Doing an "Alison"

My cyberfriend, Alison, has become a verb. She gifts people with her lace scarves and shawls. Sometimes she'll sit in her church and sees someone there who she feels needs one and will gift them right there. She has also had some medical issues recently and has gifted the nurses and doctors who have taken care of her. On our list, KnitTalk, those who have followed her example call it, "Doing an Alison". I am doing an Alison to my pediatrician's office.

This year has been a tough one for our family, especially for our younger son. From appendicitis to an infection to surgery for a broken nose, our pediatrician's office was always there for us. Linda, the receptionist who would take my phone calls and probably heard the tears in my voice to both Dr. Lasser and Dr. Meir who got on the phone with us when we were at the ER again to answer our questions and visited Elijah each time. Finally, the nurses who would answer my non-emergency medical questions and would call to find out how we were all doing. I once called them from the recovery room after the nose surgery because a nurse upset me so. Dr. Lasser came on the line and told me that everything was fine and not to worry. Hearing his voice telling me that made me feel so much better. Little did he know at the time that I was in the nurses' bathroom crying my eyes out because that recovery room nurse scared me so. The whole practice was there for us. I hope I will never have to use them again in the capacity we used them in this past year but it was so reassuring to know they were there for our whole family.

I decided to do an Alison. I got it into my head that I wanted to make everyone something, like Alison does, but I thought scarves would take too long to make. I decided to make them market bags. They are colorful, easy and fast to make and "green". I started to make them a few weeks ago and when I completed bag #6, I decided that I should call the office and find out how many people are on staff in total. I left a message on the non-emergency line asking if I should want to send something for everyone in the practice, how many of those items would I need? I got a call back from one of the nurses who told me that the magic number was 10 and she wanted to know what was I doing? I told her not to worry about it.

Today I finished #10. Here's a picture of my environmentally-friendly market bags.
I'm going to pack them up in a box with a thank you note and send it to the office. I hope they like them.
(Here they are all piled up)

I'm going to take all the scraps and make some for myself. I realized while knitting these bags, the ones I made I gave away or our dear Shadow destroyed them.

Thanks again to our pediatrician's office. You guys are great! Thanks Alison for the inspiration!