Since I'm clearly not challenging everyone enough...

I'll set out another mission. Obviously this crafting thing is just becoming old hat now. Hmph.

I would very much like it if everyone could bring one person to the community by June 30. Whether it's a friend you get to sign up who doesn't usually blog or whether you post to a community and you see that someone from there joins...I dun care. But since the gods of LJ don't want to put us in the spotlight, we are going to just have to start ourselves a word-of-mouth campaign.

This goes for livejournal or blogspot, but I want us to be AT LEAST 100 strong by the middle of the year. We're almost there.

Be ambitious again...for the first time :)

19 more in April

OK - well - since I like to post all at once at the end of the month (because then I know where we are on our goals, etc.) here is my monthly contribution. Holy moly we blew that monster away!! Thank you to everyone for all of your hard work!!

7 scarves for the Mary Read Memorial KAL. 12 Warm Up Americ Sqares

One Last April Post

Even though we have blown through our April goal already, I have 3 more afghan squares to add to the number - another two for WUA and 1 for Va Tech.

I think it is just terrific that the group exceeded April's goal. And I have no doubt we can reach 750 by June 30th!

I also want to take a moment and thank you all for making me feel so welcome here. Your enthusiasm is infectious, and I know that I have been more productive than usual in the past few weeks, thanks in large part to all of you. I'm glad that I could contribute to the April goal, and I look forward to adding to our May/June numbers as well!

The moment you've been waiting for.

Alright. We've all had 24 hours to slap each other. I meant, slap each other on the backs. Metaphorically. In other words, we have had 24 hours to celebrate the fact that we not only made our April goal of 300 items, but we are also 10% of the way to our ultimate 2007 goal of 3000.

Now enough celebrating already!

I am going to lay out some pretty aggressive goals here.

Instead of setting up a specific goal for May only, I'm going to establish a goal for June 30, which will mark the half-way point through 2007. That number...

750.

Now, if you think about it, that's only 450 items from where we are. Actually a little less than that. And if we do around 200 items per month, which is not much more than what we've been doing...I think this is feasible.

At 750, we will be a whopping 25% towards our goal. True, that will mean we have 6 months to do the other 75%, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

I'm kind of thinking (perhaps wishful thinking) that with warmer weather, there will be less blankets and afghans and more small things, cuz it's tough to make a wool afghan when it's 80 degrees outside. Of course, I'm assuming it won't snow in June.

Are you ready for this?!?! 750 hooooooooo!!

10%

I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone in this community for helping us get to the lofty 10% mark.

When this thing first started out in January, we finished around 12 items. I tried to calculate things out. Well, if we could get up to 15-20 items a month...maybe we could get to 300 or so by the end of the year. Maybe we could get to 10% by 2008.

Instead, we have gotten there in 4 months.

3000 has always been the goal in my head for this year, but I never really thought it was reachable in any kind of major way. You all are making me think that we could actually have a shot at it. And that is one of the greatest feelings I have had in a long, long time. Thank you for coming together and making this stuff work and happen. You all are the best! This has been a great day!

Now...let's keep it up :) I'll post goals for May tomorrow or Monday...in the meantime, if any of you have any goals you'd like to see accomplished...speak up! Love to hear 'em.

Attention Bakers!!!

Share Our Strength is doing something called the Great American Bake Sale. You can go to the website and sign up for information. I am hoping to find a group here to donate baked items to! YIPEE!

We do count baked goods donated for bake sales, so this is a great opportunity if you are tired of knitting *gasp* (not that I will ever EVER tire of knitting!!!)

Bag O'Sunshine, Take 2

arian_diana has probably the easiest access to a VA, so right now I am looking at the VA in her town being kind of our adopted receiver. It's Indiana, it's the heartland. Who can argue with that? If doclegs finds out other places, we could always donate to more than one place. Similarly, per leftygirl, if you have a VA in your own hometown that you want to contribute to, just let us know.

funfairiegirl made the point that instead of having a point person to stuff the bags with whatever, all items should be sent to the person who will actually be going to the VA. If little games or whatever are purchased, those can be sent and hopefully the person won't mind sticking those items in little bags...or whatever.

doclegs has already volunteered to purchase little items that are needed. If there are any other volunteers for that kind of thing (emmiegray, I'm thinking of your previous kind offer here) then let us know.

arian_diana will also let us know what other items are needed, but I'm thinking this is a good start for now. Please continue to offer insight, whether for or against.

