On the way!

I packed up the boxes for afghans for Afghans last night, and they are on their way today. As you can see, that first box was just not enough! It was amazing to fill these boxes with all the generosity and to think of the children that might be wearing these, keeping them warm. These items will arrive in time for their deadline to send items for their collection for children and youth. The CURE hospital in Kabul, and the children's rehabilitation programs in Kabul and Bamiyan are the destinations for the beautiful items that have been donated. For more information, see the afghans for Afghans site. http://www.afghansforafghans.org/campaign.html

So, as it is my birthday today, my husband is taking me on a trip for a few days. We're going to Santa Fe, so we will take the boxes across the US border ourselves and ship from New Mexico to the afghans for Afghans collection point in San Francisco. The deadline there is October 12, so there is plenty of time for it to arrive. For once, I will be bringing home less than I take on a trip! Thank you again for all your beautiful knitting, and for entrusting us to get it to where it will be needed.

Our efforts now will be in collecting items for the Labrador Innu communities of Natuashish and Sheshashu. Creativ - Here We Come!

Let' Hear it for the generosity of the Montreal Knitting Guild!!!

We had a note from Carol at Yarn Forward yesterday, that there had been a delivery from the Montreal Knitting Guild. What a delivery!!! I was about to ship a box of hats, with Kate's blanket and the sock yarn blanket, and now ... I need a much bigger box!! Thank you! You are a generous and talented group! There has been much discussion at my house about talent and kindness this evening, I have to say. My three children picked favourites, and then changed their minds again and again. I wish I could post the textures so that others could feel the warmth and softness in these blankets. Thank you again and again!

Check out our Creativ Sponsors, the Hilton Hotel and Fleece Artist

Okay, everybody should stay at the Hilton Toronto, our all time favorite hotel. We contacted them and told them that we were coming in to town for Creativ from Ottawa and had nowhere to stay (sad, I know), and they came galloping to the rescue.

There are two women we need to thank here. First, Sherry Rampersad in sales who listened to my long story and said, "I think I can help you", and secondly the fantastic Denise Ethier, Director of Sales who picked out our project from the stack of requests sitting on her desk and said yes. Ladies, come by the Creativ Festival and introduce yourselves, and you will get a big in person thank you from us!

Our second big news is that we're having three Fleece Artist giveaways at the Creativ Festival. Drop by the booth for details. We absolutely love Fleece Artist, for lots of reasons:

1. They're a bunch of Easterners, and who doesn't love a Nova Scotian?

2. When we started the project, they put their hands up immediately, and said, "count us in for a pattern" (hey, by the way, we'll still send you a copy of the Amelia pattern if you drop us a comment and request it).

3. Their kits are absolutely amazing. I love the Amelia hat (made one for myself), and their thrum socks and mitts are the cosiest things every. I keep the leftovers in my stash and then sort of accent everything else I make with a little strand. Okay my fingers are itching now - I'm yanking out my baby alpaca and startin' something.

Wow!!

Kate's great blanket! A bundle of warm, soft hats! Picked up and ready to send to Afghans for Afghans! This is just wonderful. Kate - the blanket is georgeous - even better in person! You did an amazing job with the knitting and all the wonderful finishing touches. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And to the hat-maker, this is a wonderful donation - warm comfortable hats that will look good and keep kids warm when on the way to school or playing outside. Well done!

Creativ Festival News

Hey, we can see that more of you are accessing the site, especially since the columns in the Metro and the Toronto Star. We're guessing that you want more info on the Creativ show, so here's the skinny:

1. The Creativ Festival is North America's biggest crafters festival, and will be held in TO Oct 26 through 28th this year. It will be at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. See the sidebar to our site under drop-offs for a link to them. If you're into knitting, scrapbooking, crochet, sewing.... and more, you should go! Tons of exhibits, tons of raffles and prizes, contests for the fastest knitter, and (best of all) you can buy enough stuff to feed your crafty desires through the winter months.

2. The Warm Hands Network (that's us) will be there. We have booth #909. You can drop off your newly knit items to us - we're collecting mainly for the Innu kids shipment, and the need is for any size - hats, sweaters, mittens, gaiters and blankets. We'd love to meet you and thank you personally for your contribution.

3. Creativ offers free admission to anyone who brings in a newly knit (hand-knit) sweater or blanket for our project. I'm putting emphasis on the newly knit for two reasons: first, these items are going to be holiday gifts for the kids in Northern Labrador - we think that each kid deserves something new. As the recipient of many a hand-me-down, I think my little sister can attest to the fact that there's something really sweet about opening up something that was made especially for you. Secondly, its part of our deal with Creativ - we're only taking in new stuff at the show.

