Charity Knitting

Yesterday I took the opportunity to join other members of the Knit at Night Guild (KANG) in a charity knitting event at Central Market.  Central Market is one of those fancy grocery stores where, instead of Saturday tastings being some frozen concoction, they sample home made marshmallows.  They have a wonderful meeting room on their second floor, next to their cooking school, and about thirty of us met on Saturday for some knitting for charity.


This group is one of the classiest craft guilds I have ever belonged to....and I think I have been a member of about 99% of them at one time or another.  Everything you could possibly need to be successful at the chosen projects was provided including wonderful food (catered by the store) and endless, excellent coffee.


Two projects were presented.  One is a blanket buddy from Lion Brand Yarns and the other was a selection of facecloths.


Each participant received a kit that included the pattern(s) for their chosen project(s), sufficient yarn to complete one or more of the project and knitting needles to make the project.  The needles were a thank you gift and are high quality bamboo ones.  There were fabulous door prizes including a book (with supplies) for knitting with wire.  I did not win anything but those that did were very pleased.  (Check out this site for great prices on quality needles.) 


I chose the blanket buddy project which is basically a knitted square with a bunny head and arms.  The instructions required a little interpretation and mine came out like this:

Pretty cute, yes?


All the yarn was donated and I received two skeins of DK weight yarn called Jamie.  You use this yarn doubled for the blanket buddy so this toy really has some heft to it. I think I may have enough left over to make another one. So far Alex has not realized that there is a new toy in the house and I hope I am successful in keeping it from him until I can hand it in.


Most of the items made will be donated to Texas Children's Hospital and other local charities.


I must admit I thought this would be a pretty lame gathering and, except for the one woman who kept telling medical horror stories, the group was very congenial and everyone seemed to be having a very productive time.  I left with about a half hour's of work left and some people actually completed their project.  


The facecloth folks were given patterns that could be a stretch for some people as each used interesting and slightly complex stitch patterns.   Check them out -  Lizard Ridge, Darrell Waltrip and Dimpled were all presented.  I am glad I chose the blanket buddy as I was not in the mood to struggle with a new stitch pattern however I really want to try the Lizard Ridge one as it produces such a great result. 


I hope they will do this again and they are looking for a more central location for the next one.  I wonder if I can convince them that Kingwood is a more central location as I know I could get the Elmgrove Community Room for such a great project.