Thanks everyone!

Y'all are stuning people!

And you are making me one happy lady today! 291 and it's only April 28!!!! Are you kidding me?!?!

One thing I'd like to remind everyone about...especially as things start getting a little busier here...please try to remember to tag your posts...I have been going back and adding the tags myself but that is getting to be a bit time consuming (not that I'm complaining!). I know early one there were some problems adding tags on the lj side of things because the tag didn't exist yet, but we have a lot of tags available now, so it should be a little easier. Just requires a couple more words to type at the end of your post :) This will help us as we move on down the road, and it will help nehnhaa a great deal with her big end-of-month posts.

Thanks everybody!

Project Bag O'Sunshine

Based on the insight I received so far on the last post, here is my proposal. Let me know any further thoughts, criticisms, or patterns for crocheting cars. (Just kidding) :)

1) I am nominating arian_diana and doclegs to be our sources of information, if they are willing (and since they have already started gathering information, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Any specifications about bag sizes, colors, etc should come from them. They are "in the know" as it were.

2) Ideally, what I would love to happen is to be able to send our knitted or crocheted bags to a couple of different people, likely non-crafters who want to play, who would go to a Wal-Mart or some other kind of discount store and buy a travel size toothpaste, soap...stuff like that. These items usually can be found for about 50 cents, so I'm thinking filling 2 bags would be about equivalent to buying one skein of yarn or so.

3) If the above does not happen, that's cool.

4) Depending on what our informants find out, i think it would be ideal to have a point person to whom we can send our finished products to. Then, when maybe 20 are collected, that person can drop those off to the VA place. This way, they will not have to pay for postage, and the VA Hospital will not have to worry about opening boxes and all of that kind of stuff (arian_diana, I'm kind of looking at you for this since you mentioned your local hospital, but it could be anyone).

Now...supplement, comment, complain...all ideas are welcome :)

A weird idea

So, we got an anonymous comment on the previous post that let to a US Troop Care Package Site, and that gave me a weird idea.

One of the things they ask for on there are little carrying bags for the folks at Walter Reed so that they can carry around their toothpaste and stuff like that. They want bags with handles so that folks with crutches or other issues can handle the bags easily.

I got to thinkin...bags are pretty darned easy really, whether you are a crocheter or a knitter. At the most basic, you make two squares and sew 3 sides together. Then you have rockstars who can do a lot more.

So what if we made these little bags, no settled upon pattern but out of bright colors (maybe red white & blue, but not necessarily)?

Additionally, if someone would want to do this, we could send the bags to a person and maybe they could contribute by buying travel sized toothpastes, soaps, stuff like that, a couple of items, totalling like, $1, and those could be put in the bag. Each little package would be an item.

Now, my only concern with something like this is that I think we would want to a) make sure that we send these to a place that realllllly could use them. Maybe someone could research another VA hospital that is less famous than Walter Reed, that might not get as many donations.

Additionally, we'd probably want to wait and send a huge amount in a box. I think doing onesie twosie might just cause paper trouble for whomever we're donating to.

Is this sounding like a starting point to anyone? Ideas? Ideas?

I am struggling

I have spent the last hour or so checking out links that have to do with crafting for troops. I think there are a lot of great charities out there, but in doing a little reading, it seems like getting gifts to the troops is becoming more complicated, some places are getting more gifts than they can handle, and pointed out that there seems to be something amiss with Soldiers' Angels, who come up on any Google search.

