the country providing dog guides to the visually impaired. Each school operates a little differently, but I believe they are all non-profit organizations and thus in need of funds to support their work. Some, such as Leader Dogs, are connected to national service organizations to aid in that effort. Many, like The Seeing Eye, are independent. Thus, for every sale of the Guided by Love Socks I will be donating the net profits to further this cause of increasing mobility for visually impaired persons.
More details about the pattern specs are on the pattern page here and at Ravelry. This pattern was met with lots of positive response when first added to the Ravelry database last week (over 80 favs and 60 queues), however due to the technical glitches uploading the PDF not being fixed until yesterday I’m afraid most of the buzz has passed before the pattern could be purchased. I’d really appreciate any assistance in spreading the word about this pattern. I’d really like to be able to make a sizable donation.
