If you’d like to coordinate your own effort and donate a blanket within your community, please send Leigh photos of your work in progress and completed blankets as she’ll be posting photos of everyone’s efforts as this project progresses.

How to contribute: Download free pdf of pattern and knit one panel. This is a great project for using up yarn from your stash – follow the color chart provided or create a color palette of your own.
Download pattern: On Leigh’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/leighradfordauthor). Access pattern by clicking “Albers Stash Blanket” on the menu bar to your left.
You can drop off your completed panels at Twisted, or message Leigh (onemoreskein@leighradford.com).
Due date: Panels need to arrive in Portland/OR by January 31, 2012.
Questions? OneMoreSkein@leighradford.com

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Warmth For All is a community-based organization dedicated to providing warmth and comfort to those in need by collecting and distributing hand-knitted and crocheted goods. Twisted is proud to be a drop-point for Warmth for All this Holiday Season. Please drop off your hand-knit or crocheted items by December 11th in order to ensure they are distributed to folks in need as the weather gets colder.

This year, Warmth for All is working with Transition Projects on a challenge. That challenge is to create handmade items to provide warmth for the homeless. Hats will certainly be welcome but if you’d prefer to make a scarf or you just love to make socks, gloves, mittens, fingerless gloves, cowls, etc. that’s fine too. Any item that will make for a warmer winter will be appreciated. The recipients are all adults, both male and female.

The Goal: Collect enough items for the men & women at Transition Projects shelters. In 2010, they received 500+ items and they’d like to reach or exceed that same number in 2011.

The Deadline: Drop off your items for Transition Projects to Twisted by early December 11, 2011 for this winter’s distribution. Items received after that date will be held for next winter.

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All hats are due either to Twisted or to Legacy by the 26th of October, so you’ve got a bit of time left…let’s all work together to ensure all babies born in November in the area get a purple hat, and their parents get information about the Period of Purple Crying and prevention of Shaken Baby Syndrome…

Inspiration follows (sure, I’m a bit biased, but isn’t she the cutest thing you ever did see?)…

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All proceeds from the dinners go directly to Our House to support people in our community living with HIV/AIDS.

The Knit and Nosh event will be held on Saturday, October 08, 2011, starting at 6:30 p.m.

So come on, get over to the website, register, and spend some quality time at Twisted after hours. Bring a finished project to show off, chat with other knitters, feast your eyes on our luscious inventory (lots of new Fall yarns have been arriving this week!) and try your chances at knitterly door prizes (Lantern Moon has donated some fun stuff again this year). And don’t forget about the opportunity to enhance your stash for less – we are giving that 20% discount for purchases made that night, remember? Crocheters welcome, too, of course! Vegetarian option available with prior notice.

It’s $50 for the event, and if you’d like to register, hop on over to the Our House webpage.

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There will be a Knit-In held at Legacy Emanuel Hospital, in the Atrium, on Thursday, Sept 29 from 10:00 am – 2:00 pm. (501 N Graham.)

Parking will be set aside for this event in Parking Structure #4. Once on campus, just follow signs to Parking #4.

More info about the Purple Hat Campaign and the CLICK for Babies Campaign….
CAMPAIGN GOAL:
To protect 1000′s of OR/SW WA newborn babies from harm!
To distribute 2300 PURPLE cap to every OR/SW WA baby born in November who receives the Period of PURPLE Crying DVD!

KNIT-IN Activities….
Large groups of kids, parents and seniors from our PDX/Vancouver community will gather on September 29th:
~to knit and crochet caps
~to recruit knitters/crocheters to reach the goal # of hats to be distributed in November (2300!)
~to learn how to knit and crochet
~to gift-tag 1000′s of PURPLE caps
~to box up and send caps to the dozens of participating Oregon PURPLE birth centers
~to learn about the Period of PURPLE Crying

And remember, Emily wrote a very special hat pattern for this campaign, which can be downloaded here! We are also still collecting hats here at Twisted, and will be until the end of October.

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When one of our very most favoritist customers asked us if we were interested in being a part of an education campaign she was involved in at her employer, Legacy Health Systems, we said of course! We Twistedistas are super proud to be involved in the CLICK for Babies Campaign. This is an educational campaign to teach folks about the Period of PURPLE Crying, those first few months when some babies don’t ever seem to stop crying, and make sure they know about Shaken Baby Syndrome. To that end, we’d love to invite you all to “Click” your knitting needles together and help protect babies.

What can you do, you may be asking yourself? You can knit a Purple baby cap (or two or ten)! Caps will be collected from now until the end of October and distributed during the month of November to new babies.  By knitting caps, you will be helping educate about the Period of PURPLE Crying, a time when babies cry more than any other time and can be very frustrating.

*UPDATE* We’ve even written a special pattern for this project (called It’s My Party) that you can download for free!

Please knit your PURPLE newborn baby caps, as many as you like, and either bring them to Twisted or mail them (to be received by later than October 26th, 2011) to:

THE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL AT LEGACY EMANUEL
c/o Thonna Vela
VOLUNTEER SERVICES
2801 N Gantenbein Ave #1073
Portland, OR  97227

You can also head over to Emanuel Hospital this Thursday, July 14th, at one of the following three times, to pick up some yarn to knit caps. There will be folks on hand to help you get started, too, if you need the help:

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Knitters Needed!

Next FRIDAY, APRIL 15th!

