Saturday, January 5, 2019

My Year of Charity Knitting and Craftivism


 Happy New Year Everyone!

There's a lot in store for 2019, but before we really get into it I wanted to take a minute to go back and a get an official count for all of the charity knitting and craftivism projects I was able to contribute to this year.


In 2017, my first year loom knitting, along with everything else I had been working on, I managed to make 13 baby hats for charity.


The goal this year/2018 was to see just how many more baby hats I could make now that I've gained some knitting experience. However, as anyone following this project over on Instagram knows, I fell down some sort of helping people rabbit hole (the best kind of rabbit hole), and wound up making all sorts of wonderful things, not just the hats.



The pics in this post are everything donated this year. If you'd like to see every single item in detail, please head over to Instagram; https://www.instagram.com/kylelefortcreative/

Charities and positive initiative programs donated to this year include;

  St. Gianna Molla Pregnancy Outreach Centers of Buffalo/Niagara Falls NY; https://www.buffalodiocese.org/st-gianna-molla-center

CLICKforbabies, NCSBS HQ located in Utah, with programs across the U.S.;
https://www.clickforbabies.org/index.php

Welcome Blanket, the MODA exhibit in Atlanta Georgia; https://www.welcomeblanket.org/

Mother Bear Project, HQ located in Minneapolis MN, most bears are sent to countries throughout Africa; http://motherbearproject.org/

Knit and Crochet for Charity, Warren Michigan; http://www.knitandcrochet4charity.org/

Tiny Hats For Tiny Babies/Warm Up America, sent to Texas, to be used by doctors in countries across Africa; https://pretermbirtheastafrica.ucsf.edu/tiny-hats-tiny-babies and http://warmupamerica.org/

SCM Medical Missions, based in Seattle WA, items shipped to refugee camps in Jordan; https://www.scmmedicalmissions.org/
 
Little Hats Big Hearts, for Buffalo NY babies; https://www.heart.org/en/get-involved/little-hats-big-hearts
   
Knitting4Peace, located in Denver Colorado, but items go all over the World; https://www.knitting4peace.org/


I didn't have an official start/end date, so to be part of this year's count items had to be knitted goods that were made solely to be given away, and were finished sometime between Christmas 2017 and New Years Day 2019.

So no painted rocks, artwork, or other crafts, and if you happened to buy something from me, Thank You, but it's not part of this count.



Here we go!

10 assorted newborn hats
64 purple newborn hats
1 40X40-ish Welcome Blanket
4 Mother Bear bears
3 adult sized hats
2 adult sized headbands/ear warmers
1 40x40 baby blanket
1 40x30 baby blanket
63 assorted preemie baby hats
1 38x41 misc. warm blanket

And not shipped/ongoing projects, but finished so far;

21 red newborn and preemie baby hats
2 Mother Bear bears
3 Peace Pals/comfort dolls


Total for the year; 176!

Mind you it's more than just making things - It's people being helped, in all sorts of ways. Everything from brightening someone's day, to keeping warm, to helping doctors save some lives. So while part of me thinks I had a pretty successful 2018, I also want to try and make at least 200 items for 2019. A pretty big goal, but we will see.



If you are interested in charity knitting and craftivism and would like to help any of the organizations I donated to this year, all the links lead to their contact info and if they're not actively accepting items now, they will be during drives throughout the year, so go ahead and give some of them a 'Like' on Facebook. ^_^