How many people can we dress?

So, we are getting ready to embark into August. July was just a fantastic month. In fact, this whole Summer...this whole YEAR, has been just incredible. Thank you all so much!!

I'd like to propose something a little different for August. There won't be a numerical goal to shoot for for August. I know, *gasp* :) Also, there won't be any contests. What there will be is a single question. How many people can we dress?

This idea mostly stems from funfairiegirl's comment about how many blankets all of those squares would make, and the fact that each of those blankets would warm up a person. While the goals and the contests have been really fun, I worry that we have kind of lost touch a little bit as a group (not as individuals) with what this is really all about.

So here is the idea...over the next month, we are going to make whatever parts of warm outfits we feel like, be those socks, hats, scarves, ponchos, blankets (not really part of an outfit, but whatever), mittens, etc. All of these items are going to go to jezebelsf who has MOST GENEROUSLY volunteered to receive and sort these items. The goal would be to have sets that would include a hat, a scarf, mittens, etc. These items will be distributed to a few different places.
• Wool items will be dropped off at Afghans for Afghans
• Moderately warm items will go either to a shelter in San Fran or a shelter in Atlanta
• Acrylics that are warm will go to chicago, warm up winchester, or Boston.

We need shelter names and addresses for Chicago, Atlanta, and Boston

So, what jezebelsf will do is keep us posted on what missing pieces of outfits she needs. Then she'll put out a call. "We need more hats" or "we need more gloves." She'll gather items into outfits and send them to whichever place.

The only rule? Make sure you indicate what your materials are made of so that jezebelsf knows where to send them. At the end, her reporting, together with our tally here, will reveal how many people we can dress.

The items will likely be shipped in September.

The hope is that this will give people a chance to work on different kinds of things. Maybe you want to make vests or cardigans or whatever -- this is a great chance to do just that! And no, the different parts of a set don't have to match, but if you want to send a whole set's worth of stuff yourself, i'm sure that'll be okay :)

Once we have names and addreses for good shelters, we will post the address for jezebelsf so you can send stuff her way. That is, of course, if everyone is okay with this kind of new approach.

Let me know what you think!

We have another winner!!

I bet everyone thought I forgot about the vote! I didn't. I have just been crazy. The winner of the vote for favorite squares is...

treehugger06!!!

Congrats. I will be sending you some yarn as well as your gift card as soon as my new bank card arrives (which I hope it tomorrow since it wasn't today).

I will be sending out all of the prizes at the same time and I will let you know when they go out!thanks everyone for making this contest so much fun AND so successful!!!

A Round of Applause, Please?

Can we all voice our gratitude and appreciation for one sen_ichi_rei, aka knitter of shiny things? July has been one of our most successful months ever. We started with a goal of 1,650, and now we are sitting at 1,918. That is just...head-explodey. And I have no doubt that our mod for the month played a great role in this success as she spurred everyone on to new goals, new ideas, and new heights.

We will definitely revisit the mod for a month idea again, but we perhaps might wait until next year as the rest of this year will likely be crazy :)

I will be posting either tonight or tomorrow about some thoughts for August.

Thank you to everyone, and again, let's all say thanks to our lovely hobbit girl :)

My July FOs

After the squares contest, I decided that I needed a wee break from making squares. So I decided to finish up some WIPs that I had lying around. Here's what I accomplished:
3 more preemie blankets and 1 preemie hat that will be donated to the Danbury Hospital in September. (There are pictures of each blanket on my blog, if you are interested.)

2 hats, a pair of mittens and a scarf that will be donated to Warm Up Winchester. I have one more pair of mittens on the needle that I will finish up later in August, and then I will send everything off.

So that makes 8 FOs since about July 16th. I'll get back to making afghan squares in August, once I get back from vacation.

here are the 12 hats for the Head Huggers

Hi JorieJC2,

Here are the hats that I made- 12 of them are going to Head Huggers.