I guess what I was hoping for when I first thought of crafting for troops was more along the lines of care packages more than just crafted items. That's why I was feeling around to see if someone wanted to be a point person if they didn't know how to craft. I kind of envisioned people sending homemade socks or cool ties, and the point person maybe throwing in a phone card or something and sending that stuff off. This may not have been realistic anyway, but hey. Who says you have to picture realistic scenarios?

The only idea I have popping through my head right now is that we ask people to donate $5 to the USO or something like that, and every person who comments that they did so will receive some small token from us, like a red white and blue fun scarf or something like that. We'd track the items sent to donaters. Of course, the problem is that we'd have to go entirely on the honor system and we'd run into situations, I'm sure, where one person would say, "Well, I donated $50 so I should get a blanket and a crocheted car." Etc.

With all of that said, I think the best candidate for us to look at as a group is The Ships Project because there are options for sewers, crocheters, and knitters...socks, slippers, and hats. But I don't know...I am not sure there is enough interest to kind of make a real thrust of it, so maybe we should just leave it that anyone who wants to donate to them can, like we've been doing with all other charities.

I'm up for any ideas. I'm stumped.

A Thought About our VA Tech Squares

After reading about the Knitting for Virginia Tech site yesterday, I had a thought about the squares we are making in memory of the victims. I wondered how you would all feel about using some of our squares to make a blanket to donate to them. The blankets will be meaningful to whoever receives them, but I think they might be most meaningful to Virginia Tech students.

And while I am posting, I thought I would include a picture of the 4 afghan squares I have completed so far - 3 for WUA and 1 for VA Tech - to boost our April total.
The pattern for the VA Tech square is called Racing Stripes, and there are other really nice 12" crocheted square patterns at the same site. I have another square for VA Tech started, and I should get it finished before Monday. I will see what else I can accomplish this weekend to add to the total, and then I will send off all the afghan squares at the same time. Have a great weekend everyone!

For you quilters out there

Please visit http://craft-chick.livejournal.com/. She is trying to get quilts together for the families of Virginia Tech victims.

A Quick Intro

Hello all!

I just joined and thought I would introduce myself. My name is Venka and I live in Concord, CA, about 25 miles east of San Francisco. I have been knitting for over 20 years. I started charity knitting last year, and have found it very gratifying. I have participated in the Think Pink Project, the 2007 Red Scarf Project, and Caps to the Capital/Save the Children Foundation.

I have been knitting chemo caps for several months, and my goal is 36. I am over halfway there. I am also about to start on a couple of projects for Afghans for Afghans and Afghans for Kenyans. I am finishing up a group of snuggle blankets for the Animal Rescue Foundation.

My initial goal was to work just from stash, but it didn't quite work out the way I wanted, especially with the chemo caps. However, after having input all my stash into a spreadsheet, I can now honestly say I have no excuse NOT to work from stash.

I look forward to adding my contributions to this group.

Knitting for Hokies s'more

Our own Funfairiegirl directed me to a new blog community that is crafting for Virginia Tech...it's run by the same folks who are doing the Mary Read Memorial KAL.

They are collecting items for the Fall 2007 semester at Virginia Tech. Learn more at http://knittingforvirginiatech.blogspot.com/.

Okay everybody!

We now have less than a week left in April. If we're not careful, arian_diana is going to single-handedly make 300 items herself and leave us all ashamed of ourselves :)

So, let's get popping! We just need 23 more items and we'll be 10% into our goal of 3000 for 2007. And that will be pretty darned sweet.

Another Opportunity to Support Virginia Tech

On Whip Up this morning there was a notice about a yarn shop in Blacksburg, VA that is going to be collecting 8" X 8" squares to make afghans for the families of the Virginia Tech victims. Knitted or crocheted squares are ok, and they are looking for squares in the colors maroon, burnt orange, black and white, made from nice, soft yarn. More info here. Since we are making squares, too, I thought you guys might be interested in this.

Myspace, part II

In order to offer a more community type feel to the crafting for a cause myspace site, I'd like anybody to give me any preferences as to what you would like to see on there. I have offered myspace musicians the opportunity to let us know if they do charitable work, and we can link to them so their song plays on our profile. I have some links up to blogs (including ours) and charities...etc etc. But I want y'all to feel like you are being fairly represented, so any insights/criticisms/applause/boos...are welcome!

