Comfort for Critters

158,549 blankets donated so far!

(Thank you all!)

Support our mission with the purchase of our pattern books: Crochet for Critters & Crochet for Your Comfort. Each book has 30 crochet patterns that are perfect for pet blankets. They also tell the story of CFC and why crafting helps the crafter along with the pet! Every purchase keeps us going and keeps us shipping our free blankets!

E-books here!

Paperback "Crochet for Critters" on Amazon!

Paperback "Crochet for Your Comfort" on Amazon!

2,495 Blankets

91 Shelters

37 States

115 Volunteers

• We helped over two thousand pets in December by donating a total of 2,495 blankets to shelters!

• 91 different shelters, in 37 states received our blankets, and most received a handful of toys as well!

• These blessings were only possible, due to the 115 volunteers and supporters who helped. Thank you!

56% of dog owners and 42% of cat owners buy holiday gifts for their pets.

I can't believe it's so low!

• Updates on our mission
• Pet information
• Craft ideas & patterns
• Animal shelter updates
• Easy ways to help pets
• Lots of "thank you's" for volunteers

Have questions? Check out our new FAQ page!

If you'd like to keep up to date on our mission, follow us on Facebook! We also have a Facebook Group, "The Comfort for Critters Team", where we share what we're working on, pet and craft humor, and tip & tricks for making beautiful blankets. It's a private group that stays 100% positive, 100% of the time! Please consider joining us!

Please join me in welcoming these new shelters, which have joined our 400+ list of shelters in December. As always, please support them if you can (and let me know, please!).

Humane Society of Monroe County

~ Monroe, MI ~

Feral Kitty Trappers

~ Wolverine Lake, MI ~

We are now donating 1,500-2,000 blankets  regularly every month, which is awesome! It's also A LOT of blankets to filter in and out of my house every month. 

With this in mind, we're asking all out-of-state volunteers to please donate your blankets directly to a shelter right in your own state!

I can help you find a shelter near you, and will do all the work getting them signed up. If you choose a shelter from our website list, I can promise you that in-state shipping will be less costly than sending them to me. I do ask though that you let me know....so that I can update my records!

Benefits of donating your blankets locally:

• Cheaper than shipping them to Illinois (if you're out of state)!
• You can email them for a tax receipt and possibly write off the donation (please check with your tax professional).​​
• You'll also get to hear just how much the shelter staff appreciates the blankets. Thank you!!!

Once you make blankets:

• Local volunteers are welcome to drop off their blankets to a shelter near them or to CFC's headquarters in Glen Ellyn, IL. Please leave your name and email on whatever you drop off, so that I can send a thank you note.
• If you're outside of our area, please check our "Animal Shelters We Support" page to find a shelter in your state. Then ship your blankets directly to the shelter or drop them off. PLEASE let me know how many you donate, via email or by using our website form. If you'd like help, signing up a local shelter, please email me! 

Please be patient:

• Keep in mind that CFC is a small organization, with just one staff member! I do reply to every email, but it may take me a few days. Thanks!

January/February 2023      ~ Critter News ~

Welcome to 2023!

As I wrap up a busy 2022, and kicked off 2023, I remain extremely grateful for every member of the CFC team. I'm often asked how everything gets done and my answer is always, "it's not me!" It's every one of our volunteers that make blankets, drop off blankets, donate funds for shipping, buy my e-books, and a dozen other things that make CFC happen. Thank you all! Here's a recap of what you accomplished in 2022. Simply amazing!

Blankets donated in 2022 = 24,020 

Shelters helped in 2022 = 410

Total number of volunteers = 1,028

I was thrilled to see that we now have volunteers in 45 of the 50 states, plus Washington DC. Volunteers are still needed in AK, ID, LA, ME & OK. We also had volunteers making blankets in the UK, Canada, Germany and Hong Kong, sending them to me for US pets. Among our great group of helpers, 75 volunteers made over 100 blankets during the year. Wow!!!

In other news...I'll be starting a brand new job, in a brand new industry (for me), mid-January. It will be longer hours and more time away from home. With this in mind, I'm making a few changes to CFC, so that I can continue to manage it and keep my sanity! 

The most obvious change will be a bi-monthly, not monthly, newsletter. I create all the content each month, so this will be a real time-saver. Prepare yourself for a very long list of shelters in each double-issue! I've also added a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page to the website, to cut down on some of the emails I receive each month. You may find this information useful, even if you've been a long time volunteer.

Also, if you're ever wondering which shelter in your state needs blankets, you can be assured that they all have a tremendous need. It's extremely rare for a shelter to "have enough blankets", so feel free to send yours to whichever shelter is most convenient (and please let me know!). I'll still be tracking what every shelter receives each month, but I won't be tracking it by each volunteer. I know most of the volunteers keep their own records on how many blankets they've made, so I felt this was a duplication. If you have any questions on these changes, please feel free to email me via this website.

Once again, I can't thank you enough for all your support and expect only great things as we transition a bit in 2023!

Wishing you a year filled with joy & blessings,  

Linda

A big thank you goes to every volunteer that helps our mission to comfort homeless pets. I hope you enjoy these comments, left on our website by fellow volunteers, on why they work so hard to help others!

• "I started making blankets when my first dog was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I couldn't help her, but I could channel my grief into something productive to help other animals. My running total is now 200 blankets donated since 2017!" ~ Jamie L. in WI

• "I love cats and dogs, and I hope that the blankets I make will help comfort them while they wait for a home of their own and will also help them, like a security blanket, as they settle into their new home when they're adopted." ~ Barbara B. in TN ​

• "What motivates me to make blankets? I care!" ~ Cindy B. in IA​

• "My blankets are just a token of my affection for all creatures." ~ Denise L. in FL

• "I have always loved animals and give back or foster dogs when I can. I'm so glad that another rescue in my area has joined CFC. Now I have a couple to donate to!" ~ Zandra A. in VA 

As we start another year of comforting pets, I hope you'll enjoy these thank you notes from the shelters we support. Not all shelters have the time to thank each person that donates, so I hope these will encourage you to keep crafting and keep helping!