Well yah-freakin'-hoo!

So...I am currently away on a business trip. I haven't been able to check in really till late last night, and woah, what a shock!

I have tallied 117 items this morning, and there are actually two posts that I did not add to that tally yet (frenchnewwave and Robyn, I left my questions for you).

Apparently I should let you guys run wild and free more often because holy smokes!

To those of you who came out of lurkdom to post or to those of you who just joined, welcome welcome a million times welcome and hello! Don't go back into hiding, and thank you so very very much for posting and joining.

You are all very very awesome.

And by the way...way to cremate that whole 1800 thang :)

You Guessed It ... More Hats

I finished a couple more hats for Warm Up Winchester. Both fit me, so I'll go with large child, small adult size. Both are Cascade 220 wool, black and burgundy.


I plan on knitting a little bit while I'm camping, so I'll probably make a couple more hats this weekend.

12 hats for Head Huggers

I have not send to them yet, but I will next week. There are 12 more hats that I am still trying to figure where to send them to. I guess the other 12 can go on next month's count. Also, I will send pictures later. Thank you and I am so glad to be a part of this group.

end of the month totals

sorry folks, no pictures right now, but i wanted to add in my totals for the month so they could get added in!

i've made 35 squares for WUA, although i didn't get pictures submitted in time for the contest end. i've also got eight washcloths that are being taken to south america later next month (this number may go up by the end of the month as i'm still knitting through my cotton like mad!). i've also made five scarves for the "overwhelm patty" program of mine. lots of knitting and crocheting for me!

next month i'm thinking of focusing on making little blankets for the Humane Society, so i might not have as many items done. i still have to get more info on that first, however.

1812

1812!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's the number of items we have, according to my totals. We totally blasted through 1650, and now we have 1812!!! And we still have 5 days left of the month...

So I think we've been doing pretty good. Looking at the original post:

Squares? We said 350 for the contest, you guys made over 400!
Warm up Winchester? Looking through, I counted 43 items from us, but their blog said they only have 38 items total. We set the goal at 20, so we definitely achieved that one.

Non-yarn: There were about 60 non-yarn items last month, and we wanted to double it. I'm not sure what the count is, but with all the postcards, I think we've achieved this goal as well.

The baking didn't really happen, but that's okay. It was a pretty vague goal to begin with.

So great job, everyone! I guess you can have the rest of the month off :) Or maybe we could try for 1900 in the next 5 days. Thoughts?

the simple way

** not about what i've been crafting, but about a community i love and their desperate and emminent need for help. as they rebuild i will be contacting them to see what they need, and will be most likely asking for some help from you all. for now, i wanted to share the "why" of it all so you would know what's up when i put out the call to craft.**

almost a month ago now, the houses owned by the simple way, along with many houses in Kensington, Philly PA were destroyed in a 7-alarm fire. i'm rather slow on the uptake with posting about this, but it's something that is pretty upsetting to me. much of the community organization meeting stuff they were doing, a small screen-printing business, their after-school programs and most of their personal belongings were destroyed by the fire. and while they're in the slow process of rebuilding, it's a huge tragedy and they need so much right now. i've linked to their website where you can see pictures of the fire, as well as read more about it all, and what they do in this amazing and poor and beautiful neighborhood i've always wanted to call home above all other spaces in the world. they've got a donations button up there, and if you feel moved to help in rebuilding not only their homes but the neighborhood, please use it. but mostly, just send them prayers and good thoughts as they attempt to rebuild their corner of the world.

Hello

I thought I had better introduce myself since I asked to join this blog and the effort to contribute huge numbers of items to charity. My name is Allie and I am 30 something knitting & stitching addict living in the middle of England. I have recently decided that I needed to reduce my knitting stash as I had discovered the joy of sock knitting (and buying sock yarn). In order to help me reduce my stash I decided to help others by knitting items for charity and an internet search led me to this blog. I am amazed at what has been achieved by everyone posting to this blog and hope to be able to contrbute several parcels of items. My first finishes are five squares which I will be sending to The Ghana Project.