4. Because they are warmest, we're trying to focus on natural fibres or natural fibre blends. Please avoid 100% acrylic or poly.

5. Come by and see us at the booth, and knit a square! We're being sponsored by Moda Dea, so we're going to be knitting blankets all during the show.

6. We're going to have a cool little raffle for a Fleece Artist kit. Stay tuned!

So that's the dealio so far. Every knit item you drop off will warm a little one this winter. We'll post more as time goes by, so please keep hitting the site. Hope to see you there!

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We're going to be on the Radio!!

Well, that was exciting. We just taped an interview for CBC Radio in Labrador! The host, Cindy Wall, is very kind, so it was pretty easy! I don't think we'll be able to link to a transcript of it or anything, so you'll have to take my word for it that we were great! Just kidding - but, it was a nice opportunity. I am, once again, taken aback by the support we've had for this project.

I'll try to add more photos later. The batteries for my camera need a re-charge and the charger is in hiding. And, we may have advance notice of when the piece is going to be on the radio, so we can tune in through live streaming.

I will have a short diversion from knitting for a few days of pickling. It is that time of the year! Dont' tell my dad that I will be using a purple cauliflower in his mother's relish recipe. (He's very computer savvy but probably doesn't read blogs, even mine). We also have to harvest and make jelly from the grapes in the back yard. They are wine grapes, but still make good jelly. We lost most of our wild grape along with the oak tree, but I know it will come back a-plenty for next year. Is it wierd that my children listen with excitment for that popping sound when the lids of the jars seal?

Wonderful Women!

A wonderful woman I work with has put Warm Hands Network in touch with a women's shelter in Sheshashiu. There are two Innu First Nations in Labrador, the Mushuau Innu First Nation located in Natuashish and the Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation located in Sheshatshiu. So, Warm Hands Network will deliver items to both of these First Nations!

The Rose Gregoire House is a women's shelter, named after a very strong Innu woman, Rose Gregoire. You can read more about her at http://www.innu.ca/rosegregoire/rosegregoire.htm She played an important role in her community, helping families and her community in many ways, working to help her community heal.

Mentioned in Metro!

The word is spreading! We had a lovely mention in the Metro Newspaper - Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver editions! http://www.metronews.ca/column.aspx?id=5704 Cheers for the very kind Nathalie-Roze, Frugal Fashionista! Anita has certainly been busy while I was on holidays. Back to life in Ottawa now, though - kids starting school, my new job starting for real, and soccer season (finally) coming to an end. Why they need to keep it going till the first week of Sept., I'll never know! I mean, it's fun and all, but a bit of a challenge to keep it up once school started this week.

And, back to knitting. I did take some time for crafts on our trip, and met a wonderful rug hooker. Deanne Fitzpatrick, an incredibly talented woman you can read more about here http://www.hookingrugs.com/ Check out her stuff! Turns out she knew my grandmother and wrote a bit about my Nanny in her last book. It was a real pleasure to meet her, and I am enjoying a new craft. And I have been working on more striped hats. Next stop, Hugs and Kisses Hats.

Suzanne Atkinson Designs

Suzanne Atkinson, a local knit and crochet designer, dropped off this beautiful crochetted baby blanket at Yarn Forward on Bank last week. Its made entirely of sock yarn. I wanted to show you a close up because every time someone comes over, I pull this thing out and say "sock yarn, can you believe it???". I'm going to hustle Suzanne a bit (like I haven't already) and ask if she might want to share her pattern.

Ahhh the Saturday before school starts. Bittersweet but mostly sweet. We decided that each person in the family gets to pick one thing to do. So my boy picked aerial trekking in the Gatineaus - nice. My girl picked the Midway - gross. I think I'm going to pick a visit to Home Depot (I looove that place - right now, I'm repointing the basement. I just discovered a part of the store called the tool corral - never knew there were so many kinds of sanders, but I'm getting me one.)

By the way, check out Mags Kandis new blog, my wabi sabi country life. Am I the only moron who didn't know what wabi sabi was? She'll be at the Creativ Festival in October (and so will we, so don't forget Torontonians, drop off you hand knit sweater or blanket for free admission, Or come by our booth (909) and drop off a hat or mitts. Or come by and knit a square for our blanket, or just say hi.

Finally, shout out (I think kids don't say that anymore. I don't care, I'm bringing it back, along with Haley of Knitomatic's "coolio") to Martina Gloss of the Lion's club. She's taken up the cause with the Lion's and sending out the message to her knitters.