Thanks everybody! :)

Myspace

So, awhile back I turned my personal myspace into a site mostly about this here thing. I've done more adjusting and I think it more and more is becoming a myspace site for this here charity.

A while back, I asked if anyone would mind me grabbing photos of FOs here and posting them at the Myspace site . I got the okay from but i don't think anyone else responded. I do credit you with your lj or blogspot names. There is a slideshow on the profile of the page that shows the FOs, which is pretty neat.

If you are okay with me posting your pictures there, PUHLEASE let me know :) Thanks!

Another suggestion...Hokie colors

So, the saga continues.

My craft store where I bought the lemonade Caron did not have this mango some of you had spoken of. The Red Heart orange was kind of like a crossing guard's vest and I had to put on my sunglasses when I looked at it. In looking around though, I found the Sugar 'N Creme orange....believe it or not, I think it might work really well. It is kind of a subdued orange (and the pricing is rather charitable, I must say). Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there. I bought 3 skeins.

Update

Hey everybody,

April is coming to a close. It's been a good month, but if we can, I'd like to really push this last week for 2 things...300 items (we're up to 254) and getting 100 members. I have a feeling the former will be easy, especially if everyone is making squares, which go pretty fast. As for the latter, it's less important...but it'd be nice to have a few more people join us. If you know of any people or groups who might be interested, chatter them up :)

Crafting for Hokies update

Hey y'all,

For anyone not following the livejournal community, an alum of VA Tech was kind enough to stop in and offer us some guidance on color choices. Although the caron lemonade I recommended is still okay (it's the thought that counts) there apparently is a mango color in the same brand that would be a little closer to VT colors. I had thought that their color was more yellowy,but it's actually closer to the color of the "publish" button here on blogspot.

Just an FYI.

Hello from CT!

I joined this group a few days ago, and I thought I should briefly introduce myself. My name is Priscilla, and I live in Connecticut. I have been knitting and crocheting most of my life, and I donate a lot of what I make to charity. I have been a member of 25 Things for Charity for almost a year, which is how I found all of you. I also belong to a local crochet guild, and we do 3 big donations a year. We donate chemo hats and preemie blankets to our local hospital throughout the year, and we donate hat, mitten and scarf sets to the Salvation Army every December. But I am also willing to help other causes, as I have time.

I have one FO already to add to your April total - a crocheted baby blanket that I will be donating to Project Linus some time next week. The blanket is 24"X36", and I used Lion Brand Pound of Love in purple and white.

I have made 2 squares for WUA since I found all of you, but I hope to get a few more done over the next week, so I will post a picture of all of them at a later time. And I had time yesterday to get some Red Heart in Claret and Simply Soft in Lemonade, so I hope to start on some 12" squares this weekend.

I will post FOs over here, but you are all more than welcome to visit my blog as well for progress updates. I do have one question - do you count items when they are donated or when they are finished? I finish items all the time for my guild, but I don't always turn them in until we have a date when they will actually be donated.

Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this community. I have a goal of making 100 items for charity this year, so I am very excited to have found you all. I am really looking forward to participating and adding to those monthly totals!

Memorial Knit a long

There is a memorial Knit a long for Knitter Mary Read who was one of the VT victims. The blog is at maryreadmemorialkal.blogspot.com. I have contacted them as I would like to participate. They are encouraging gifts of scarves in Mary Read's name. I will post more later.

First FO

Huzzah! Despite thesis insanity and knitting insanity, I managed to make a beret, which I am going to donate somewhere. It's adult-sized (kinda big, I might felt it if I can figure out felting). So where should I send it?

[Today was also my last day of classes, and I finished the beret in my last class and showed it to everyone, and I'm in a general ecstatic mood.]

And now I'm at the time where I can start making more things for charity! I might try the whole knitting to gauge and making squares thing. Who knows what will come of my newfound freedom?