Anyone who knows how to knit and would be willing and able to teach a 4X6 student how to as well…please JOIN US for

KNITAPALOOZA!!

Next Friday!

Metropolitan Learning Center
2033 NW Glisan Street
Portland, OR 97209

8:45-9:00 Refreshments and Welcome in the MLC Cafeteria
9:00-10:00 Knit!
10:00-10:15 Break
10:15-10:50 Knit!
10:50-11:00 Closure in MLC Cafeteria

Bring your knitting needles, yarn and any other items you think might be helpful.

PLEASE PASS THIS EMAIL ON!!

Can you join us? Got a question?
email sbeaird@pps.k12.or.us or call 503-916-5737

Thank you!!

Caryn, Juian, Katie, Kelly, Ned, Shannon, Susan

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House of Dreams is a non-profit, all volunteer operated no-kill cat shelter located in the Parkrose area of Portland. It began in April of 1999 when five volunteers took over a pre-existing shelter when the owner decided to retire, leaving 97 cats behind. The volunteers worked tirelessly; seven days a week, cleaning, painting, feeding and loving the cats, and re-organizing the shelter, which today has between 50 & 60 cats, and approximately 40-50 volunteers. About 35 of these volunteers come in weekly or every other week, the rest help out with events or come in from time to time as their schedule allows.

Cat-bed color and pattern are wide open. House of Dreams is located in a wee house in NE Portland. They try to color coordinate the rooms, so there is a pink room, a blue and green room, a beige room, a purple room. But they can definitely use other colors and multi-colored beds too. The color schemes are a general concept, not a hard and fast rule. As to sizes, 20″x20″ or 24″x24″ or anything in that ballpark is good. They use them in so many places, so House of Dreams can make use of small ones, big ones, circular ones, you name it. As long as the bed can be machine washed and dried, it can be used!

House of Dreams is part of a wider charity organization. Check out their other projects, and consider donating to them, as well:

Warmth For All – http://www.warmthforall.com/
House Of Dreams – http://www.kittydreams.org/
Transition Projects – http://www.tprojects.org/

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Dear Knitting Angels:

This will be our last message to our knitting angels. We just wanted to thank you again for all your support in our Caps for Soldiers Program this summer. Many of you have seen the TV reports so know how successful it was, but many of you live out of this area and we wanted to let you know what the final results were. We are still receiving calls from people who have caps to send to us. I hope this will be helpful in letting you know where to send them.

On September 9, Bea and Janet attended a BBQ at the base with the 116th Brigade and their families. Bea made a speech presenting caps to the commanders and formally presenting the caps to the unit, although physically 3,428 caps had been delivered to them a few days earlier so they could be passed out by the officers to the soldiers while they were in the field in training. The amount was more than the 2,700 that we had been asked for and because we had more the soldiers had requested that we give them some to give to their family members as a bonding tool with their children while they are gone. We were happy to meet this request. It was a wonderful day and we were very touched by the presence of so many soldiers and watching them spend this special time with their families. Please keep these soldiers and their families in your prayers.

We continued receiving caps until the end of October and ended up with over 6,300 caps. We were able to give a large number to the Veterans Resource Network. They send gift packages to service men and women on an ongoing basis so have already sent several hundred off to other units in Iraq and Afghanistan. If any of you still have some caps and still want them to go to soldiers, you can send them directly to this organization. They also need some knitted or crocheted baby afghans in neutral colors as there are a number of babies to be born to 116th soldier’s families while they are deployed. Another requested item from soldiers are for some of those bootie type slippers women used to knit and wear years ago. These need to be large enough to fit men’s feet as well as women’s, can be of any color and do not need to be wool yarn. They will be wearing them at night inside their sleeping bags. If you are inclined to make some of these items, the Veterans Resource Network will get them to the right places. Veteran’s Resource Network is 7025 W. Emerald, Ste 200, Boise, ID 83704. You can call Pat Gore at 208-376-0753 if you need to. She is the contact person. Their web address is: ourtroops10@gmail.com.

Other caps that wouldn’t be acceptable by the commanders either because of color, size, or seams in the back that would be uncomfortable under the helmets were given to soldier homes in three Idaho cities to thank those former soldiers for their service. We hope you know how appreciated your caps have been by the men and women of the 116th as well as these other military groups that received them. You have been especially appreciated by Bea and Janet. In April, it looked like an almost impossible goal and at the end of October; we had more than doubled our goal. You should all be very proud of your contribution.

God Bless You and Your Family. Have a great holiday season and thanks again.

Janet and Bea

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Caps for Good are looking for talented knitters and crocheters who would like to contribute a small handmade cap to help keep low-birthweight babies warm during their first few weeks of life. These caps will be delivered through Save the Children’s newborn health programs in Indonesia, Mali and Guatemala. Andrew contacted us while reaching out to popular bloggers in the online crafts community who might be interested in participating in this effort by making a cap, sending a letter to congress or donating to our cause. Bloggers are our best allies in helping to spread the word about the Caps for Good initiative and raising awareness on the issues that new moms and babies face around the world.

You can visit the Caps for Good website to learn more about this exciting initiative and download a free action kit with patterns and other ways to get involved. We hope you will consider participating in this initiative and sharing the information with your readers.

If you have any questions or would like more information about Caps for Good, feel free to contact Andrew at ascarella@savechildren.org

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