Sport Weight Striped

I've been sticking with the basic hats just to get some started and as I was teaching new crocheters, I wanted an easy to follow pattern. I still haven't had a chance to really get into the fancier patterns but I have helped my sister in law learn some new stitches and I practiced them to show her how they work and she's had some luck with them. As for me, I finished up a second cap  in the variegated yarn from Saturday's post, you can see how it's similar and yet not exactly the same I also made a new one using some sport weight yarn to make a cooler, airier cap. I also alternated colors so there's a bit of a different look to this one. Striped hats are fun but the changing colors does slow me down. I hope to have to make some more pink and white hats soon if I can get some more team mates on my Komen team, don't forget, it's two months from yesterday!

Donated cap

I had a very busy day, including photographing baseball, swimming, workouts with instruction, soccer instruction, crochet instruction and borrowing a bike because I was invited to participate in a bike race next month and I haven't used mine in a very very long time. So that means I didn't complete much new crochet myself, though I worked on a couple pieces, and got  a decorative circe piece to add to a cap and more on a variegated cap. However, I did receive a completed cap as a donation. My sister in law finished this one and donated it to the collection.



I still want to find a date to have a "crochet class" in Keller and also have a get together day for people who are interested in just coming over to my house in Denton and helping out making some things, but my days have been so crazy I haven't gotten around to that yet. Let me know if you're interested in either of those and I'll work on getting it set.

Colors

Everyone that has donated yarn gets to pick their own colors, textures, varieties, etc. I think, and hope, that makes it fun to do that shopping. I'll quote Bekah because she helped really reminded me of this when she said "I didn't know what yarns to choose so I just picked one that looked really cool and then of course my favorite color." I know as a crocheter I already had the "love" of yarn but as you might have noticed in my last post, I still get excited seeing new yarns and it helps inspire me to get going when I'm having a rough day or need a break from reality. I also find the teacher in me comes out when one of my students does well and my sister in law has really gotten great at crocheting, she is flying through hats and learning to make flowers and has sent me several picture of them, seeing her do well and being able to answer her questions and seeing her desire to learn more than the basics I've given her is great.

Rebekah Paine, Denton, TX

I was so excited about the new colors from Thursday that I have already made one and a half caps with one of those new yarns and then last night someone brought me a couple more beautiful skeins in a super soft sport weight. Today I am headed to my nephew's last baseball game of the season and then over to their house to help his mom learn some more crochet!

Tags & of course yarn

The cards/tags I ordered to attach to the hats we donate came in this evening. I will put a hole punch in the top left corner as you see in the picture and use that to tie it on to each hat with additional handwritten information on the back of the card as necessary.

I spent the day in Dallas since I had a morning appointment at Baylor. The stores seem to all just have more of everything when you get in the "big city" as I call it when I have to fight traffic and construction on every single highway! One example of the larger options is shown in this donation I received today. On the way to my appointment I met my mom and a friend at Starbucks, while there, she gave me this amazing batch of yarn. Yet again, I'm impressed by the variety, and as much yarn as I've seen in the past, many of these I have never seen before and I look forward to using them. I think I need to go shop in Dallas more often! Although you must spend an entire day if you want to get anything done.
(LOTE teachers, the Half Price Books off Greenville has a great section you should check out)

Terry Raines, Dallas, TX

Donated Komen Caps

While these were made with yarn I purchased (rather than any donated), they do need a mention here because several of you have made donations and already chosen to donate the cap I've made back to the Q's Caps charity. If you are on the team or supporting my team I thank you in advance and I will give you updates as we continue toward the race date and then after as well but for now, here are some of the caps I have made, many of which will be added to the pile ready for donation. On that note, I have ordered cards to attach to the hats as they are donated with general information about our cause and a place to write cap care information as necessary. When those come in, I will post a picture. Until then, enjoy a few "Komen Caps"

More yarn thanks

Gary Cunningham, Sweden

I received more yarn yesterday both in the mail, and in person. I do enjoy receiving packages both ways and it's fun to see some of the out of country packaging. Gary has also made a point of choosing where to buy the yarn based on who is selling it, a Hospice shop and this batch from Cancer Research UK. There's a picture of the pin from the Cancer Center here. I also went to a reunion party last night of some of our friends from the Ministry Center at UNT, oh college years! It was a great get together and I got some more yarn from Deanna, she got a variety of types, colors and textures in that batch too, I can't wait to use all of the new yarns I received.

