Want to Join??

Want to be able to post your own donations, charities, warm fuzzy thoughts? Email us at homespunhelpers@gmail.com

Add yourself to our Frappr Map!


Thursday, May 31, 2007

I'm even less around for the next little while than usual so I won't be able to post a May update until next week....

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

hey all. i'm going to be doing another mass update to the charity archive on my site june 8-10, and while i can find a bunch of charities on my own, i wanted to maybe find out what some of your favorite charities are? any local charities i need to add to the site? if you can help me out, that would be great! just go to the charity archive and search around. anything you know of that isn't already there? e-mail it to me (there should be a contact form on the site).

thanks so much! and let's see if we can't reach 700 by the end of the week! i want to see those pee pictures!

May Donations

I had a fairly successful month, and here's my contribution to the new goal of 700 by Sunday. I finished 8 afghan squares:

2 for VT Tech, 5 for WUA, and 1 for Rebuilding Greensburg (the one in the middle of the picture). I will try to get most of these sent off this week.

I also finished 6 preemie blankets:

These have been donated to my crochet guild for now, but over the summer they will be going to the Danbury Hospital's NICU. There are individual pictures of most of the blankets on my blog (although you might have to scroll down aways to see them). So that makes a total of 14 items for May.

I also wanted to mention that I had a couple of posts on my blog last week that I think you all might be interested in (if you don't read my blog already). One was a post on why I knit and crochet for charity. The second one was an announcement of a new "along" I am hosting this summer called Summer of Squares. It's for anyone (like us) who are making afghan squares this summer. I am asking that everyone donate at least one square to charity over the course of the summer, although if I get enough interest I would love to see the group make a blanket to donate as well. And the best part is that there will be prizes! Please let me know if you are interested, and I will send you a Blogger invite.

I am still working on my June goals, although they may end up involving some projects that aren't for charity. I'm sure I will have time to keep making afghan squares, though!

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

okay then

Funfairiegirl has said she will pee herself if we get to 700 by the end of the week.

I think we should keep her to her word.

What do you think? 700 by Sunday?

Piece of cake, right? :D

Goodness but you all rock!

Again, for those of you who keep track of these things, you might notice that our number has jumped clear to 638.

How did this happen?

funfairiegirl just went on ahead and posted 61 items to tally. Yep. 61. And that's excepting the three other bread loaves that were already counted.

Sheesh!

May in the fairie house

Well, May has been a very busy month for me. Here is what I got finished up:



4 loaves of bread donated to the Memory Walk (3 of these were posted about earlier, but I donated the one I took for the work breakfast because we had so much food!) I have a pic on my phone, but ugh.

Next we have 52 thank you cards for the Million Thank Yous project. For these I bought a packet of note cards, then I did a combination of hand writing and scrapbook lettering on them. Some of them additionally have small thank you placards/stickers which I placed on them. They all say different things as I was trying to make use of the letters I picked up.
Here we have the lace edge hat from headhuggers.org and a wrist warmer to be raffled off by my company sponsored team at the Relay for Life event in Lynchburg VA and a preemie jester hat slightly modified. The hat calls for pom poms, but I did little icord pig tails instead. all of these are out of Debbie Bliss merino DK.
And here are 5 more eyelash scarves for the Mary Read Memorial KAL. These went out last Wednesday so she should have them by now for the mass drop off. Yes, there are 5 - there is a black on in there. I have a half done WUA square for the drive, but I have been knitting some gifts and stuff for me so I haven't finished it. selfish, I know.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

An Update and Stuff

If any of you obsess over goals and how many items we have donated so far, you might notice that our number suddenly jumped up by 45. "quickstitch" got together with a couple of friends and the three of them created 45 snuggles for the snuggles project (more info at her post). Thank you so much for all of your hard work, including posting pattern information and all of that. Very very cool!

I went back and found the post I did regarding whether you want items posted to myspace. It is now the top tag. If you could do me the favor and answer that post, i will use that as my reference as to whether I should/can post your pictures on our myspace profile page. Again, I use your livejournal name when I tag the pictures over there. Even if you have responded before, it would be a big help if you could respond one more time so that I have everybody's responses there.

