Tag: charity crafting

Counted Cross-Stitch: Conquering a Childhood Fear

I had a love/hate relationship with counted cross-stitch.  As a child, I remember getting so frustrated with a project in my only year of Juniors as a Girl Scout.  It was a for a Christmas ornament.  I got so fed up with it, I gave up, and therefore not getting a badge.  I hardly cared.

A few years ago, I cam across a lovely cross stitch kit in the bookstore:  Miss Woolly’s Creepy Cross-Stitch.  It was Halloween, I thought, why not give it a go.

I gave it ago.  And it sucked as much as it did when I was a Girl Scout.

Fast forward to last Friday.  You know what else sucks?  Kidney stones.  I had one starting the day before on Thursday, and passed it on Monday.  Fun times.

Back to Friday.  I was laid out with a kidney stone at home bored out of my gourd.  I wanted something different to do, and, since it’s close to Halloween again, I decided to give cross-stitch another whack.

Above is the pumpkin I made from the kit! It’s not exactly like the one in the book, as I made a few mistakes and added a few things to the mouth, I’m pretty proud of it.  I even started the next project in the book.

This pumpkin represents an accomplishment.  After 20-odd years, cross-stitch finally clicked.  It’s certainly not going to take the place of my knitting by any means, but it will be something different to do as a change of pace.

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Make a Difference!

KnitPicks is doing a great charitable promotion right now along with Crafts Americana. Basically, craft something for a charity, upload you wearing said item for charity along with certain hashtags on Instagram (or e-mail the photo), and Crafts Americana will donate $1 to the United Nations Refugee Agency.  Neat, huh?  Make a different locally and globally!

Here’s the original post and instructions from KnitPicks.

We’ve all seen the heart-rending images from the Middle East and Europe as of late. We wish we could help, but the massive scale of suffering is so daunting. How does one even start?

But what if we joined together? What if we collectively pooled our crafting skills, time and money to help those in need – both locally and across the world? As crocheters and knitters, we are perfect for this mission, because the nature of our craft inherently lends itself to giving.

As for instructions, here they are:

  1. Knit or crochet an item for a local charity of your choice.
  2. Post a picture of your item with the hashtags #craft2giveback and #knitpicks and mention your local charity.
  3. For every photo, Crafts Americana will donate $1.00 to the United Nations Refugee Agency.*

Take note of the fine print for choosing your local charity.

Local Charities

Contact a local homeless shelter, church youth organization, hospital, nursing home or Salvation Army to find local charities in your area.

* Campaign runs 10/08/2015 – 11/30/2015. Crafts Americana will donate $1.00 for each photo, up to $5,000, to the United Nations Refugee Agency. Photo entries must contain the hashtag #craft2giveback to be counted. A local charity must be noted to be entered for the $500 prize. Multiple entries allowed, as long as each entry is a different project.

Of course, I linked my favorite knitting charity, The Wrap Up, Lancaster Project in my Instagram entry, that’s where these four scarves are going.  It’s quite fortuitous that I had them with me to deliver to Angelia after work today when she posted originally about this particular charity.
So, start crafting and get going!  Snap some photos!