Deanna Green, Dallas, TX

Impromptu Crochet Party

 This evening I went to my brother's house to spend time with them and celebrate my nephew's 2nd birthday. My sister in law and I had also planned to work on making crochet flowers and checking out her completed caps. When some friends came over to with a happy birthday to the birthday boy, they were all very interested in what I was doing and I had a little mini lesson on crochet with a group of 2-7 year olds! It was fun and they all left with a bracelet or necklace :)




My brother also let us coax him into picking up a hook and he learned to chain and double crochet, though he didn't make anything specific, he learned the basics. It was a fun night, we did finish one hat, one flower and started another of each.

Komen caps

 Lately I've started working on caps for my Komen team. These caps will be a little different than the ones I have been making for chemo caps since they are made to cover hair and not keep your head as warm and in my case, let hair out the back, however, I can also make full covering ones. I am offering to make one for each person that joins my team (walking or running) and also anyone who makes a donation of $15 or more to my team. If you race with me, we'll take a picture with everyone in their cap and then you may keep the cap for yourself, give it as a gift to someone you know or donate it to me to go along with the other Q caps.

If you are interested, you can find out more information at my page here:
http://northtexas.info-komen.org/goto/AnnaNeale

or the Team Page:
http://northtexas.info-komen.org/goto/Q

Boxfuls of yarn

Renz family -Northwest, TX

It's exciting to see yarn still coming in each day. Today, I missed meeting up with them but thankfully the Renz family was able to bring it by the house and get me some more to add to my stash. There are some more fun colors and textures here.

Par Avion

Gary Cunningham - Jönköping, Sweden

This yarn has travelled the farthest, so far anyway, to get to me and join the collection. A special thanks to uncle Gary for his donation, the colors are beautiful, I can't wait to get to using them. Also, they were purchased from the St. Elizabeth Hospice Shop. I can't imagine anything more fitting.

Organized

My friend came over today to help me out making caps, and for those of you that know what it is, we watched 7 episodes of Firefly :)
I had been milling through ideas of how best to organize the yarn as it comes in and then gets used so we also did a bit of shopping and found some fold up boxes to sort the yarn both by color and type. We pulled out all the current yarn, and of course the couple more skeins I couldn't help but pick up today and laid them all out. Then we sorted them and boxed them up and got them back on the shelves. The cats and dog enjoyed helping of course, but despite that, we got a few caps finished and the yarn better organized. It was a good day with a friend and productive too.

 

 

Yarn Sale

If you've been waiting for the right time to buy some yarn (to donate or use for yourself, whatever), today and tomorrow Joann stores have their entire stock of yarn 30% off. If you want to pick some up or have me do so for you, now is a great time. They also have plenty of free patterns available on their site. I just thought I'd share the info for those of you interested and I'm attaching a link if you want more information:
http://www.joann.com/yarn-cross-stitch/yarn/?cm_mmc=20120713-D-_-Email-_-HTML-_-Joann&utm_source=Joann&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=Yarn_ANCHOR&utm_content=HTML&utm_campaign=20120713-D&rId=20120713-D

Yarn thanks

I'm behind on doing this but I wanted to give some special thanks to people and groups who have sent donations. Many of you made donations at the service and I appreciate them all and put them together to get us started and as time continues, it's fun to see all the different types and colors and varieties of yarns that are available. Here are an assortment of groups of donations. (And I'm sorry in advance if I forget to post some but I will use them!)

Central Care Cancer Center-Salina, KS

Ramon & Marie Dunn-Desert Palm, CA

Pension Concepts- Lubbock, TX

(Pics to come)
Leisha O'Quinn-Spring, TX
Cheryl Monette-North Carolina

Holovach crochet club

I had another couple people come over to learn to crochet and help out with the cause. I had a good time and I think they did too :) We had some cat helpers and entertainment from each other in the process. I also visited my sister in law this morning to check on how her hat was coming and it looked great but by the end of the day she had run into some problems as well. Just so you know, these things don't always come out perfect the first time! But the time together and the ones we can finish make it all worth while. Pictured are the two visitors from today, the very special "bike helmet" shaped cap my sister in law ended up with today and the 2 that I finished. Thanks to all of you who worked with me today!

Kansas Caps

We finished up 9 caps this week while I was up in Kansas visiting with family. My mom, my sister in law and 2 cousins all worked on these with me to get them made and adorned. Coworkers of my cousin sent along some donation money and we hit a few shops in town for some additional yarn to add to the stash. The pictures don't do them justice at all, I need some good models to show them off better, speaking of models, I had an additional 'model' this trip as well...thanks Jason!

This is my first crochet teaching session for Q's caps. My mom, my sister in law and my cousins all joined me for a late night crochet session. Some of them knew how to crochet but not rounds, some didn't know how to make caps or flowers or bows but we made some of each. Then we even had a few models pose with some of the finished products so here's a bit of what we got done.