Crocheted scarf

My first linear crochet project, since I always crochet in the round.

This one is for the East Bay Coalition for the homeless, since my mom's women's club is doing a drive, and this is her yarn. (In general I can use whatever of her yarn I want since she's usually destashing, provided she hasn't set it aside for some project. In this case, this was a skein of the yarn that she was using to make these scarves.)


Sadly, it's a scratchy acrylic yarn, and was annoying to work with. So I alternated between single, double, and triple crochet, so I could make it faster but still keep it strong. Here's a close-up:


And LJ is currently down, so I'll copy the post to LJ whenever LJ starts working again.

No Really - I meant vote!!!

I posted this entry and asked you all to vote on your fav squares for a prize. I have gotten 2 votes. TWO. So - please vote by Monday at 5 so I can send out some additional prizes. I don't care if you vote for yourself, only I will know. I don't want to be tie breaking vote when there are only TWO votes in!!!!! I haven't sent anything out yet since I was going to send all at once.Thanks.

Wow

It looks like y'all have been very busy this weekend while I was out. You're all crafting away while I'm going to be a slacker and spend the next 6-10 hours in Harry Potter land. Go you!

(Wouldn't it be cool to make Harry Potter scarves for charity? I think they would be more appreciated than Jayne hats, since Harry Potter is a lot more popular than firefly is...)

Hats and Scarves

Here are 5 scarves, 11 hats and 2 twirly scarves.
I will admit that I went and looked at my stash and wanted to give these a "home" to make room for more yarn and stuff.
I should be getting more yarn in the mail by next week, he, he.

1800?

We're almost there!!!

As of the last tally, we're at 1618. I think we've pretty much achieved almost all of our goals.

So I'm going to go out on a limb and set a new goal for 1800. Since we'll probably hit 1650 by the weekend anyways, right?

So how do you all feel about that? Sound good? Want something higher? Any other subgoals we should have?

P.S. This is the 150th post on the blogspot blog, so that's pretty darn cool!

We have a winner!!!

Yes, folks, we have a winner! treehugger06 posted a total of 120 sqaures for the Squares Contest. Now, as the winner treehugger 06 needs to let me know which one of the following places to purchase the GC at and where to send it (if I can send it online I need email, otherwise snail mail): Joann Fabrics, Michaels, The Loopy Ewe, Webs or Knit Picks.


Second place goes to doclegs with 82 squares. For this effort, I will be sending 3 skeins of Lion Brand Homespun Baby in pink to her. Please send me your address.

Now, here is where you guys come in. I am going to post a list of everyone who posted squares and a poll (the poll will be on the LJ site). Check out all the squares and vote for you favorite contributor. The poll results will not be public, so no one will know who is in the lead but the mods (I think I can make that work) and the winner will receive 3 balls of LB Homespun Baby.

Contest Participants and final numbers*:
treehugger06 - 120
doclegs - 82
jpettibone - 43
Venka - 43
eowyn_ulysses - 25
Priscilla - 23
snoopingmother - 21
craftyone - 16
Little Knittin Kitten - 14
gypsyamaranta - 13
zortified - 6
nehnhaa - 5
zipper208 - 3

**Please note if you are not on that list then the post wasn't tagged as required. Sorry.

Including the squares that Jorie and I posted, we have a total of 438 squares!!! Each blanket takes 49 squares so that is just short of 9 blankets. That is 8 people who will be warm because we cared enough to spend our time and yarn stash on making a blanket for them. And because we worked together as a community to do it. I can not tell you how happy and proud I am to be part of a community who gives that much time and energy in just one month! Thank you all for your time, encouragement of others and support this month. You are all winners in my book and if I could afford to I would send something to all of you.

