This pattern has been created as part of The Little Yellow Duck Project, which aims to raise awareness of the need for blood, stem cell, organ, and tissue donors.

The Project web site says:

The Little Yellow Duck Project involves people around the world handcrafting little yellow duck gifts as random acts of kindness that are left in public places for others to find. A special tag on each one invites the finder to take their gift home to brighten their day and to visit this website to register where they found their gift. We hope that the stories and information found here will encourage them to pledge their own random act of kindness by registering to donate blood, bone marrow, organs tissues.

This project is very important to me as I received a kidney transplant, from an unknown donor, in 1986.

The pattern can be used to make ducks for this, or any other charity, but it cannot be sold, reproduced, translated or altered without the permission of the copyright holders.

The ducks are very quick to make and use very small amounts of yarn.

The pattern includes instructions for

• crochet duck with instructions in both UK and US terminology
• stocking stitch duck on two needles
• garter stitch duck on two needles (It is possible to knit in the round but stuffing and finishing is tricky because the ducks are so small.)

Tags for ducks can be downloaded from the project web site.