Um...where did March go?

Wow. This was one fast month, and not an altogether good one, I might add! For a lot of people.

Still, it's ending today, and hopefully April showers will bring us May flowers.

You have a few more hours to post an item to enter into the March contest.

Our charity for April will be Afghans for Afghans!

Happy Tuesday!

Hats: Round One

I'm 1/4 of my way through the goal of 40 items for The Scott and White Cancer Facility in Texas. I've completed 10 hats. I previously posted photos of the first two. Here are the remaining eight. Most are adult sizes, with the exception of the three pinks and blues in the 'trio' photo. I think the little pink one, in the photo by itself, is also too small to fit an adult head, but who knows.

Next, I intend to make 10 scarves. I hope to knit them, but crocheting moves much more quickly for me, so if I'm feeling especially impatient, which is usually the case, I'll crochet. My goal is to knit the majority of them, though.

Hats are faster projects, so I might be away for a bit while I entangle myself it my knitting needles and yarn balls.

Happy Monday!

'nother Hat

I got to work early this morning (you never know what to expect with local traffic), so I finished it while I waited to clock in.

This is another one for the gift shop in TX.

Off to make more!

Tres Mas Sombreros

Three more hats are going to needy heads.
The pink/blue combo hats are both going to AfA and the black & white one will be my first contribution to the Scott & White Center in Texas. The first of many.

My goal is to make 20 hats and 20 scarves. I'll likely to ten hats, then ten scarves and then go back and do the same-- to keep it interesting for myself.








That's all for now. It's time to go through my yarn basket and see what's what.

Keep on keepin' on, y'all.

An exciting opportunity!

Hi Everybody,

An exciting opportunity has come up. Mia and I are going to be working on this but we certainly welcome any and all to participate.

One of our members' mothers is receiving care at the Scott & White facility down in Texas. To honor her, as well as to honor the memory of one of Mia's friends, I contacted the facility to see if they would accept donations of chemo caps. The response was that they are going to be opening a new gift shop in May and they would love to sell donated items. They want to sell the items at a low cost, so anything they have to buy and resell would be tough for them to make money on.

They are looking for any type of thing. Hats, scarves, shawls, for men, women, and children. They will give away whatever they can't sell, and all proceeds will help people cover their healthcare expenses.

My hope is that if the initial load we send does well, this could be the beginning of a long and steady relationship.

If you are interested, I would say that you could start sending things to me and I will do big shipments once May comes along. If you could send a dollar or two with your items to help pay for the shipping, that would entirely rock.

Yay!

If you do participate, please make sure you get permission from any pattern designers you use...this is a situation where items are going to be sold, even though it's all for fundraising. Make sure it's okay with them!

The Homespun Helpers Flier!

Ok the flier is ready...it's currently on Microsoft Word 2003, so it's DOC format. Let me know where to send it for approval! Or if there's a way to post it here for everyone to see, give me the scoop!

Thanks!
Kelli

Crafts in Color

Well, the move to SoCal is complete and I have crafting to thank for keeping me mostly sane. I'm no stranger to relocating for work, school. You know, over the years...That doesn't mean I love doing it, right? Right-o!

I'm proud to say that I was smart enough to, in the midst of all the madness, keep my canvas crafty sack out of the boxes we loaded onto the moving truck. I crocheted and knitted along the road and in between unpacking boxes and it kept my brain happy. And un-insane.



Anyway. The two beanies are for AfA. That's Slingshot modeling the smaller of the two kid hats for AfA. He's a good helper.


The four scarves (one or two of which I posted before, but didn't count towards a tally) are going to The Dulaan Project.



Thanks, Robyn, for your awesome charity list.

And thanks, Ladybug (a.k.a. Professor Fluffy Buns), for keeping this blog going.

Craftily, humbly yours.

Just thinking out loud

I have two thoughts/questions rolling around in my head. Please give me your honest feedback...that's what I'm looking for.

I have been struggling to think of ways that we could raise awareness about, well, us. Not for any other purpose than to reach my main goal of charitable organizations beginning to come to us with things they need and us providing for them.

What keeps coming into my head is that even though our total number of items donated is big, I think the best way to raise a lot of attention would be for us to come together as a group and make one ginormous donation to one place, all from Homespun Helpers. This would not be mandatory, it could last until the end of this year, and I realize that getting everyone to agree one one thing and one place would be difficult. But what do you think?

I'm also lightly tinkering with the idea of asking for monetary donations somehow, somewhere. Folks in this group spend a lot of money on shipping, yarn, and other stuff...I'd like the group proper to be able to help out with that.

So yeah. Post away. Give me ideas, suggestions, complaints...I'm open to it all :)

Thought you all would find this funny

So, it's Wednesday. Yes indeedy deedy dums. Everyone always looks forward to Friday, and don't get me wrong, I do too, but Wednesday is such an optimistic day. You've made it through half of the work week, and you only have more than half to go :) Well, it works.

Anyway, so how are ya? I was looking back through old archived posts of mine and found a post I did when this group was just a tiny little baby group 2 years ago. Right around this time we were celebrating because we had made and donated 85 items.

As of today, we are at 549 for this year.

Oh the difference a couple of years makes! Thought you would all get some pride and joy out of that little fact.

Take care!

Well, if I have to have a nickname

Then everyone should have to have a nickname!

That's right, it's on.

So for awhile now, some of y'all have taken to calling me boss. Well, I decided that if I am to be called boss, then I need to have people around me that are appropriately gang or mob related as well.