*Please note if you are not on that list then the post wasn't tagged as required. Sorry.
**for WUA - I didn't tag in my tallies which squares were for what, so we are using it for the math here.

When will we know the square contest results???

Hi, all! We have come to the end of the Squares contest. I will be tallying the results and posting them soon. I wanted to give you a little note that while I had thought it would be early Monday it will be late Monday or possibly Tuesday.

But Aimeeeeeee, we want to know!!!!!

I know, my darlings, and I am tremendously excited to tell you all. But I have a little personal medical issue which is causing some problems with my vision in my left eye and reading posts is difficult for me right now. I am so sorry.

But, Aimee! You are typing right now!!!

I know. I can type without looking at the screen or my fingers and for short short periods I can look at the screen. I have to be honest that the only reason I am awake right now is that the boy called to check on me. I had gone to sleep at 8:30. I can't really even knit as I can't read a pattern or focus well. It is (hopefully) nothing serious, but Jorie and I spoke this afternoon and she knew of the issue this morning. If it lasts longer than tomorrow/Tuesday I will ask her to tally for me, but I really want to do it and I hope you all understand that! I am so excited to see the number of squares we have completed and how many people that will help! Thank you all for your participation.

*hugs and snuggles*
Aimee

One scarf to overwhelm Patty

I also posted this on LJ, but wanted to put it on here too for Patty to see. I'll be mailing it this week to you!

My 2nd knit project ever!

Finally "finished" these up

Am sending 2 blankets,one sweater, 5 pair of booties and 14 hats to Sacramento, where they will join a friends stuff and together go to two hospitals for preemies,
and then I still have 11 pair of booties to sew together, it is just not my favorite thing to do!
But this week, I promise, I will be "good" and get them off too.

Simply amazing

1,500. 1,500.

I know I've given this speech a few times already, much to my amazement, but back in January when this community was just a little livejournal post plotted out by jpettibone and me, we were pretty sure that setting a goal of 3,000 items made and given to charity was kind of like ... insane. When we hit the 10% mark, I was in heaven. When we got up and over 1000 last month, I was in seventh heaven.

I guess I have to say I am in ninth heaven now or something, because we have now surpassed the halfway mark. We are actually over 1,500 items made and donated to charity.

Think about that.

That's 1,500 people or pets that have been helped because of something you made and mailed. That is pretty darned amazing, folks.

1,500.

Last Square Update

It seems that I've been knitting nothing but squares this week, but that's not true. I also finished a pair of socks for Afghans for Afghans.



I also finished a pair of socks for myself, but that's another story.

Since my last post, I finished 3 hats for Afghans for Afghans..





I was very happy with the outcome on these.

But, since this was a square update...






..and that would be 20 for the week. So, with the 23 I already posted, I hit my goal of 40 and added a cushion of 3. I am happy.

I can't wait to see what the final total will be!

Hello, Hello!

I haven't actually posted in here awhile. Life got busy all of a sudden, just like that. Crazy, I tell you. But I hope everyone is doing well. I would say I hope everyone is staying cool, but at least where I live, we're having amazingly glorious and wonderful weather. *shrug*

Anyway, I am really looking forward to seeing the fruits of the squares contest, which is coming to a close this Sunday. Boy did that month go fast! And I am looking forward to seeing what else you all come up with. There are some really great ideas floating around, I think. Don't be afraid to share!! Look at what our lovely funfairiegirl is doing for raising money for lupus research! Look what Amy is doing with Warm Up Winchester!! Pretty darned neat stuff!

And now the ultimate question. How many Potterites do we have, and when are you going to go see the movie...or who has seen it already? Would you believe I have never read any of the books or seen any of the movies in full? I know. I'm crazy :)

Have great weekends, everybody!

WuA Squares for the contest

Here are 17 squares for Warm Up America which I guess also count towards the squares contest. I'm not going to get anymore done this week as I'm Busy.

