Crafting for a Cause

Until about two weeks ago, I'd never crocheted for charity before, but I came across a post on reddit that just broke my heart and I felt compelled to help out the person who posted. Her friend's mom was recently diagnosed with cancer for the fourth time. To try and give her some strength and love, the poster, u/tryingforadinosaur, asked the r/crochet community to send her granny squares so that she can make a blanket for her friend's mom.

Since I got all of Sharon's yarn stash in December, I haven't really known what to do with most of the yarn since there's only one or two skeins of each color. This project was perfect, though, because I didn't need much yarn for each square and it allowed me to destash some in the process.

In all honestly, I intended to take pictures of all the finished squares before I packaged them and sent them off to Utah, but somehow I forgot and here we are. My best guess is that I sent something like twenty or more squares off to u/tryingforadinosaur and I'm really proud of myself for being involved with this project. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm pounding my chest and yelling about it from the mountain tops, but I do feel good about the entire thing and I really hope that she gets enough squares to make her friend's blanket. It'd be great if she could send us pictures of it when she gets done, but I'm not sure that that will happen and thusly I'm not getting my hopes up. Either way, all is well and I was glad to be a part of the process.

The Scrapghan is Making a Come Back!

I started going back to my knit and crochet group about a month ago and since then I've been crocheting nearly everyday (meaning that my cross stitches and cards have taken a back seat, but whatever.)

As a result of all this crocheting, I've been going through a lot of the scrap yarn that was given to me by a coworker before she retired. Truth be told, I'm still trying to get through it all to untangle and organize it, but I'm most of the way done and I've been crocheting up granny squares and granny's daughter squares (GDs) like a fiend. The extra scraps that are six inches long or more but aren't long enough to become GDs are then put into my scrap yarn container to be tied together later and added to my super scrapghan.

This is what the balls look like when I have enough to wind together and add to my blanket. I intentionally leave the knot tails wild so that they stick out all over the place as I crochet. The effect is pretty cool and I love the fact that this blanket will truly be one of a kind. The yarn has come from previous projects and friends and there's tons of memories interwoven with the yarn.

Off and on, I've been working on my scrapghan since January 2012. The project gets worked on when I'm actively crocheting, but until recently I haven't really been working on projects. With me going back to Sassy Stitchers, though, progress is imminent on this project. This last ball that I added made the blanket at least four inches longer and I'm over half way done with the entire thing, so I'm pretty happy with it all. Now if I can just get all my UFOs done and make space in my craft area for different things other than yarn, I will be very, very happy.

Link to my Scrapghan project entry on Ravelry

New Die Cutter & Resulting Birthday Cards

This year is flying by and I have no idea where it's going. And while I'm not sure that I've really accomplished anything significant over the last several months, I have been crafting.

At the end of June, I got a Sizzix die cutting machine to use with my thin cuts and I've been absolutely having a blast with it. My first projects were to make birthday cards for my grandmother and my husband. Gran got unicorns and Hubby got adorable cacti (and both loved their cards!) Pictures are below. Stamps and thin cuts came from Close to My Heart (great products!)