Reminder!

The winner of the April Contest will be posted before I go to work tomorrow (which means around 7 AM EST. Post your last items by then!

Tomorrow begins the personal achievement contest, which will last for the next few months. Don't forget to start tagging your posts so Jezebelsf can keep track of your doings! :)

Final Batch Perhaps

Three more going towards team Afghans for Angels. Will be doing my best to finish what I can, but this may be it.

Just one more day!

Just one more day to get your items counted for the April teams contest! Here is the count:

Afghans for Angels: 70

Caron: 66

WUA: 58

Chemo Caps: 48

HMPCWD: 39

Afghans for Afghans: 12

And don't forget to sign up for the two new contests that were introduced over the weekend!! The Personal Achievement Contest starts on Thursday!!

New Contests!!

Hi all!

I have two new exciting contests to announce :)


Regional Summer Contest

This contest will run from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The twist is that you all will team-up based on geographical locale. Thus, I need everyone who wants to participate to post the state where you live by May 4, 2008 on this entry. Based on the responses, I will divide the teams into regions so that the number of participants is essentially even. This contest is intended to be a community builder. The tally will begin on Memorial Day (May 26, 2008). This will give each team time to communicate and create strategies. Some suggestions:

1. once the regions are selected, pick a team captain

2. maybe organize a weekly time to IM with your team in order to motivate and encourage each other

3. if you are located within driving distance, get together in person :)

4. choose a team name

5. recruit local crafters to join your regional charity team -- if new recruits do not join the on-line community, then pictures must be posted by a member of Homespun Helpers in order to be counted

**regions will not be adjusted if teams are successful in recruiting new crafters**

Personal Achievement Contest

I was inspired to create this contest as way to honor all of you who put in much time and effort crafting so many incredible items for charity. I am a baker and a limited knitter, so my contribution to this community has mostly been organizational. I wanted to do something more meaningful. So here it is:

This contest will run from May to December. I will tally items made by individuals of this community. The first, second, and third place crafters will each receive a craft basket that I will put together over the coming months. I will post teaser pictures of the yarns I am gathering. I will NOT be shopping at JoAnne's or Michael's. Rather, I will be supporting independent craft stores that supply lush and beautiful yarn as well as fun accessories. The intention is to reward the winners with a decadent collection of yarns and some updated tools to further their crafty goodness.

~ Neither Joriejc2 or I will be eligible for this contest.
~ Tallying will begin May 1, 2008 and end December 15, 2008.
~ All items will be counted (i.e. items you make for the regional summer contest will count toward the personal contest as well).

General Guidelines for Contests

> Label all entries -- I really need your help with this because I will be moderating both contests, I really, really, really need you all to label!!

> Tallying will be based on April contest rules : preemie outfits will count as 1 item, blankets will count as 5, and everything else will count as 1 item.

> Questions/concerns should be posted as a comment here. If more personal, email me at jezebelsf@yahoo.com

Time is ticking ticking ticking

Well our illustrious Caron Square Team has by necessity reached their end-game, so let's give a contest update and see where we are. Only four more days left to finish up!!

Afghans for Angels:70

Caron Square Contest: 59

Chemo Caps: 45

HMPCWD: 39

WUA: 26

Afghans for Afghans: 3

Afghans for Angels Blankets

Am having trouble posting at LiveJournal, so hopefully this works. At the start of the week I began feeling some soreness in my wrist, so decided to back off my knitting projects.

I was really bummed about not being able to make anything, until I read about how to make no sew blankets and gave it a try. They were fairly simple to make; each took several hours though, because I'm slow. :P

My first attempt. It's about 20 inches by 22 inches in size.

My second attempt. This one is 12 by 12 inches.

Loved this frog and duck fabric when I first saw it. The back side is yellow. The blanket measures about 22 by 22 inches.

caron squares count

so, i've got what i think is a final count on the Caron squares being sent tomorrow ... 109!!! this includes the ones that were Caron yarn that weren't counted into the challenge we've been participating in, but i'm fine with that!

and the squares not made out of Caron yarn? those are being sent in another box next week.

five more Caron squares

001
Originally uploaded by craftyone77

we will not go down without a fight!

(kidding, kidding). it's really exciting, actually, to see how many items have been made so fast. i definitely think we should do this again soon, and when we do i have a suggestion for a charity group.

but for right now, i've got five more squares to add to the caron group .... let's go squares!