They're all made with worsted weight acrylic other than the brown ones which are two strands of DK weight held together and somehow manage to be phenomenally soft and squishy :) They're mostly garter stitch as I can do that without thinking about it too much. The grey three are a bit experimental but I'm throwing them in there as they'll probably be useful.

I'm making progress through my (quite small, to be fair) acrylic stash and am going to keep going with that for a while so won't be sending them off just yet.



Looking forward to seeing everyone's final tallies.

10 More Squares

I'm posting my squares this morning for the contest because I am going to be away for the next 4 days at the Knit and Crochet Show, and so I won't have time to make any more squares before the deadline. I didn't get quite as many squares made as I wanted to because I also had to do my homework for the classes I'm taking this weekend. But I did get 10 more squares done, anyway.

I made 8 squares for WUA:
and 2 more for VT Tech:
When I get back from the show, I'm sure I will make more squares, but I am also looking forward to making some other items, too! I have a hat and 2 pairs of mittens on the needles that I would like to finish up and send to Warm Up Winchester. Have a great weekend!

Squares for the contest need to be submitted by the 15th at 12 midnight EST to be counted. That would be this coming Sunday night.

Please remember to tag your post with the squares contest tag to be counted.

I haven't had time to do a tally since the midpoint to tell you all where you are, but I know jpettibone is knitting up a storm!! You still have PLENTY of time to get squares knit and in.

Lets try to double what we did at the beginning of the month. Remember the winner will get a GC to their choice of the vendors listed in the original post...unfortunately I don't have time to go find it and link it - I posted it on June 16th though. :)OK - off to get about 400 things done before bedtime.

3 FOs

I've been satiating my Harry Potter lust by watching movies 3 and 4 on my night off, as well as working on some charity knitting.

Here are three hats (one is from a couple weeks ago, but I neglected to post it here. At least I don't think I posted it ... forgive me, I started working 12 hour shifts, and my brain is a little fried.) These are all for the charity project I started, Warm Up Winchester. Come on over and check it out if you haven't already. My goal is 100 hats/scarves, etc by October. If you can knit just one hat, it's greatly appreciated!





Now, I really should get some sleep. Night all!

From your friendly July Mod

So we're a little over a week into July, and at last count we have 1292 items. Not too shabby!

I just wanted to tell you all that you're awesome, and to keep up the good work.

And in personal news, I just ordered myself a spinning wheel! (Oh, the shinyness!) It's a graduation present from my parents, and it should come in the next few days. And the wheel is coming with some free roving. So maybe I'll spin a ball up for charity, and give it to some worthy person to knit/crochet with. My guess is that it won't be too glamorous, probably a "thick and thin" type of yarn. Though who knows- maybe it will be the perfect skein.

Ok. Let's see. How about the first person to comment (I'm posting to both LJ and blogspot at the same time) gets my firstspun skein from the wheel, assuming it's something knitable? You can use it to make an item (or part of an item or multiple items) for whatever charity/ies you choose. Sound good?

I also have some things planned in the realm of knitting and crocheting. Besides the cat blanket I finished yesterday, I have a few surprises up my sleeves...maybe I'll post them all on July 31st! But I think we can hit 1650.

Quilt blocks for neonatal quilts

In my tiny (online) quilt quild, we have a member whose son was stillborn at seven months about two and a half years ago. At the hospital they gave her her son, wrapped in a tiny quilt, to hold for a bit.

Last month we found out that since then, she's been making neonatal quilts for hospitals in her area. We decided to leap in and help her, and have put together a blog for organising it, Quilters Cauldron. We figure we're making stone soup from quilt blocks. :-)

Quilts for premature infants are much smaller than regular baby quilts, and, as you can imagine, no parent is ever prepared to have a premature birth. So if the hospitals have these smaller quilts on hand, they can give them to parents who need them.