As May comes to a close this coming week, I have to say that this month has been pretty darned incredible, and the lj spotlight is only like, 10th on the list. The encouragement we have gotten from people not in this community, the connections that have been made, the wonderful new and enthusiastic members that have joined us...*sniff* It's enough to make me weepy. And I'm not even going to talk about the fact that our goal of reaching 750 items by the end of June is almost becoming laughable as more and more items get completed and donated every day.

We have some exciting projects going on, with folks doing big pushes still for the Mary Read KAL, Ronald McDonald House, and our own new Project Bag O'Sunshine.

In other words, party on, Wayne. Party on, Garth.

Blanket Request

Hello everyone,

Blankets for the Gulf has forwarded a request to us. A woman wrote in saying that she would very much like to have a blanket for her young autistic son. She would also like a blanket for herself but placed her son as the priority.

Please let me know if you have anything finished or in progress. If not, I will start something this weekend.

Thanks!

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Put out the word

Now that we have some bags (and beautiful ones at that) that are ready to go, we need some items to stuff them with. My understanding is that those items will also be sent to doclegs or arian_diana so that they can then stuff said bags and deliver them to yon VA hospitals.

If you have any ideas as to what we could stuff these bags with, post here, and put the call out. There are possibilities of using the bag idea for childrens groups like A River Blue (for their art supplies) and maybe other opportunities as well.

Someone mentioned a couple of weeks ago making friendship bracelets...that might be a nice bag stuffer for all of these scenarios. Maybe red, white, blue, and yellow for the VA bags, and rainbow colors for children bags?

This is a chance to get involved if you still think you aren't crafty :) Tell your friends. Spread the word. Hoohah.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

goals, the future, and interaction.org

We have gotten some great responses to
This Post about what everyone would like to see in this community. There were some great ideas, including trying to create kind of a brain center and have local chapters created, trying to get corporate backing, and having actual *gasp* real-life gatherings.

Currently, my biggest goal is to spread the word about us absolutely as much as possible, grass roots style. There are a lot of reasons for this. Obviously, we are always ready to welcome new members to our little charity-crafting family here, but also, if we are to become a source that people can and will turn to when there is a need for items...well, it would help if they knew about us, non? :)

To this end, I'd like any suggestions as to people I should friend over on myspace, the purpose of which would be to be able to ask people who might be more in the know what charities could most use our help. If you are a myspace user, you know that the presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle have little sites up. I have left comments for Mitt Romney, John McCain, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards, asking them if they know of charities they have encountered that could possibly use our help. If you know of any charity groups or other folks who might be able to answer that question, let me know. Or, pimpinate yourself! This could also include any blogs you are aware of, blah blah blah. Right.

Additionally, I had e-mailed Oxfam about whether they could use any in-kind donations. They said no, but directed me to a REALLY interesting site: http://www.interaction.org. This site maintains that the BEST thing you can do for charities is send them money so they can purchase exactly what they need. The WORST thing you can do is send objects to charities when they don't need them, or items they can't use. They also list some really neat charities over there.

I am thinking about this making items to sell thing. When we have a website up and rolling, maybe we could have a store through Cafe Press or something of that sort. It would be based on the honor system at first -- you would make stuff and have people pay and we'd just have to trust, I guess, that your money was being donated to a charity. Maybe we could all donate stuff, one person could post pictures...something like that.

Finally, Blankets for the Gulf got back to me. Currently she does not have any requests for blankets that need to be filled, BUT...they are predicting a really bad hurricane season, unfortunately, and Heather, the founder, suggested that we could make blankets and save them up so that if the bad happens and she does need to send blankets to victims, we'd already have a stash to send down there. This sounds like a pretty cool deal.

Thoughts, comments, questions, reactions are welcome.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

So I have a very simple question...

But I'd love many answers.

The question?

How do you want this charity/community/thing to grow? What are YOUR dreams for this thing? What would YOU love to see happen? Maybe we can get started towards some of those goals now!

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Bag O' Sunshine

Posted 6 more over at the LJ site... :)

An Alphabet of Charities

So I had this whacky idea.