Catching Up

It dawned on me that I failed to post these pictures here on Blogger as well as over at Livejournal. So please don't count these twice; am just catching up. Blankets for Team Afghans for Angels.

Updates updates

First, another contest update!

Afghans for Angels: 55
Caron: 54
Chemo Caps: 40
HMPCWD: 39***
WUA: 26
Afghans for Afghans: 3

***I am a dumb-bell and cannot count tally marks. HMPWCD does not have 40 as previously reported. 39 is the right number. Yikes.

Next, I'd like to give more information regarding my little local HMPCWD drive. Here is my dream:

I'd like to have outfits packed together in little see-through bags or plastic wrap so that residents of the shelter can be given a nicely protected, new, handmade set of items (be it hat, scarf, mittens or some other combo). I'd also pack blankets individually.

I'll probably wash everything and dry it before packing stuff cuz most of it would probably have been sitting around here for awhile. If you have cats please wash your stuff before sending it because I am very allergic. Otherwise, if it's pet dander free, don't worry!

I think I'm going to make the cut-off date June 1. That'll give me 2 weeks before my dad's b-day to get everything ready.

Thanks!

squares

squares
Originally uploaded by craftyone77

here's three more squares to add to the Caron number. i've got a fourth one in the works, but don't count it until it's done!

Well, we are just going to have to update again!

Given the amazing day that the Afghans for Angels team had today, I think we had better look at the standings now.

Afghans for Angels: 45
Caron Square Contest: 45
HMPCWD: 40
Chemo Caps: 40
Afghans for Afghans: 3

Goodness goodness goodness... ... ...

Contest Update!!

Boy oh boy. This thing is too close to call. It's all about the next week :)

Caron Square Contest: 45
Chemo Caps: 40
HMPCWD: 39
WUA: 26
Afghans for Angels: 25
Afghans for Afghans: 3

By the way, I hope everyone realizes that these numbers...these are just stuff you've all done this month.

That's pretty darned impressive, folks. In case you were wondering :)

Simply Soft Squares

Here's my contribution to the April contest - 20 Simply Soft squares.
I will mail these (along with the 13 squares I made last month that have already been counted) to Robyn tomorrow morning.

(I know this isn't completely relevant to this group, but I thought some of you might be interested to know that I used 1,169 yards of Simply Soft making these squares!)

Also, I remembered that I never did post this hat and pair of mittens that I finished earlier this month. I actually finished them up because they are made of Simply Soft, and I wanted the remainders of each skein for squares.
So these 2 don't count towards the contest but do count toward our total. I will probably send these along for HMPCWD in June.

I also wanted to add that I really enjoyed the contest this month. Being on a team really helped keep me focused and motivated, especially knowing that my teammates were counting on me. Maybe could we do this again in the future?

Contest Update!!

Here we go folks...getting ready for a weekend of contest activity. Here's how our standings look.

How many people can we dress: 36

Chemo Caps: 30

Warm Up America: 26

Caron Square contest: 25

Afghans for Angels: 25

Afghans for Afghans: 3

Now, I don't want to say, motivate you guys any further, but let me say this...I have items to post for HMPCWD. Oh yes.

Just sayin. :)

Also, got an update from Afghans for Afghans today. They are looking for rectangular shawls for new mothers. They'll probably be collecting till July they think. They want non-airy designs but yarn that's light enough the women could wear it on their heads.

Check out the AforA site for more info.

Woohoo!

We are almost at 1200 items and it's the middle of April. We are on track for hitting 2,000 way ahead of our goal. You all rock!!!

preemie hat contest (on a different site)

hey guys, just wanted to let you know that i'm running a preemie/baby hat contest over at Craft and Found from now until June 1. One of the hospitals in my area sees a lot of lower income families, and they're in need of hats for the babes they see. I've been donating for about a year now, but i wanted to drop off a huge box in June and surprise them. The full contest details are over at my blog ... feel free to enter!

Ahhhhhhhhh here's some squares

Ok...looking around really really hard, beneath the blue square one can just barely see the words that say something about new post. The blue box telling about what the community is is actually blocking the words 98%.

So I'll post a few things here and if this isn't the right way, someone let me know...please and thanks.

