Friday, August 10, 2012

Charity Crafting for the Lone Individual


Last night I explained a little about how our Friday morning charity crafting group works in a post for beginning charity crafters. Down the line, I'll share how to start a group and also how to find places to donate your things to, locally. I'll also post, soon, some links to suitable charity crafting projects that do not require sewing or crocheting or knitting!
But tonight I want to let you know that you do not need to be part of a group. You can take your time and work at your own pace and find outlets for your efforts easily, online.

Our group made a hard and fast rule to only work on patterns that we enjoy. We affirmed that the entire setup must be stress free. We wanted, bottom line, to help others while enjoying the process. If you adopt the same attitude, you will love what you are doing and you will be amazed at what you can accomplish.

You will need to find some patterns. Use one of the ones I suggest, often, in the Charity Crafting topic on this blog. Or, use one of the free ones I've designed for crocheters, also listed here.

Then, if you are planning to work alone, you need to find somewhere to ship the finished items.

I checked tonight and found these sites which list links to places that welcome and desire your donations.

Lion Brand yarns has a page where you can either enter your zip code or a word or phrase about what type of donation or project you wish to make, at this link

http://www.lionbrand.com/cgi-bin/pg.fcgi?page=charityConnectionTemplate.html

They include suggestions like "child," "chemo cap," and "blanket." This site also has thousands of free patterns to choose from.

The Home page for Red Heart yarn at the following link has several charities mentioned under the Community heading part way down the page. They, too, have many free patterns to choose from for your projects.

http://www.redheart.com/

And Bernat Yarns has a page with over half a dozen charities listed, at this link

http://www.bernat.com/ourlinks/

Once again, they have lots of free patterns.

Hopefully, this info will get you excited.

Most of all, work at your own pace. Some days, you might not manage to do any work at all. Other days, you might get a whole hour or so for your projects. Sometimes, a week can go by with no activity. Then, there are times when you can work on things every day of the week - these are glorious times!

Most of all, have fun...

1 comment:

Sherry said...

This post was really talking to me. I have been struggling with what I should make and what I want and enjoy making for a long time. There are so many charities out there that are so strict. I would just like to give to the shelters myself because of this. Do you have any suggestions?