I want to give some items to 26 different charities...in alphabetical order.

Does anyone want to try this experiment with me? I thought it might be a good way to learn about new places that need stuff, and maybe an opportunity to make different kinds of stuff as well.

I'm thinking I'll count the afghan and hats for Afghans for Afghans as my "a" charity.

Who wants to start on B?

2 premie hats

I had forgotten that I had finished these 2 preemie hats a while ago, but they weren't added to out total so I'll post them now.

They were knit from some 6 ply Crazy Color Regia sock yarn (more details if you click the images). My daughter's doll helpfully filled in as a model.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Bag O' Sunshine

Hi folks...

Ok, after mucho emailing and such, right now we have two locations to donate bags of goodies to our veterans -- one in Indiana and one in Ohio.

Here are some details:
1) Bags should be at least 6-8 inches wide/tall
2) Handles should be at least 12" long (up to 24" long)
3) Use acrylic yarn or washable fabric
4) Needs to be washable and hold up to abuse

I imagine that these bags will hang off of wheelchairs, doorhandles, etc, so need to be stitched tightly. The bag I made below is a combination of single and double crochet stitching for the bag itself, all the seams and the handle are a single crochet that's reinforced with a crochet thread.

Things that can be purchased to put IN the bag include:
1) Toiletries (small size shampoo, conditioner, deoderant, etc).
2) Hand sanitizer
3) Small puzzles and games (crossword, word find)
4) Pencils, pens, writing materials, envelopes, stamps
5) Anything else you want to donate!!

I would also recommend if you are donating a bag, please put a little letter or note in the bag for the vet. I get tons of "thank you" cards from charities I donate to that I can never use, and I'm going to use those to put in the bags. You can also make a card, have your child make a card, etc.

You can email me directly at marylewisphd (at) gmail (dot) com if you want to send things and I will give you my address, or if you want to donate to the Indiana VA, arian_diana is coordinating that.

We are counting the finished bag (unstuffed) as one FO.

Another Charity You Might Be Interested In

I just noticed a news story on Yahoo about a charity that I thought some of you might be interested in. It is the Adam Conboy Memorial Fund, and they are sending all kinds of care packages to Iraq. A week before Adam was killed, he asked his mother to send sets of bed linens to his unit. In honor of him, his parents set up this charity. They aren't looking for anything handmade in particular, but I thought of this group because of our current Bag O' Sunshine collection.

I am still busy crafting, but I am trying to get a certain number of items finished before I post pictures. I will definitely post before the end of May, though, so we can count them toward our current goal. Take care!

Friday, May 18, 2007

Attention all embroiderers, cross stitchers, quiLters, etc

I typed quilters weird on purpose by the way. The last time I typed "quilters" people thought I had typed "attention quitters." :P

Zoanna over at 25thingsforcharity.blogspot.com did a very informative post about a charity I've never heard of. It seems to be kind of the needlepoint answer to Warm Up America. The organization finds terminally ill children, and then they get 50 quilt blocks stitched up based on what the child's interests are. This is a really neat idea! Vist www.lovequilts.org for more information.

I know a lot of people posted last week that while they didn't crochet or knit, they did cross stitch, sew, or quilt. Well, here is a GREAT charity for you!

Thanks to Zoanna for posting that over there!

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Today I have a lot to say...

OK - so I am out emailing like mad to different people to get this community more exposure. I think we have a GREAT thing going here. I am not asking for yarn donations, I am not asking for anything other than for people to take a look at us, what we are about and how great this community is and then to pass that information on.

If there is a podcast you listen to that you love and would like me to email (I have a list already that I am slowly working through), a yarn shop, whatever, let me know. I have no problem sending them out. If there is a charity we don't have listed on the charity list, let us know and we will add it. This is not an all inclusive list, we put things up as we go.

I would also like to welcome a lot of new members to our group. And a lot of new FOs. Holy moly when I said 500 by the end of the month I thought you guys would lynch me, but we are getting there REALLY fast. I think we are going to hit that and then blow the 750 in June out of the water. I am planning to go back and look at our month end posts to look at what our goals were and how much we actually did and take a look at our exponential growth. The thing that worries me is that right now we are new and we have a lot going on...but what happens in 6 months when the excitement falls away? I hope that never happens, but it could.