We're asking folks to make quilt blocks which we will then piece into tops, and one of our members has a longarm machine to do the quilting. Blocks need to be completely cotton, and machine washable. (We also ask for no flannel.)

The blocks we're asking for are 8 inches finished (which means you send us blocks that are 8 and 1/2 inches square). Colors are any pastels: you can make blocks appropriate for a boy, a girl, or gender-neutral. We'll sort blocks as we get them and make them into quilts as they go together.

There's more information on the blog, or feel free to comment or email with questions.

Square contest

It's been a busy week, and I have managed to get quite a few squares done while we've been driving up and down Northern California.

Here they are...............




6 for Warm Up America and .........




11 for Rebuilding Greensburg.

I have some more I need to sew in tails and such, so I'll post those with the next update.

To see what else I'm up to, check the blog.

Well?

How was your Fourth? Or, for any international folk...how was your yesterday? :D

Here are 9 hats ready to go to WINC
so you should be able to reach the 20.
Will let you know when I have other items to send,
these were fun, seems like when I do patterns, the hat gets finished in no time,
happy crafting.
Susan

July Goals

So I am happily stepping up to be your July Mod. Here's that post you've been waiting for, where we present the July goals, which are not yet carved in stone.

Considering that we made over 500 items for June, and considering that it's still summer, and those of us who are students are currently on break, I'm going to set the goal pretty high. Originally I pondered 2000, but that might be a little much. So I'm going to set the bar at:

1650. That's a bit over 400 for this month, which is less than 500, but more than 300.

Keep in mind that we still have the square contest going on, and if any of you want to have a shot at winning it, you'll probably have to make a lot of squares. So that should help us get more items, for those of you who choose to participate.

Now for specific charity goals:

First, we could set a square goal, since y'all are making squares. The square contest right now has 173 squares, I think. Right, funfairiegirl? Well I'd like y'all to have 220 350 squares total by the end of it. Between all of you competing, I bet you can do it.

warm up winchester is looking for 100 items by October 31st. Let's get them 20 items, so they can be at 1/5 of their goal by the end of the month, just from us.

And then I think we should have a non-knitting/crocheting goal. Maybe we can have a Homespun Helpers bake sale for The Great American Bake Sale, though we're in different locations, and transporting food isn't always so easy/feasible...Does anyone have ideas for a baking goal? Or any other media that aren't as well represented here?

Speaking of underrepresented media, I was thinking that maybe we can try to craft stuff outside of our normal media. Like knitters could crochet, or bake. Jewelers can make cards. Etc. This might be a bit crazy; I'm just putting it out there.

That's all I have to say for now. Good luck everyone! And feel free to comment with any ideas for other goals.

We have a winner

Wow - all I can say is WOW. We have 208 total squares finished since the start of this contest (of course Jorie and I are not counting ourselves, but we are working on some too.)

Anyway - We have a winner.

jpettibone with 43 has won a beautiful skein of Cherry tree Hill yarn donated by Priscilla.

A list of the contenders:
jepttibone - 43
treehugger 06 - 37
doclegs - 31
craftyone - 16
littleknittinkitten - 14
gypsyamaranta - 13
Priscilla - 13
Venka - 6
nenhnaa - 5
zipper208 - 3
zortified - 2

If you are not listed above it is because you didn't tag your post and I couldn't find it easily. If your total is not correct or missing, please email the gamil account with your total, the date of post and that you have added the tags and I will make sure you are counted toward the final contest counts.

congrats and it isn't too late to get in the lead. I mean squares are fast, fun and go to a good cause.

(and yes, I redid this post from the LJ one - blogger is being a pain and wouldn't let me post it over OR edit it to make it bloggerific happy - just in case you are wondering)

June Summary

June"s finished objects: 517
Total in 2007 so far: 1234

funfairiegirl issued a challenge: that we finish 1200 items by the end of June.

And we totally did. Here"s how.

~=~=~=~=~=~

afghans for Afghans are getting a pair of socks from Priscilla.