So, I want you to submit your new nickname to be used in the confines of this community just as soon as you can. Now, before we protest, let's remember that I am being very nice in letting you choose your names cuz I didn't get to choose mine! And it's very fortunate indeed. Do you know some of the names I would give out?

Dinosaur Jellypants

Professor Fluffy Buns

Gold-Toothed Mucka mucka

So, you see, it's really better this way.

But yes, nicknames, all around. Maybe I'll think of a prize for whomever comes up with my favorite name :) Or maybe not...we'll see. One thing is for sure though. You're getting called by your nickname when I'm around, so it better be one you like! :)

Working on something not scheduled

Hey hey everybody,

I don't know if any of you watch CBS Sunday Morning, but there was a clip on yesterday that really caught my attention.

In Boston, there is a bar called the Bull & Finch -- Cheers was based on it. For 35 years, a fella named Eddie Doyle worked there and he became kind of a celebrity during that time. He used his time to start a charity called Cheers for Kids, which gave a lot of money to Boston charities, including a children's cancer hospital.

As you might guess, Eddie Doyle was laid off suddenly, and once his employment ends, so will his charity work.

I have e-mailed the Caps for a Cure group to see if anyone has any contacts at the CAM Neely foundation, and I have also sent a couple of e-mails. I would really like to send a bunch of blankets and caps if they let us so that the kids and their families know that they aren't forgotten, and I'd like the donation to be made in honor of Eddie's years of hard work so that he knows the good work will continue.

If anyone is interested in participating, that would be great!

I'll kee ya posted...in the meantime, here is a story similar to what CBS ran yesterday...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFap7KricP0

Our star of the month!

Hello everyone!

We are halfway through March already, believe it or not, and that means it's time for our THIRD star of the month for 2009.

And our star this month? Ninjasezzy!

What can we all say about our resident Ninja? Normally, when folks join our group, they ease into things, do an introductory post or two, and work their way into hearts. Ninja? Well, per her name, she came in already kicking. A lot! Last spring, right about a year ago I think, Ninja came in and announced that she was going to work on making 1,000 preemie sets for the hospital that helped take care of her son. For most of us, that would be crazy enough. But not for her!

Ninja, like our previous two stars, epitomizes for me what I want Homespun Helpers to be all about. She has taken personal experiences and magnified them into charitable works. She ALWAYS has a nice comment for anyone that posts. And she is teaching, or maybe enslaving, other people as well.

Ninja, you definitely deserve to be called a star. Enjoy enjoy :)

Helloooo Everybody!

I hope everyone is doing well. Spring seems to be creeping ever so much closer to us here in Northeast Ohio...though it's supposed to go down to 22 tonight but who's counting?

So how are you all doing? I am almost done with my second pair of socks. The yarn is funny variegated stuff, so the 2 socks are not really going to look much alike. As an OCD type of person, that is going to be hard for me to cope with :D

I am also working on my second 12" x 12" blanket for Afghans for Angels. I shall have pictures to post this weekend.

Y tu?

Wednesday Wednesday, so good to meeee

And it's March too! So what are you up to? Me? Well, Afghans for Afghans posted that they would like women's wooly socks to ship, but they would NEED them in California by 3/12. This I will not be able to accomplish. However, they are also collecting kidlet socks like the ones I posted on Sunday, so I'm hoping to get a bunch of those done. It seems feasible.

I'm also hoping to work on Afghans for Angels blankets (just so I can completely confuse myself as I try to post my FOs). I have this sampler knitting book and each square ends up being 12x12 (if you gauge it right). So I thought I would double some of those patterns and see if I can get some 2x2 blankets out of it while learning new stitches. Oh yeah, I'm ambitious :)

Don't forget, we're shooting for 800 by the end of this month! Woot! :)

Afghans for Angels Info and Addresses

Hi folks....

Since March is our Afghans for Angels time, just some more information about the charity. It is a group that provides hand-made afghans for families who have lost a child to stillbirth, miscarriage, or infant death.

They have not updated their website in some time, but here is the link: http://www.angelfire.com/ia2/AforApage2/

This charity is near and dear to my heart, as I have had three miscarriages myself in the last year and a half, and had nothing to hold onto after I lost my children. When I lost my first baby, I joined a support group for women who were due in June of that year, and I made blankets in honor of each and every one of their babies. It was such a healing experience for me, I kept doing it and asked this group to join in. The response was overwhelming, and helped me move through my grief.

The blankets are small... they can be as small as 12 inches by 12 inches, or as large as 2 ft x 2 ft. Please realize that these are blankets for families who are grieving -- so they should be in soft baby colors.

I will be collecting blankets to send out, so you can send them directly to me or to one of the chapters. Since the website is outdated, some of the chapter links are gone.

Here are two addresses of people who I know are actively collecting:

Afghans for Angels
171 Gramlingtown Rd.
South Fork, PA 15956

HeartFelt Angels
Elizabeth Parsons, Founder
P.O. Box 2634
Winchester, VA 22604

I will be sending my box of blankets to the lady in VA since I sent our first large box of 40(ish) to the group in PA.

Contest winner

Okay, everyone's names were once again thrown into my lovely straw hat for the monthly skein of your choice contest.

And the winner is Violet!

Now, Violet does not post here, but she is one of Ninja's, erm, helpers, so she had made quite a few things. And since Ninja works her so hard, I think it's only fair, karmically speaking, that she win a contest :D

Ninja, please let me know what to send and where for your friend Violet!

Thanks!

And now it's time to get into that drawing for March! :)