More email goodness!!

I sent an email off to the hosts of Ready Set Knit, which is a podcast run by Steve and Kathy Elkins of Webs.

What I asked for was to direct people to the community since they do a lot of charity work through yarn donations and they are doing some things for the Yarn Harlot's upcoming visit.


This is what I got back...

Hi Aimee, I'll pass this one on to Kathy because she is the "content queen" for the podcast, but I think we can fit something in there. We've already done a couple of PSAs for our radio station (they aren't heard on the podcast) regarding charity knitting and we're doing a whole charity knitting drive for the Yarn Harlot appearance here in a couple of weeks, so certainly that would be something we could spend some time on.

Just a quick piece of information for you because I think the yarn would be perfect for the charity knitters out there, particularly those doing chemo caps, afghans, etc is that we just bought a closeout of an acrylic yarn (don't say yuk before you feel it) that is 100 grams and 240 yards for only $2.29, so people could knit a lot of stuff for charity for not a lot of money. Here's the link to the yarn. There are tons of colors. Here is the link to the information on our website about Leader.

Hope that helps and we'll be back to you at some point once we get through the next two crazy weeks.

Thanks

Steve Elkins
Webs

What is exciting is the GREAT price on the yarn he mentions which is washable and great for charity projects. They mentioned it on the last episode as well. If you don't listen to this podcast, I really like it...why? well, because I like to hear about all the yarn and they have GREAT interviews.

YAY!!!

We have been featured!!! Below is the email we received today!!

Hi,I found out about your group last night via the Livejournal front page.Sounds like a really cool project! I write an indie shopping & craftblog, so I posted about your group there today since I wanted to letother people know what you're up to:http://www.missmalaprop.com/crafting-for-a-cause/
Best of luck!
Mallory

--MissMalaprop.com - indie finds for your uncommon lifehttp://www.missmalaprop.com

Hop on over and take a look at the site - the write up is nice! And a BIG welcome to Mallory, who I hope joins our community - even if it is just to say hi!

Update: New initiatives

Two very new initiatives are underway here in the community.

A lot of you have seen commercials for A Million Thanks, a charity that is collecting thank you cards for the troops. Some of our members have started making cards to donate to A Million Thanks. As long as you make the cards yourself, these will count as donations to charity. You will not have to share any messages, just take a photo of the cards so we can see what creative ideas you came up with :)

Along those lines, I have added a link to A Million Thanks to our profile and to our myspace page.

( I also e-mailed the founder of A Million Thanks ) (this is an lj-cut over at the lj community, where I copied the text of the e-mail)

Some of our members are also working on knitting squares for
Greensburg Kansas...the small Kansas town totally devasated by that horrible tornado a couple of weeks ago.

Again, this charity has been linked to the lj profile and to our myspace site.

This is what happens when I am home from work with a cold. I end up working anyway. Oh well :)

new to posting, not to charity crafting

hello there lovelies! robyn here, from warm with love. wanted to stop by and show off a few of the preemie hats i've been making. this month, my personal goal is 100 hats. i'm at just over 30 so far, so i'd better get back in the preemie hat groove if i want to make my goal! i've got three other projects on the needles right now taking up some time, which is part of the reason for falling so short of my goal.

anyhow, here's a few pictures of the preemie hats.



5 More for Dulaan

I just finished my 5th item for F.I.R.E.'s "Dulaan 10,000 or Bust" push. (The latest is the brown single crochet hat in the back.) For more details on the projects see my blog's Dulaan tagged posts.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Tags, PR, etc

Hey everybody,

Over at livejournal, phoenyxashe posted a beautiful logo that we can print out and send with our donatitons. I would like to start spreading our name to charities so that they start seeing us as someone that can provide them with what they need FO wise, so I'd greatly appreciate it if you could try to include those tags with your contributions.

Additionally, if you e-mail other organizations, I would greatly appreciate it if you could sign off thusly:

Name, A member of Crafting for a CAuse
community.livejournal.com/3000in2007
craftingforacause.blogspot.com

I also made a long post over the weekend that was kind of an alphabetical tutorial or FAQ. If you go to the lj community, look at the tags, adn click on the tutorial tag, you will find that post.