And pictures, beacuse I can.

Crafting for Hokies

Here is my plan...a reminder, if you are already a member of Crafting for a Cause, you are NOT required to participate in this. This is just an idea, and anyone who wants to participate is certainly more than welcome.

Here is how I am envisioning this.

• For consistency's sake, I am recommending the following yarn:
Red Heart color 0378 Claret
Caron Simply Soft Brites Lemonade (it's kind of orangey, like the VT color)

• For the afghans we are making Warm Up America style, please make your squares 12 x 12, and keep sending them to . If you want to participate and don't know her address, please let her or me know. I am thinking 8 rows of 4 squares across (32), which would also be a nice sized afghan. 32, of course, memorializes the number of people whom the gunman killed, excluding himself. I think it would be okay to combine the 2 colors in on square if you want to. Knit or crochet is fine.

• If you want to make your own afghan using those colors or some other combo of maroon and yellow, that's cool. Just post a picture so we can track what's going on.

• For now, I am recommending that we send these afghans to Warm Up America. I looked for charities that the victims were associated with or that they might have known about...one volunteered with Camp Big Heart, but they don't seem to accept in-kind donations. If someone wants to contact them about this, their contact information can be found
here.

• If we make enough squares to make one blanket...cool. If we make enough squares to make 15 blankets, that's fine too. I hope to be able to e-mail pictures of the finished afghan (s) to the President of VATech to let him know that these were made and donated in honor of the victims. The e-mail will come from the craftingforacause e-mail, not my personal e-mail.

• If you cannot craft but you want to participate in this, donations of yarn or small amounts of money for yarn or postage are needed. is across the pond but would like to participate if someone could help her get the yarn, etc. If you wish to contribute in this way, please let me know, either by responding here or posting at or craftingforacause.blogspot.com.

If you have any further questions, concerns, ideas, etc., PLEASE do not refrain from letting me know.

x-posted everywhere, and if you want to post about this project in other places, please feel free to do so.

Hokies Project

Would anyone be interested in/opposed to making a blanket and sending it to the Virginia Tech president's office? Maybe we could all make squares in the VA Tech colors, or something of that sort. And we wouldn't have to tally any of that, cuz that would be kind of tacky, maybe.

But we are a group trying to spread some sunshine, and boy do those folks need some right now.

Thoughts?

ETA:

doclegs makes a good point that VA Tech will probably be inundated. However, in looking at their site there doesn't yet seem to be a place for flowers or in-kind gifts.

Maybe what we could do is gather squares that are just maroon and gold, donate it to Warm Up America or some other charity, and write the president of the school to let him know that we donated in the memory of those who were killed. We could send him a picture as well. We could agree on something pretty general like Red Heart maroon and Caron Yellow or something like that.

Any further ideas are welcome.

Warm Up America Square Drive

Why yes, we are working on a collabortive effort of a Warm Up America Square Drive. So far we have 76 squares posted in the drive. I would like to take a minute to thank everyone who is spreading the word! We have a big goal, but as of now we have a church in Charlotte, NC, Charlotte Yarn, Knitch in Atlanta, Stitch Knitch in Kansas City, MO, and Unwind in LA partnering with us to collect squares for the drive! I am so excited about this! We are a HUGE group and I think we can really make a difference in the lives of others.If you don't want to knit squares, then don't! Give where you want to give. But I will be popping up with little reminders about this drive and how many squares we have from time to time!Happy crafting, my friends. And have a safe and happy (and hopefully sunny and warm) weekend.

5 more fun scarves

( peekshure )

I have to tell you a story about the scarf on the right. So, over the weekend I went to my craft store. They've had yarn on sale for $1 in the clearance section since around Halloween. A crafter's worst nightmare, but I've been pretty strong. Still, I needed to do a couple more fun scarves to finish out my 5, and I don't have a whole lot left, so I got the purple fuzzy stuff on the far left and this black, white, and grey Darice Folklore on the right. Usually a skein is enough to do one of these scarves, so I figured I'd be fine. Well, last night, I ran out of yarn...and I was only about 3-quarters of the way done. So, I head out to my craft store.