Squares, some 6 inches and some 8 for 2 different groups both benefiting the military. The 6 inchers are for Patriotic Angels and the 8inchers are for Patriotic Afghans

The 2 hats are also for Patriotic Angels. (2 hats 15 squares). The wheel type square and the one I call corner to corner are new ones for me to make that I really liked.

a few more squares and some other fo's

these are a few hats i'm donating to the neonatal center in my area. they look super long, but you turn them up so they have a brim. and no, i haven't woven in the ends yet. i tend to save htat for when i'm about four hours from taking a box of things to donate!


two more squares for the caron group. i swear they're not quite that bright, but i had the settings on my camera too light for the white sheet i took the picture on!

Contest change

Well, it seems that the latest contest update has taken the air out of some folks' balloons. Yes, our sweet ninja did suggest that we just count each outfit instead of each item, but I honestly didn't think that was fair to her since, ya know...mittens and socks and hats and such are usually counted separately. Of course, I didn't think she'd whip together a post of 60 items either. Me silly :)

Anyway, because ninja volunteered to do this, I'm going to adjust back the HMPCWD numbers.

The new total for HMPCWD is 26, which means the contest numbers look like this:


Chemo Caps: 27
HMPCWD: 26
Afghans for Angels: 25
Caron Square Contest: 18
Afghans for Afghans: 3
WUA: 0

There :)

Thank you, Ninja, for being so thoughtful! :)

it's been a great week in contest-land!

Wowzers. You are all so incredible.Stepping aside from the contest and all of that, I would like to point to our year-long tally so far.

You all have donated and made 1,060 items already!!!! I am just floored. *sigh* Weepy.

So now back to the competition stuff, which is just going to be a photo finish I think. Are you ready?

How Many People Can We Dress: 78
Chemo Caps: 27
Afghans for Angels: 25
Caron Square Contest: 18
Afghans for Afghans: 3
WUA: 0

We are just to the half-way point of April, so anything could happen, and I bet it will. I have the sense that you square people are just going to explode all at once. Cuz square people...they're devious like that :)

Great work, everyone. Sincerely.

Contest Update!

Hey everyone!

Here are the contest standings now! It's a tight race still! Keep it up :)


Caron Square Contest Group: 18
How Many People Can We Dress: 18
Chemo Caps: 16
Afghans for Angels: 15
Warm Up America: 0
Afghans for Afghans:0

More Pr

I've created a free Yahoo Geocities page for us. It's crappy but oh well. What do you want for a one-page free website? Anyway, it has links to the blogspot community and to here, and I've also created a "guestbook" that links from the site (it links to a livejournal user called homespunguests.

The Yahoo page can be viewed here

This is not meant to replace the Typepad site, but it's free and it's just another way to get the word out.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to make such a tiny thing any better, just let me know.

Warning, bloggers!

Our site here is being targeted by evil spammers. They are posting links and asking you to click. These are not legit. I'm deleting them as they come, but please do not click on any links unless it is absolutely clear that the link is not malicious.

Evil hobitses....

four more squares

squares 001
Originally uploaded by craftyone77

here's four more squares for the Caron squares group! they're all the same pattern, which i'm sure is cheating somehow, but whatever. i'm on a square making high, and i'm not coming down until i run out of caron simply soft yarn. which might happen soon. man, you really can only get like three to four squares out of those skeins ... i'm used to the red heart, where you can get like ten!

if i can't find more in my stash soon, i might have to go out and buy some more. suck. at least it's for a good cause!!!

Buttony Buttoness

Hey everyone,

Thanks to our wonderful Robyn friend, we now have a little web button that you can post to websites you run, to your lj profile, your myspace profile, or wherever else. The button looks like our logo but you can click it and it will lead folks to the LJ version of our community.

Robyn posted the code in the LJ community and I'm going to tag it so you can find it. Feel free to post this button...it's a great way to spread the word!

two for caron squares

here's two squares to add to the Caron squares group!

Contest Question

This has come up a few times...do items count if you had them done but were waiting to post?

Here is my decision, and I hope everyone is okay with it.

If you started items within 2 weeks before the contest started and you finish them in April, they will count. Obviously this is an honor code but I think that's pretty reasonable...I myself am still working on a scarf that I started about a week and a half ago...

Hope that is okay with everyone. If not, let me know :)

Contest Update

Well, my tally job has been pretty easy so far :)

Here is a contest update for your perusal:

HMPCWD: 0

Chemo Caps: 2

Warm Up America: 0

Caron Contest: 0

Afghans for Angels: 15

Afghans for Afghans: 0
Tags:

Start Your Engines!