The American Cancer Society received nine hats from bunny_pwns_you.

Blankets for the Gulf got a blanket from doclegs and one blanket from Craftyone.

A breast cancer support group got three scarves from Craftyone

Charmed Knits got a hat from kat_denton.

Chicago"s Crafty Angels got five baby bibs from theonlyevidence.

A Domestic Abuse Center received 25 pottery angels (Angels of Hope) from sweetcheri"s Mother.

The Dulaan Project got three hats from death_by_yarn, two hats from snoopingmother"s daughter, seven hats and a child"s vest from twotone, a variety of hats, gloves, and scarves numbering 12 from media_res and a friend, six adult and two baby hats from eowyn_ulysses and eight assorted items from zortified, a hat from akkasha and 12 hats, two scarves and a baby sweater from desertempress.

Hesed House got three hats from laughlovelive.

The Hokie"s blanket project got four squares from joriejc2.

Local animal shelters got six blankets from Venka.

A local hospital is getting four premie hats from ndjen04.

Love Quilts got a pink cross stitched square from smiles_sweetly.

The Lowell Wish Project is getting a blanket from _fakewings_

funfairiegirl"s auction for Lupus Research is getting 25 pieces of jewellery (11 + 14) from elsieamelie.

A mental health charity auction received two hats and a blanket from doclegs.

The National World War II Museum received three scarves from elsieamelie.

Project Bag O" Sunshine got 46 bags (6 + 1 + 1+ 1 + 1 + 1 + 10 + 14 + 2 + 2 + 1 +4 + 1 + 1) from jellybellygirl, treehugger06, snoopingmother, joriejc2, mmeblue.

Porject Hokie Hope got two squares from zortified.

Project Night Night got two blankets from ascelinne who also contributed food to the potluck fundraiser for the project.

Rebuilding Greensburg got 54 squares. In the first half of the month, 23 squares were completed (10 + 12 + 1) from gypsyamaranta, snoopingmother and cymbelline. After the square contest started, another 31 were made (3 + 3 + 13 + 9 + 13 + 3 + 10) by Priscilla, Craftyone, snoopingmother, doclegs and caboosey.

The Red Scarf Project got four scarves from eowyn_ulysses back in January.

Share a Square got six squares from Priscilla

Warming Families are getting 14 squares from Little Knittin Kitten.

Warm Up America got 180 squares. WuA suggests 49 squares for a full size blanket, which means we"ve produced almost enough for 4 blankets this month! 40 of these (5 + 5 + 5 + 3 + 2 + 20) from treehugger06 and eowyn_ulysses, crazigriffen, Mystery Singapore Kitten and funfairiegirl and Christi aren"t part of the square contest. The square contest generated the other 148 (8 + 13 + 6 + 5 + 3 + 6 + 16 + 15 + 43 + 13 + 12) from doclegs, gypsyamaranta, treehugger06, nehnhaa, , Venka, treehugger06, jpettibone, Craftyone.
crazigriffen also finished another blanket.

Also, lindsoriah made two blankets.

~=~=~=~=~=~

We"re having a square making challenge put together by funfairiegirl and joriejc2. Deadline is 11:59 pm EST on July 16.

We hit 1000 items! And 1200!

The orignal Crafting for a Cause group has asked us to change our name. Lots of discusion about a new name can be seen here, here and here and here. Eventually the name Homespun Helpers was chosen.

More Crafting for Chairty Opportunities:

• eleme shares an urgent request for prayer shawls for children which are needed in July.


• Craftyone is running Project overwhelm Patty with Scarves - a project to produce lots and lots of fun scarves for breast cancer sufferers at The Alexian Brother"s Medical Centre


• leftygirl02 talks about making teddy bears to be given by the fire brigade to children involved in fires, and suggests the following links Gainsville Fire Department Care Bear Program and The Teddy Bear Cops Program and annilita mentions the Artists Helping Children Program that does the same in hospitals.