Since Saturday, they reorganized the entire clearance aisle, and I can't find ANY yarn, not to mention the stuff I neeeded. I looked, I asked...and I was about to give up when I thought to myself, no...I will find one more skein of this stuff! I went through one box, two boxes...no luck. But then, in the third box I tried, there it was!!! I literally got the last skein of the yarn in the entire store, finished the scarf, and um...I really want it for myself cuz I like it lots. But I'm giving it away anyway :)

Phew.

Hey there everybody!

I hope everyone had a good Easter and/or a good Passover. Too bad mother nature had to crap all over many of us and give us blizzards and sub-zero windchills. Blegh. But ANYWAY...

We still have one more day to reach those goals I set on Friday. That's right, I'm extending the holiday because I have tomorrow off work, and my holiday is your holiday! I know, don't you wish.

Anyway, we need 11 more items to get to 200...so that's something to shoot for. If you have been stock-piling FOs, get 'em out there! Thanks to jpettibone and theonlyevidence for their posts tonight!

We only need 7 more people to join our blogspot community to bring the number up to 20. E-mail craftingforacause@gmail.com in order to do that.

I'd also like to encourage folks to check out 25thingsforcharity.blogspot.com. Their group is very similar to ours, but instead of tallying things as a community, their theme is individuals striving to make and donate 25 items in a year. It's a pretty neat idea and since we are all making tons of stuff, it would fit right in. Check them out, and you can e-mail cynabel@yahoo.com to join there (she'd like you to put "25 things" in the subject heading).

Remember to vote here regarding tallying here and at livejournal.

And I think that's it. Here's to a great week, everybody!

Arian_diana is here!

I made it over, gang! :) Just wanted to let everyone know! And I may be able to do some crocheting today! Egad! lol Problem is I'm finishing up non-donation projects.

Yayyyyyy for Lost Radio

I know a lot of folks in here are Lost fans (death_by_yarn, I'm looking at you). Well...our friend, our co-member, one of our sponsors,kaidysoft, got a super big surprise on Lost Radio tonight.

Jorge Garcia unexpectedly called in!!!! He is the one who plays Hurley on Lost, and he has also had roles on Curb Your Enthusiasm and Becker.

Considering that she was totally taken by surprise, and considering that like, she had just gotten called by Jorge freakin' Garcia, our kaidysoft did a FABULOUS job.

Go on over to http://www.lost-radio.com. Tonight's show should be up there soon and you can check it out.

kaidysoft also managed to work in a little plug for us, mostly cuz I was a pain and kept bugging her :( Sorry babe, but I appreciate it more than i can say.

Once again, everybody...http://www.lost-radio.com!

!!

Let's build this up!

Hey everybody,

I am still pretty new at this blogspot thing, but it does seem that one can search blogspot for blogs that might have similar interests.

I did a search for charity and happened upon a really really neat group called 25thingsforcharity(25thingsforcharity.blogspot.com). They have very similar rules as we do (as in like, none), but instead of counting as a community, their goal as individuals is to complete 25 items in a year.

I posted a comment to the mod over there letting her know that we are here now...I don't know how to help along the "friending" process over here, but y'all might want to check that group up and if you know how to post to other communities, perhaps let them know that their work could be double-counted if they joined us as well.

*off to look s'more*

March Summary

March's finished objects: 121
Total finished objects so far: 175

The Dulaan Project got a pair of socks from jpettibone and six sweaters from one of death_by_yarn's patients. Mrs. M.

afghans for Afghans got a pair of socks for their sock drive from thesnapemobile, two baby hats for their Mother's Day drive from death_by_yarn and a pair of socks from nehnhaa.

Warm up America got 76 squares (14 + 3 + 36 + 9 + 1 +7 + 6), which will be part of the community blanket drive, from jpettibone, theonlyevidence, funfairiegirl, fivesenses and joriejc2.

A local women's shelter got another five scarfs from joriejc2.