So last night ended the time when you could choose your team for April. Today, we start counting things -- and the team for Afghan Angels already has three items!

So here is how the teams are looking:

How many people can we dress?

This can encapsulate my local drive or items can still go to San Fran for distribution to other places.

On this team are:

ninjasezzy
lindsoriah
joriejc2 (me..hehee :))

Warm Up America

These squares can be made out of anything and will be sent to crazigriffen for sewing purposes (or straight to WUA)

This team is represented by:

aehallh
eliseamelie
zoegodstar
littleanomaly

Caron Square Contest

We now know that all of these squares have to be made out of Caron Super Soft. These will get sent to Robyn. Because this still won't be going on in a month, if the contest wins, Robyn will get to choose which charity she would like us to pledge items to...she's done a great job trying to run this thing for us :)

On this team:

Robyn
Priscilla
ascelinne
snoopingmother

Chemo Caps

As a couple of people pointed out, they signed up for chemo caps in order to send them to twizzittles. No one signed up for that charity I think because of the confusion, so Chemo Caps peeps, you can send to twizittles or head huggers and they will count :) If anyone wants to send something other than chemo caps to twizzittles, we'll count that as the start of a new team (this would be stuff like scarves, jewelry, etc)

On this team are:

Typo13
Zort
Twizzittles
Knittingforever

Afghans for Angels

We have two folks on this team and they know that each blanket counts for five items for contest purposes only. Like I said, they already have three for the contest! Yikes!

On this team are:

Doclegs
leftygirl02

And finally, but not least:

Afghans for Afghans

These items need to be made of I think *at least* 80% wool, maybe more. On this team are:

crazigriffen
eowyn_ulysses

So there we have it...please tag your entries this month as April Contest, Charity your items are for to help me keep track.

Remember, this is just a fun way to inspire extra crafting. I don't foresee anyone getting mean, but if it happens, the contest is over IMMEDIATELY.

The charity with the most items on May 4 will get a pledge from our entire group to make 50 items for that charity in May.

GO!!!! (and have fun) :)

Contest Reminder

Hey y'all,

Just a reminder that you have until tonight to claim the charity you'll be racing for this month. So far I haven't had any blog-ites sign up!

I set up a poll over at livejournal which I *think* you can participate in even if don't have an lj account...anyway, if you can't or if livejournal scares you, just leave me a comment here. The choices are:

Chemo Caps
How many people can we dress
Caron Square contest
Warm Up America
Afghans for Afghans
Afghans for Angels
Twizittles Cancer drive for her local oncology ward

Again the idea is that we are forming teams that will "fight" for one of these specific charities. The charity that receives the most items at the end of april will be guaranteed to receive 50 items from homespun helpers in May.

Got it? Get it? Good! :)

Mitten Contest Winner!

And we have a winner!

eowyn_ulysses!!!!

Thank you to everyone who participated.

Here is the yarn from which the winner is picking her prize:

Idea for April

Hey everybody,

Alright, I apologize for my April Fool's prank...nothing, in fact, could be further from the proof (although getting 4,000 items done by 6/1 would TOTALLY rock!). Hehee :)

Ehem.

Now then, I have an idea for April.

You know how sometimes celebrities will go on game shows and will play for a charity of their choice? This idea is kind of based on that.

What I would like to do is set up teams who will all be making stuff for a certain charity (i.e. the Caron Square Contest, HMPCWD, Afghans for Afghans, whatever), and we'll have a race to see which charity gets the most stuff after a month. We as a group will pledge 50 items next month to the charity that wins.

What do you think?

Comment here with your charity of choice...I'll leave this open till Thursday night, and on Friday I'll post the various teams. My items won't be counted in the contest since I'm the mediator :)

In terms of numbers for April, we're shooting for 2,000 by the end of June, and right now we're just under 900. Why don't we try to get to 1200 by the end of April? Think we can do it?

Post here, all ye who dare :)

Well, this is just how it has to be

Alright, well, it comes down to this.

Even though we have a handful of people that have been really active, I'm just not sure if this group can or should try to remain vital.

If we don't have all 4,000 items done by June, I'm deleting this community. I just am not sure people are really invested. *sigh*

And here's why:



























Cuz it's April Fool's Day!!!! :)