Knitting for Charity and Other Tidbits

December is here with snow included so I've been knitting up a storm as have others. Christmas is just around the corner and many projects clamour for attention.

The Share Your Gifts project 2 has just finished with roaring success and they have announced Project 3 - Oklahoma is the state and brain cancer patients are the focus. Just click on the Share Your Gifts link to get all the details and join in this great effort.

The helmet liners for the troops is surging ahead and has expanded to accept afghans to be donated to Ft. Carson's wounded warriors who arrive by medevac usually with no personal effects at all. The Salvation Army coordinator at Ft. Carson creates tubs of necessities and special gifts for these wounded soldiers. We are delighted to assist in this effort.

Now a personal goal is being celebrated - this week I have knit and donated 275 helmet liners since April, 2009. I hope to have 300 by the end of the year - I would like to have more but with the holiday's time becomes precious since I still have some personal knitting to finish.

Yarn sales and donations are always a wonderful event and I've received or found both recently. The patrons of the knit shop have been very generous with purchasing yarn and donating it to the helmet liner project - which keeps my needles busy. Then I went to Michael's the other day and the Paton's Classic Wool in selected colors were marked down to $1.99 a skein. I managed to find 17 skeins that were appropriate colors for the helmet liners. YEA!!! I'm all set until the end of the year.

I've also joined Ravely - an online group for knitters and crocheters - and they have a number of great groups you can join. One is Oddball Charity Knitters - which I joined - and they start a baby blanket, knit a border and 4 inches then mail the blanket still on the needles to the next knitter who adds another 4 inches and on it goes until it the appropriate length and has a border added. Once a number of blankets are completed, they are donated to a selected hospital or charity. This is a great way to use up odd lots of yarn, test new stitches and work with a great group of people. Loads of fun.

Today our oldest granddaughter, Meghan, is singing with the Colorado Springs Youth Choir. This is our first chance to see her perform and we are really looking forward to it. She is having a great time with her music.

Also, I couldn't resist showing this lovely fall picture. Same tree in first photo - oh, how the weather has changed!!!

Mailed My Contribution to Sharing Our Gifts

Well, I managed to knit some mittens for the Alaska project and then a hat to go with the mittens. In the process I learned that knitting mittens were actually easier than the slippers since I used a single strand of yarn for the mittens and double strands for the slippers.





Here is a picture of my efforts.

These were knit from Lion Homespun yarn. This yarn give a lovely soft feel to anything you knit but is challenging because it likes to split off slender threads so you are always struggling to not have splits.

New 50 States Project Announced

Our new Share Our Gifts 50 States project features the Lee Shore Center in Kenai, Alaska. We are to send a hat and mittens (hand crafted only) to arrive by November 25th. Please use the link to read about the details on this great 'giving' opportunity.

http://sharingourgifts.blogspot.com/

General Update on K-HeLP (Knitted Helmet Liners Project)

We have experienced a small flurry of interest and activity with K-HeLP and wanted to share it with you.

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An email from my nephew contained this comment when he received his first 'goodie box' after being deployed to Iraq: "The helmet liners went fast. Once the weather cools down I'm sure I'll have a few guys asking about them. Thanks." He is in a small, isolated group of soldiers and more liners are headed his way in the next box.

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A volunteer found our project by 'Googling' - which delighted me when she wrote in support and with enthusiasm as she began her first liner.

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A group in Saginaw, Michigan donated 45 liners to their local armory and emailed us the total to include in this project.

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We received the following email and hope some of our readers can help with this request. Please email me with any Canadian project info so we can post it for all to find.

Hello Kae,

I have read about the helmet liner project in several magazines and have found your website as well. However, I am Canadian and would like to knit for the Canadian soldiers. Do you know of any projects up here in Canada? Thanks for the help and good luck with the 2010 challenge!

Thanks,

Melanie

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Another great email we received is the following:

Hi,

I am the volunteer coordinator with the American Red Cross at Fort Dix, NJ.

I decided yesterday (when we gave out the last of our donated knitted helmet liners) that I would start a campaign to have helmet liners knit for the soldier deploying from Fort Dix. We canteen on a regular basis for mobilizing soldiers from all over the country. We recently received some knitted helmet liners and put them out for the soldiers. They quickly disappeared. We wished we had more. I have since sent out word ot all the American Red Cross chapters in New Jersey to help with this project.

Do you have any suggestions or pointers you can offer?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Joan Brown

Volunteer Coordinator

American Red Cross of Burlington County

Fort Dix Service Center

In a follow-up email that we received from Joan after we sent suggestions she offered this additional information about Fort Dix and her situation.

"Fort Dix has just recently merged (Oct 1st) with McGuire AFB and Lakehurst NAS and we have become the nation's 1st megabase. We will have the Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines all operating out of this joint base.

"It is an exciting time of change for all. We have 1 Red Cross Service Center located on Fort Dix which will service all branches of the military."

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WOW! What a mission and opportunity to serve our men and women in uniform.

My purpose in including the emails in this update is to help these other people with their projects. The reason that Carla and I had teamed up together with K-HeLP is to provide helmet liners for every service man or woman who wants one. The more people who are knitting the faster we will reach this goal.

I am happy to be the contact person for any questions or information you need. Just ask and I'll do my best to find out or help in any way I can.

Happy knitting everyone.