The Snuggles Project got a blanket from theonlyevidence and another blanket from funfairegirl.

Head Huggers got three hats from theonlyevidence (2 + 1).

Crafty Angels received a baby hat and two baby bibs from theonlyevidence.

The Victory Junction Gang Camp got an afghan from joriejc2.

The Preemie Project got a preemie baby hat from leftygirl02.

Project Linus got five afghans (3 + 2 + 1 + 2) from crazigriffen, doclegs and lindsoriah.

The American Cancer Society's Relay for Life got five hats from arian_diana.

A local chemo patient and her granddaughter got a hat and bag from arian_diana.

A local Helping Hands chapter received a hat and two purses from arian_diana.

A local animal shelter got small animal blanket from arian_diana.

~=~=~=~=~=~

Other stuff that happened in March:

joriejc2 has a wish list for April.

We're getting mentioned in Lost Radio by kaidysoft.

We've added baked goods to our tally of charity items.

We had a naming contest for a website which arian_diana won with "crafting for a cause". We now have a blogspot blog at craftingforacause.blogspot.com set up by funfairiegirl. See here for more details on how it will be used and how to post etc. The livejournal RSS feed can be subscribed to here.

And there's a Frapper Map to show where we all are.

~=~=~=~=~=~

January 2007 - 21
February 2007 - 33

February Summary

February's finished objects: 33
Total in 2007 so far: 54

A Scarf and hat for the Red Scarf Project and a local Pappas school in Phoenix by annilita.

Three pairs of socks for the Dulaan Project by jpettibone.

Five blue hats for the afghans for Afghans AMMC hat drive by joriejc2.

Eight hats for the afghans for Afghans AMMC hat drive by nehnhaa.

Pair of socks for the afghans for Afghans sock drive by nehnhaa.

Four scarves for the Red Scarf Project by pivyca.

Another four pairs of socks by jpettibone.

Two baby caps for an as yet unspecified charity by funfairiegirl.

Two items for afghans for Afghans by elenalda.

Two caps that will go to the Dulaan Project, by death_by_yarn.


Other things that happened around February:

funfairiegirl started a podcast in which she talks about the community.

We started a community square drive to make blankets for Warm up America. crazigriffen volunteered to sew together squares.

January Summary

January's Finished items: 21

Hat and scarf set by joriejc2.

Two pairs of Socks for the Dulaan project by jpettibone.

Eight Hats for the Dulaan project by jpettibone.

Four Scarfs for the Red Scarf Project by thesnapemobile".

Five scarves for a local Women's shelter by joriejc2.

Anonymity and "donated from" tags

i don't know how you all feel about this, but one thing that is important to me in cases of donating to charity is that a big deal isn't made out of it. Now, we are trying to grow this community, so it's kind of hard to keep mum about it and grow at the same time, but I don't want this to become something that people join because they want to be noted for any particular individual contribution here, if that makes sense.

At the same time, I would also love for other charitable organizations to come to understand that they could post here with specific needs, and we as a group could help them meet those needs. So, I was thinking about the following.

How would you feel about donating items under the name "crafting for a cause"? Of course, we have no way of monitoring this and won't be sticklers about it, but would you be interesting in maybe having a little note you could toss in with your FOs saying, "This item made and contributed by crafting for a cause, craftingforacause.blogspot.com" or something like that?

Let me know what you think.

Wow!

Today on Oprah is Finding your calling and doing good work for charity. I am seriously impressed by some of these things. I know we aren't big enough to make Oprah - but that's ok - we are enough as we are. I am proud of everyone who even lurks on this community as they are thinking of good things. Thank you all for making the dream come true for us (Jorie, Julie and me) and for helping so many others. And thank you for passing the word and exposing others to our cause. I have been talking the community up all over. I talked about it all over LA and I think I have made some GREAT connections. Once I know more, I will post about it. Suffice it to say - I am a happy happy girl! When I came home to 175 items (25 OVER the goal I asked if we could hit) I almost cried from happiness and gratitude to your helping spirits. Thank you all.