I have received this very Smart Hat from Maggpie on Ravelry. It is called Smart Hat, and the pattern is available for free download on Ravelry. It is like Christmas in October around here, but I get to have the dual excitement of receiving the gifts and opening the mail packages AND playing St. Nick and delivering them to their future owners.
I LOVE mail, I LOVE yarn, I LOVE textures, and I LOVE giving. Now, I have it all wrapped up on one project. I am loving this arrangement. I will not be the direct mail recipient for all the projects, so will not always get to have such fun and excitement from the post box.
Thank you, Maggpie, for this wonderful hat! It is soft, bulky, and a wonderfully manly color. I am certain that the Veteran receiving this one will appreciate all your hard work.
How are your projects working up? Have you tweeted the Project today?
I have mentioned the project from Sharing Our Gifts that is currently doing a hat and slippers drive for Veterans in Southern Oregon. This project will be our team project for October, and the deadline to have these received by me is October 25, so please allow appropriate mail time. I will be presenting these to my contact at the facility on November 2, just in time for Veteran's Day.
Further details and updates for the project can be found on the Sharing Our Gifts blog, but here are the basics:
Our 50 states tour begins in the beautiful state of Oregon. We will be making hats and slippers for Veterans at the Southern Oregon - White City Rehabilitation Center. It is a 600 bed facility, and I am told that they always appreciate hats and slippers. These can be knitted, crocheted, or sewn. The key is that they must be handmade. If you don't make items yourself, but you want to contribute, you could purchase handmade items at Etsy, Artfire, 1000 Markets, or some other handmade venue. They should be size and color appropriate for adult males (slipper size 10-12), and machine washable.
The address to send your items for this project is:
Sinclair P.O. Box 1046 Jacksonville, Oregon 97530
Please leave me a comment here or on our Yahoo Groups page to let me know you are participating in the challenge, and please help spread the word even outside the boundaries of the Hoarders Unite group. As always, our group goal is to use up stash yarn and supplies before purchasing more. Visit our Yahoo Groups page to upload your project photos and to share pattern ideas.
This is a cross-over post because I wanted to share with you the wonderful places on which my project has been featured today. We are growing each day, and getting the word out there. Today, we are featured in TWO places!
1. DinnerTime Chimes has featured us on the Etsy Team blog NCTriangle. Even though our project is not specifically Etsy, this team blog has opened its arms to our project, and I am so thankful for the mention. Check out the blog and all the wonderful Etsy sellers there as well.
2. Kae at Kae1Crafts has joined our project drive and has featured us in her blog post today as well. Kae has two Etsy shops: one for her crafts and one for supplies (shops currently on vacation mode). She also has her own ongoing charity project, donating knitted wool helmet liners to military troops. Specifics on her project and how you can help are found on her Squidoo page.
Visit and Stumble It! Even if you cannot personally engage in either of these projects, please Stumble this post and visit each of the links and Stumble those as well. Then, if you Twitter, tweet the projects for us. For Sharing Our Gifts, please add the hashtag #sharingourgifts to your tweets. (you can just hit the Tweet This button at the bottom of this post if you like, and use the Share This button above the post.)
In my Internet travels, I ran across a succession of blogs that led me to one called Craft Hope. I am very happy to have found this site because it puts important things together. It combines the importance of beauty, appreciation, caring, sharing, helping, and hope all into a tidy bloggy box of love.
In doing so, it puts helping people together with those who are in need of help. Here is what the founder, Jade, says in her About section:
"Craft Hope is a faith-based, love inspired project designed to share handmade crafts with those less fortunate. It is our hope to combine our love for crafting and desire to help others into a project to make a difference around the world."
This is similar to my goal with my sister blog, Sharing Our Gifts. I have not been as faithful in developing that blog as I would like to be, but finding Craft Hope has helped kick my thoughts about it back into gear. Meanwhile, I think I am going to join in on the Craft Hope current project to make a sock monkey for the Little Heroes Preschool Burn Camp in Sacramento, California. The camp is by the Firefighters Burn Institute in Sacramento, and runs from September 25-27, 2009. I encourage you to join me in this September Hoarders Unite Challenge and do the same.
So, the link above to "sock monkey" will take you to a place to learn how to make a sock monkey, and to purchase a sock monkey kit if you (like me) have never made one. Even more exciting, a message on the Craft Hope Nest Bulletin Board from Tamara at sockmonkey.net states that she will give a discount on sock monkey kits to any person purchasing specifically to make a monkey for this project. If you don't need a kit or a discount, sockmonkey.net is just a fun place to visit for free pattern ideas and monkey inspiration.
The deadline to get your sock monkey in for this project is September 18. If you're interested, visit Craft Hope and get started!
I took Amilia's Loving Hands piece and photocopied it to transfer onto some yellow linen (left over from my porch swing project). In keeping with this week's Change The World Wednesday challenge and my Hoarders Unite July Challenge, none of the tools or materials were purchased new for this project. They are from my hoard (supplies stash).I do not have any transfer paper or other nifty transfer device, so I decided to use the ol' stipple method. I pinned the sheet to my linen cloth, then pierced holes in her design. I then used an orange permanent marker (because I am/was planning to use orange thread for the embroidery) to make a mark in each of the holes.Voilà! Now I have the design on my fabric. I'm sure I could have used fabric marker or other quilting marking pencil, but Sharpie is my friend, so I accepted its help.Next, I placed my embroidery hoop and began threading.I have chosen to use a mix of orange and sage, and it is yet to be determined how this will turn out on Amilia's small hand. The dots are somewhat visible under the sage thread, even though I am using 3 strands of floss, but my vision is to give it a twisted cord effect with orange on top. I am using an outline (stem) stitch in sage, then I am planning to whip it (whipstitch over outline stitch) in orange. If you want to see a how-to, I found an explanation at CraftTown.com.
Are you in suspense yet? Stay tuned for the Final Product...
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