• doclegs points out some charity links.


• joriejc2 wonders if we can run an etsy shop to sell items to raise money for her local women"s shelter near Thanksgiving.


• jpettibone mentions the Pattenworks blanket competition. There"s some discussion of how we could make this a community event. doclegs has the kit and is going to send out skeins to people wanting to take part.


• Priscilla points out Project Share a Square aiming to collect 6x6" granny squares to make afghans for children suffering from cancer at Camp Sanguinity.


• laughlovelive reccomends the crochetlist on yahoo who have a charity of the month.


• Any one wanting to make items for for tornado victims in Manitoba should see this post in 20sknitters


• The Red Scarf Project is accepting scarves again. The guidelines have changed so do check them out if you"re going to donate.


• Priscilla points out Gracious Parcels- a project making afghans to give to people moving into Habitat for Humanity homes.


• Crocheters may be interested in Krochet Krystal"s flower square - she"ll send you the pattern if you make one and send it to her to be made into blankets for charity.


• russia_moore aked for advice on selling a crochet pattern to raise money for the Interpretative Guide program at Lindsay Wildlife Museum. She"s put up a page with the information about the pattern and the program here.


• death_by_yarn has started an effort to help warm the homeless of Winchester, VA. Have a look at her site Warm Up Winc for information.


• And while it isn"t entirely a craft for charity link, it is related: Annie Modesitt"s husband has beel diagnosed with terminal cancer. In an effor to raise money, she"s offering this pattern. Read funfairiegirl"s post about it here.

Questions for the community:

• ugottafriend asks if anyone knows about becoming a non-profit organisation for the charity jewellery store she"s setting up.


• elsieamelie asks what she can do with bits of a poncho that went wrong.


• lindsoriah asks for suggestions for things to make for a charity auction.


• ugottafriend asks about making bears for children


• cacuni wants some input on the website design. Share your thoughs.

Other things our members are doing:

• robin_andersen talks about an auction to raise money for the medical bills of her great nephew.


• ugottafriend has opened a jewellery shop on blujay from which all the proceedes will go to charity.


• mmeblue has designated some items on her shop on etsy as for charity.


• knitmeapony has various crafty items to give away


• project_memes asks what to do with some bookmarks.


• Missmalaprop posts about Desire Nola and explains about her charity spotlighting. Check out her etsy store.

Other Discussions:

• Why we do what we do - a reminder from joriejc2.


• joriejc2 wonders about donating to women"s shelters in memory of those women who die during pregnancy. There"s some discussion here


• The Deadline for Project Bag O"Sunshine Part 1 is 1st July to allow doclegs to give the first batch out on July 4th. The post has all the info needed for contacting doclegs for her address to send stuff. Stuffing for thebag is also appreciated.


• joriejc2 dreams of real life meet ups. See the poll and some discussion.


• Little Knittin" Kitten says that contributors to afghans for Afghans in Toronto can bring their items to Knit Cafe on Queen"s Street by September 25th for shipment.

~=~=~=~=~=~

January 2007 - 21
February 2007 - 33
March 2007 - 121
April 2007 - 161
May 2007 - 381

And my last act as June mo

I'd like to highlight two very very cool projects that are going on.

Our own lovely death_by_yarn, aka Amy, has started a project called Warm Up Winchester. She has a blog all set up with directions on how you can join. She also has some pretty nifty ideas regarding goals and contests. So please go on over and join her over there. Anything you make there, of course, also counts for here, so you would just be charitizing all over the darned place!

Also, if you visit 25thingsforcharity.blogspot.com, there is a charity developing for children/orphans in Russia, based by a member's first-hand observations there.

Thanks!

we're in the hands of a hobbit!

Alright, everyone. Your mod for July will be:

sen_ichi_rei !!!

The ship is yours, madame. Let us know how to proceed :)