Twisted Charity Projects

Warmth for All

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.

Leigh Radford’s Albers Community Blanket

Please join local knitwear designer Leigh Radford in knitting blankets to be donated to those in need this winter! Knit just one panel of the Albers Stash Blanket – Leigh will be gathering a team to assemble and complete the blankets. Blankets completed here in Portland will be donated to P:ear, Cascade Aids Project and Raphael House. If enough panels are completed, Leigh will expand the list of recipients, adding non-profit organizations outside the Portland-metro area.

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

House of Dreams

Warmth For All is an organization that collects handmade items – hats, scarves, mittens, gloves, socks, etc. – and gives them to Transition Projects for distribution to the homeless. This year they are adding an additional charity – cat blankets for a local no-kill cat shelter, House of Dreams. Twisted is acting as a drop-off point for this charity.

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/

BSD Charity Knitting Project

Dina is an amazing woman, who is spearheading a fantastic effort to collect hand-made gifts for each of the +1600 homeless students in the Beaverton School District. Twisted is offering a 10% discount to folks who purchase the yarn at Twisted to make something for one (or more) of these kids-in-need.

The goal is for each of these kids to get a hand-crafted item by Thanksgiving. Check out her blog for more information, and please, think about whipping up a little something-something to help with this wonderful effort. Dina also started a Facebook page.

Please think about helping Dina out, folks!

Sisters of the Road knitting group

The Sisters of the Road knitting circle (which meets on Wednesdays at the Personalist Center) is looking for donations of anything knit-related in any condition. Clean out your stash, get rid of those needles you just don’t use anymore, share books you don’t have room for, and help enable someone else to catch our addiction! Anything you can donate will be used and appreciated. If you have any questions, you can email Marla Koch (midlifecrisistour2002@yahoo.com). We are collecting items at Twisted, so on your next trip over, drop off some of that extra stuff and make room for more.

Baby Love Blanket Drive

Each fall, Twisted is proud to be taking part in the Baby Love Blanket Drive by offering a 10% discount on yarn for a baby blanket, and by being a drop-off site.

We have oodles of yarn that would be perfect for this project! Like, Berroco Comfort. Brown Sheep Company Lamb’s Pride Superwash. Dream in Color Classy. Or Groovy. Dale of Norway’s Baby Ull (a great customer made a little blanket for Hazel out of this yarn, and it’s super soft and washes like a dream). Cashmerino. Or, any sock yarn (superwash, soft wool – what could be better?)

If you’d like to purchase yarn for this project, but aren’t local, or want to purchase online, we ask that you call us instead. (503.922.1150). Our webstore is not yet set up to give discounts for specific instances. Sorry for the trouble!

What is the Baby Love Blanket Drive?
The Baby Love Blanket Drive is a 2 month long, charity craft-along (Oct- Dec) where people in Portland, Oregon (and beyond) will knit, crochet and quilt blankets for newborns in need.

Who Benefits?
YWCA Yolanda House and the Washington County Foster Closet
All of us at have seen the price babies pay in the Northwest when they are exposed to domestic violence, abuse or neglect. We can’t save them, but we can give them comfort and we think you can too.

Why are we doing this?
In 2007, five doulas decided to help keep babies warm over the winter by sponsoring a handmade blanket drive for the Portland area. In 2008, Willow Birth ran the drive and Ayla Birth has taken over the drive for 2009 and 2010. Regardless or who runs the drive each year, the mission is always the same: comfort for those in need.

Why handmade blankets?
We believe that an item made by hand and with love is more valuable than a store bought one, and we believe that all babies deserve to have something special made just for them. Each of us has the power to create something lovely, but if we band together, we can create a thousand lovely things, a thousand loving hands creating comfort for newborn life. Of course, any item that you personalize with love is handmade, so if your idea of handmade is a bit of embroidery or a fleece kit, we welcome those too!

Blanket Requirements:
Large Blanket: 37″ x 45″ or Small Blanket 27″ x 34″
(If your blanket comes out slightly smaller or larger, that’s fine)

Type of fiber: Any fiber that is machine washable (baby goo will be on this blanket)and soft to the touch. You can use natural fibers such as wool, alpaca, cotton and angora, but keep in mind that some babies have highly sensitive skin.

Weight: Baby Sport, Worsted or Chunky depending if you want to make a light or heavy blanket.

Period of Purple Crying Caps

The Period of Purple Crying Campaign is done for 2011, but will be going strong again in Fall 2012!!!

Twisted is super proud to sponsor Portland’s CLICK for Babies Campaign.

This project aims to teach folks about the Period of PURPLE Crying, those first few months when some babies don’t ever seem to stop crying, and how it can lead to Shaken Baby Syndrome.

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 and their families, along with educational materials.

Guidelines for Caps

• Caps should be made using any shade of PURPLE yarn. Other colors of yarn may be incorporated into the cap, but a shade of PURPLE should encompass at least 50 percent of the cap.


• Yarn and thread labeled as “baby friendly” should be used for caps.


• Infant heads come in a variety of sizes. As a general rule, caps should have a circumference between 7.5-13.5in and a height of 5-6in


• Please refrain from including “pom poms” or any type of strap to secure caps to baby’s heads. These pose a potential choking and/or strangling hazard to babies.

Please knit PURPLE newborn baby caps, as many as you like, and by October 26th either either bring them to Twisted or mail them to:

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

Bear Mittens

We’ve been told that the AAF has all the bear mittens it can use for the moment. Thanks so much for all your hard work! More info here.