• "We are always excited to receive the blankets from you guys, they're very appreciated by both staff and critters alike!! Thank you so much for continuing to send them our way. Not only are they comfy for the fur babies, they look much more festive and adorable than the plain bath towels we often use alternatively. We love them!" ~ H.A.L.O. No-Kill Rescue in Sebastian, FL

• "Thank you so much for your gift of handmade blankets. They are so beautiful! Our animals love these!" ~ Animal Welfare Society in West Kennebunk, ME

• "We love the blankets your volunteers send for the cats and kittens in our care. The adopters are always very appreciative and we're careful to explain that they were made and donated by members of Comfort for Critters. We recommend that they take the door off the cat's carrier and leave the blanket in it, so the cat has a familiar safe spot to hang out for the first few days in their new home!" ~ Cat Tails in Ocean Isle Beach, NC

• "Thank you for the luxurious, fleece blankets for our rescued cats awaiting adoption. We can't wait to get these blankets into the hands of our cat foster volunteers and into the paws of our foster cats. Thank you again to the entire team at Comfort for Critters. You make a difference!" ~ Cat Welfare Advocates in San Jose, CA ​

If you're looking for another way to help Comfort for Critters, we have some ideas! Any additional help will help us keep helping pets!

Of course making blankets is the number one way of helping, but these ideas offer additional and creative ways to lend a hand. All would be appreciated! Please email me via the website if you have questions or need more information. Thank you!

• Make doggie rope toys from your extra fleece. Click here for directions.
• We mail about 40 thank you cards each and every month. We'd love some handmade thank you cards for us to send, or simply donate your unused, blank greeting cards.
• Coloring can be quite relaxing. If you agree, we have pages that can be colored and included with the groups of blankets you drop off at shelters. Or if you send the colored pages to headquarters, we'll include them in the boxes we ship! Click here for the packet of coloring pages.
• Make some cat toy rings to include with the blankets you donate or donate them to headquarters for us to send with our blankets! Click here for directions. 
• When you have a group of blankets made and you're outside of the Chicagoland area, please don't ship them to headquarters, but instead choose a shelter in your state to support. Everything we receive, we ship back out, sometimes to the same state they came from!
• Local volunteers are asked to drop off some, or all, of their blankets at a local shelter, rather than headquarters. We currently ship 6-8 boxes a week, but it's going to be a challenge to ship more than that in 2023. Thanks for helping by donating to the shelters you may pass, as you drive to my home!

Thank you so much for whatever you can do to keep us going in 2023. I hope it's a blessed year for all of us...volunteers, staff and pets included!!!

I love poking around the Internet, finding new patterns and learning new stitches. Everything gets incorporated into the next pet blanket I make! However, I don’t like having to “sign up” at sites, even if it’s free. I like the sites that welcome everyone in and let you explore without even having to enter an email address. With this in mind, I’ve really focused this list on websites from some of the major yarn companies. They are happy to provide lots of patterns, advice, tips and tricks. After all, the more projects you take on, the more yarn you buy!

These four sites (click on the name, to go to the site) are worth checking out since they have patterns that are completely free of charge and cover both knitting and crochet. I also found that the patterns were easy to print out and were clear to follow. I love finding a new technique or a new stitch and then planning out my next pet blanket. I hope you do too!

Yarnspirations

Yarnspirations covers some of the very top yarn brands, including Red Heart, Caron, Bernat and more. This site provides many free and easy patterns, which I found nicely organized, making the perfect pattern easy to find. They can be sorted by skill level and even by brand of yarn, in case there’s a particular type you love (we all have our favorites!). I also liked how the patterns were formatted, providing all the info you need and making them easy to print. 

LionBrand

This site has tons of free patterns as well, which are sorted by type and skill level. I found some other interesting tools, including a guide to know how much yarn would be needed for a variety of project types and videos covering how to knit and crochet. I also found some fun patterns specific to holidays, which gave me great ideas to try!

PlymouthYarn

This site also had a good number of patterns, which can be downloaded for free as easy-to-print PDFs. They didn’t have the volume of the previous sites, but I liked that I was able to quickly scan the thumbnail pictures to get ideas. I found patterns that I didn’t know I wanted before I saw the pictures!

Yarn

The patterns at this site were not all free, but you can do a search for “free patterns” and get quite a long list of results. I liked that they had a wide variety of “kits” for sale to make blankets, baby items, etc.  I also enjoyed learning about the crafts of Weaving and Spinning at this site. It may be a new area for me to expand into (when I find some time!).

If you know of a great website, please consider sharing it with your fellow CFC volunteers at our Facebook Group, “The Comfort for Critters Team”.  See you there!

"The hand knitted and crocheted blankets are just lovely and our kitties are loving them! Thank you so much for the box of love! I've sent along a few photos of some of our felines appreciating them (shown above). I wanted to get these to you so you knew we received them and our cats are definitely enjoying them. Thank you for sending them so that these guys have comfort in the kennels, plus something familiar to go home with."                                       ~ Nebraska Humane Society in Omaha, NE ~

​

Comfort for Critters

3s139 Sequoia Drive ~ Glen Ellyn, IL 60137

Linda Kastiel Kozlowski ~ Founder & Owner ~ Info@ComfortForCritters.org

~ Our Mission ~

To comfort all the animal shelter pets we can't adopt,

and to be a blessing in the lives of every volunteer, supporter & shelter worker.