Thanks everybody!

Monday, May 14, 2007

Myspace

Okay, everyone listen up :)

In order to try to make things a little easier, I am going to recommend that if you post a picture of an FO, it will get posted to myspace for our slideshow unless you definitely do not want it to. I use whatever name you use here.

If you DO NOT want your items posted to myspace, please post here...and let me know :)

Thanks!

This and that

Just in case you were wondering...

We now only need 96 more items by the end of May to reach the goal funfairiegirl set of 500. This is like, so a cakewalk now :)

Also, more good news.

There is a musician I very much like named Joe Arthur, and awhile back he helped found a project called A River Blue (you can learn more about it at http://www.ariverblue.org). Basically, the group tries to give children in Northern Uganda a chance to heal and a chance to express themselves through painting and music. These kids go through unspeakable things, as you might imagine.

I e-mailed the group and asked if we could contribute something, and having just thought of the satchel idea for VA hospitals, I suggested it might be cool to donate hand-made bags so that the kids could carry around their art supplies in something colorful. Maybe we could even fill the bags with some fun stuff.

I heard back just now, and the person I contacted was very excited about the idea. She is going to be contacting someone else to see if they can figure out exactly what we could send along, and where, and all that kind of stuff. But that is brewing.

Hope everyone's week is getting off to a good start, and for those of you who have joined today? Welcome! :)

Sunday, May 13, 2007

But...what happens after 3,000?

It occurred to me today that I should kind of suggest that this community will not end once we reach 3,000. But you may well ask, "What happens when we reach that goal?" (Notice I don't use the word if:D)

When we cross that bridge, we will as a community probably set another number goal.

But I'll tell you what my big big big super-huge dream is.

My dream is that we will become kind of a sourcing station for established charities. Not exclusive, because everyone's donations and contributions are obviously valuable, whether or not they are in this group. But I imagine a scenario where, for instance, a natural disaster has occurred and Warm Up America wants to send a ton of afghans to that area. Wouldn't it be great if they could contact Crafting for a Cause and say, "Hey, can you guys work on getting us x # of afghans as soon as you can?" Or, we could start stock-piling...this is way way in the future. But that's kind of the ultimate, OHMYGODICANDIENOW goal that I have for this group.

Obviously, there are a lot of steps that would need to happen for things to get to that point. We'd need some sort of stable contact information. Probably an actual website. Stuff like that. But that is my dream. With so many talented, productive, and dedicated people, I feel that we could really offer a lot in terms of supporting charities that would need a lot of specific things.

If any of you have any thoughts, negative or positive, please feel free to let me know. Or if you would like to see this group achieve other sorts of goals, post those as well! It's anarchy!!!

End of May!!

Jorie asked if we could hit 375 by the end of this past week (maybe today, I don't remember, I was out of town!!!). We did that and as of right now we are at 388 items (although I think there are a couple things posted today that we have not counted in that yet.

WAY TO GO!!!!

All I can say is WOW! You guys make me smile and fill me with happiness. Thank you! So, the end of May is coming. I just added a great progress bar to the blog (over there to the right of this) and we are already at 51.7% of the June goal. What I would like to see is us hit 500 items by the end of this month!!! I mean, at this count that is only another 112 items and I think we can do it!! We got into the Live Journal spotlight and we have a lot of new members who are posting and ready to go! Thank you all so much for coming over!!!! 500 items at the end of this month would put us at 66% of our June goal AND 17% of our total goal. That 750 is a full 25% of the 3000 goal. When Jorie started this and I joined up we figured there was no way we would hit 3000 items this year. We weren't even sure we would hit 300 at the end of January. BUT WOW!!!

We have just over 2 weeks left in May (the 15th is this coming Tuesday) - lets see if we can blow another goal out of the water and hit 500 by the end of this month!!!!

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Welp...

We made mincemeat of that whole 375 thing.

I just can't challenge you guys anymore. :)

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Great News!

Livejournal has placed our community in the lj spotlight. If you're not familiar with the world of livejournal, this means that our community has a featured spot on the lj homepage. And they put us in the top position! Exciting times are ahead!

Woot!

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

handmade yarn donations

This was mentioned in some comments, but I thought I would post about it out in the open :)

Good questions have arisen on how we will count handmade yarn. Do we count every step of the way, or what?

What I recommend is that we go by each finished hank of yarn. If 2 people participate, that's wonderful! But in the end, one item is being completed, and the spinning and the dyeing and all of that are essential steps to make that yarn useful.

Folks will be on their honor system that the yarn that is posted was made and donated for charity.

Does this sound okay? Please let me know of any complaints, suggestions, etc.

Thanks!

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Sssh. It's a secret! :)

Hey everyone,

If you listened to the most recent podcast of awesomeness by , and of course you all would! you know that she had to do some traveling for business this week. The funfairiegirl was not excited about this prospect.

So i was thinkin'...

What if we try to get a bunch of items posted between now and Sunday, in HER honor and anyone else who is having kind of a crappy or stressful week this week. Cuz we all feel good when those numbers go up :) Shall we shoot for 375 by Sunday? Is that too cuhrazy?!?

Let's find out! :)

We've made a new friend!

Hey everybody,

I have met a really cool lady from our myspace site, and as I tend to do these days, I would like to pimpinate her skiznilz!

She is the mind and the hands behind Poppy Flower Fibers, and she is super cool. You can check out her fiber blog and her etsy store at the links below. She does beautiful dying and spinning and her etsy store makes me want to drool. Go! Go now!



http://poppyflowerfibr.livejournal.com/

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5101775

Monday, May 7, 2007

Myspace...check it out!

We're starting to get some nice picture comments and reactions over at myspace. I have the link right here. Well, over there ---> so check in when you have a second! :)

Saturday, May 5, 2007

Bag o'Sunshine

I'd like to launch Bag O'Sunshine on Monday.

Let's try and work out the final details this weekend if possible, k? :)

Any ideas, suggestions, complaints, comments...welcome!

Friday, May 4, 2007

Peekshures

Hey everybody,

I posted new pictures at our myspace profile. If you have not yet told me whether it's okay to post your pictures, please do so so that you can be a part of de slideshow, yah?

Additionally, if anyone has a suggestion for a new profile song, let me know. We have so many items up that the song ends about 2 minutes too soon :O

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Squares for Jillene

Jillene on Livejournal is gathering 6 inch by 6 inch crocheted or knitted squares for a blanket for her dear friend Tina. The full story is here, but here's an excerpt:

"A dear friend of mine, altarflame, just had an emergency cesarean to deliver her daughter, Elise, after driving her family up to Boston from FL to attempt a VBAC. Elise has some sort of brain damage though they're not sure how much or how bad it is yet. A site has been set up to collect donations for them at http://tinaandelise.com/"

Jillene is collecting 6 inch (approximately 15 cm) squares in washable materials (cotton, acrylic, washable wool, etc). She asks that the squares arrive by May 16th so that she can assemble and send it to her friend by the 21st. She's also asking for advice and recommendations on assembling blankets. Please click on this link to see her Livejournal post (complete with contact information)].

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

co-maintainer heaven & more!

Hey everybody,

I want to announce that I finally figured out how to establish "co-maintainers" on livejournal, so I have knighted . For now, she will be adding the online-member names to our profile and will be answering quesetions folks have, as she does already. If things get much busier, she might also help me tally, if we can figure out how that would work :)

Additionally, I'd like to set out an artistic request for those of you of that ilk. A while back, we talked about having a tag for our charity that we could put with our FO shipments. Something real simple with the name of the charity, our blogspot blog, etc.

Is anyone willing to a) create something like this, b) post a PDF of it so all people would have to do is print out when needed?

Let me know. There may be an incentive later, but our last contest got kind of hairy, so I's skeered now :)

That's it for now!

My Knitting Blog

Hi ya'll! This is Amy, aka death_by_yarn. I just wanted to post to share my new knitting blog with everyone!

The Yarn Closet

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

For the technologically challenged...

Okay everybody. Here is how accomodating I feel today. Are you ready?

Jezebelsf and doclegs insinuated that they might be able to reel some moms in, but said moms are not, shall we say, well-versed in the ins and outs of things internet.

So, therefore and forthwith, I have created still another section in our respective profiles for members who do not have online accounts. I'm suspecting that the doclegses and jezebelsfs of the world will be posting the pictures for those folks and distributing credit appropriately.

Maybe these poor lost internet souls will get a surge of excitement from seeing their names represented online and they will take the big plunge. Who knows??!

Does that work?

Just call me the benevolent mod.

Or the malevolent bod.

Either way.

April Summary

April's finished objects: 161
Total in 2007 so far: 336

We've exceeded the goal of 300 by the end of April! And here's how we did it:

The American Cancer Society got two scarves for the Bridgewater's Relay for Life raffle in June, from xpiscesgrl227x and five hats from arian_diana.

New Borns in Need got a blanket, two cardigans and a hat from lindsoriah.

The Lowell Wish Project got a blanket for one of their baskets from _fakewings_.

The Dulaan Project got eight pairs of socks (2 + 6) from jpettibone, a child's hat and a baby hat from death_by_yarn and a beret by sen_ichi_rei.

Head Huggers got 11 chemo hats (4 + 3 + 4) from theonlyevidence

A local animal shelter got five blankets from eowyn_ulysses and
another received two afghans (1 + 1) from arian_diana.

A local YWCA got six scarves and eight hats from eowyn_ulysses.

afghans for Afghans got three hats and five pairs of socks from nehnhaa, a pair of socks and a hat from twotone, a hat from annilita, a hat from death_by_yarn and two baby hats from for their Mothers' Day Drive.

The Warm Up American Community Blanket drive got 45 squares (5 + 1 + 2 + 8 + 3 + 3 + 2 +2 + 1 + 12) from twotone, jellybellygirl, death_by_yarn, doclegs, Priscilla, joriejc2 and crazigriffen and funfairiegirl and crazigriffen also finished the first blanket from the community square drive squares.

A local homeless women's home got another five scarves from joriejc2.

Project Linus got two blankets from crazigriffen, a big granny square blanket from doclegs a blanket by Priscilla.

The University of Maryland NIC Unit got ten preemie hats from robin_andersen.

A school fundraiser received two bags by mmeblue.

A local Helping Hands chapter got five purses from arian_diana.

A charity auction got an afghan from doclegs.

Project Hokie Help got five quilted squares from mmeblue.

The Mary Read Memorial KAL got a scarf from sen_ichi_rei and seven scarves from funfairiegirl.

The Mosaic Yarn Store's square drive received two squares from theonlyevidence.

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Items untallied and looking for a home are: A small blanket from joriejc2 and a baby hat by arian_diana.

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Other items of interest from April:

We've started making squares as a community for a blanket in the colors of Virginia Tech to donate in memory of the victims of the shootings. We've already got some squares (2+ 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 1). In addition, people have been donating items to other collections.

joriejc2 has set more goals - to hit 750 by the end of June and to get Project Sunshine for May sorted out.

leftygirl02 has some yarn available to a good home.

emmiegrey had a question about donating money


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Links:

- Knitting for Virginia Tech - in memory of the shootings at VT this month, this community is aiming to make items for incoming freshmen.
- Mary Read Memorial KAL - a knit-a-long in memory of Mary Read, a knitter who was killed in the VT shootings.
- Project Hokie Help - loooking for quilt squares and supplies to make quilts for the families of those who died at the VT shootings.
- Reach Out to Virginia Tech with Knit and Crochet is asking for 8x8 knit or crochet squares for making blankets for the victim's families.
- The Mosaic Yarn Store is also holding a square drive.


- 25 things for Charity - along similar lines to our community, this lot are aiming at personal goals and making 25 items each for charity.

- joriejc2's myspace page has gone Charity.

- Share Our Strength is holding the Great American Bake Sale for the bakers out there.

- Lots of links to charities supporting soldiers can be found here and here

- Lots of car related crafting, just for fun.

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January 2007 - 21
February 2007 - 33
March 2007 - 121