GTA Donations August 2012

A bit smaller selection of items donated this time. Lots of real life stuff going on the past few months tended to limit my crafting time but at least I finally got some things sent!

As some of you know, I have been going through the slow process of trying to clear out and reorganize my craft room. It’s surprising how many unfinished objects you uncover in the process.

I came across this little preemie blanket that just needed a few more rows of the edging finished so it ended up in my gotta finish pile.

 

  Here is a close up of the material and the edging. The edging is crochet cotton thread. I was a bit concerned the thread would be a bit rough, but after washing it softened up a whole lot and I think it will be ok.

 

 

 

  This was another project that needed finishing. I found a baggie of the squares that I had bought off of Ebay a very long time ago.

Each square was definitely NOT square, so I had to do some trimming and ended up with 3 inch squares.

 

 

Here is a close up of the pattern of the squares. Aren’t they pretty? The flowers and leaves are kind of an embossed pattern and it’s really a lot prettier than the pictures show. It ended up being a bit bigger than a preemie size but could work for a small newborn too. Very simple but a bit elegant too. Could even be used for a nice burial blanket if needed. Might go nice with the little burial outfit below.

 

  The need is unfortunately continuous for burial outfits so I try to do at least one every donation. I didn’t have the ribbon threaded through the bonnet when I took the picture but used just a white thin ribbon. It’s hard to see in the picture, but the yarn has just a tad bit of sparkly to it. Not too much, just enough to make the set special.

The hospitals do use gowns for boys too, simply because it is much easier for them to dress them without hurting their delicate skin.

 

  Another little burial set, made from a multi pastel baby yarn. This should fit a smaller newborn and could work equally well for a boy or a girl.

 

 

 

 

 

  Just a very simple gown made from baby yarn. I didn’t have enough yarn to make a hat or bonnet too, but I’m sure it will still be used. Very tiny, should fit a small preemie. Even a simple gown is appreciated, as it is so very hard to find clothes for these tiny angels.

 

 

 

 

  Another simple burial set made from baby yarn. It’s also tiny, should fit a small preemie. I had enough extra yarn that I made a bonnet and a hat. That way this set can be used for a boy or a girl. The extra bonnet or hat may be able to used with another outfit to complete it.

 

 

 

  The mom’s seem to like these snuggle cocoons for their babies so I tried a new pattern I had found on the internet. It buttons up the side instead of just being what I consider a “sack”. I made this out of Pound of Love white yarn and it should fit a smaller newborn or a preemie.

 

 

 

 

I came across this cute little onesie in my UFO’s. It just needed buttons sewed on the back so that was a quick finish! It’s made out of light blue Pound of Love yarn and is kind of big, so it should fit a bigger newborn.

 

 

 

 

I wish the picture had come out better on this newborn size quilt so you could see just how pretty and bright all of the materials are. The pattern is calls “coins”, don’t quite understand why, but it was pretty easy to put together.

 

 

 

  Here is a close up of it. The background material is a whole bunch of bright Easter eggs! I had lots of it so I must have gotten a good deal on the material at some point in time. I dug through my stash and tried to find as many bright solids as I could to go with it for the rectangles. There was enough busyness going on with the material that I just used the same material for the edging.

 

My hot pink “flowers” quilt turned out to be between a preemie and newborn size. I came across the flowered squares already cut in the craft room clean out process.

 

 

 

  Here is a close up so you can see the patterns on the flower squares better. There weren’t very many of the flowered squares, but I just couldn’t let them go to waste! I like the way it turned out.

 

 

  Last but not least is my sweater donation this time. It is a newborn size and this multi colored yarn should work nicely for a little boy. There is ALWAYS a need for sweaters and hats so I try to make some every time.

That’s it for this time.

 

 

TEASER ALERT!!!

We will be adopting a third kitty this weekend! He is about 6 years old and his name is Truman. His daddy is being transferred out of state to Texas and unfortunately Truman can’t go along. He’s pretty laid back and friendly so I think he will fit in well with our other furbabies Rocky and Baby. Will get pics and such posted soon as I can, just wanted to let everyone know!

Technorati Tags: GTA,donations,charity,cats

Cat Capers

For those of you with cats, you know that you are not allowed to bring anything new into the house without it being thoroughly inspected and approved.

We finally got rid of the old school tv and now have a flat screen. Of course this meant we needed a different stand for the new tv.

  Rocky seems to think it was put here for his relaxing enjoyment.

 

 

 

 

  I think I must try the bottom shelf too and see if it meets my approval too.

 

 

 

 

  Baby has to get in on the act and give her seal of approval also.

 

 

 

 

  Baby decided she was going to inspect the backside and Rocky could see through the wire hole that she was back there.

 

 

 

 

  Well now this is a handy spot to reach through and try to smack Baby.

 

 

 

 

 

  I bet I can reach her better from this angle.

 

 

 

 

Rocky had enough inspection of the tv stand.

 He decided he needed to help dad with whatever he was doing with the empty ammunition box.

What? I MUST look.

 

  Smells ok.

 

 

 

  Seems ok from this angle too.

 

 

 

  Bet I can squish in there and see what’s hiding in the back of the box.

 

 

  That’s enough inspecting for now, think I will pester Baby some more. Maybe catch a few rays.

 

  Baby decided she had enough work for now and went to soak up some beauty rays.

Estate Auction Yarn Score

On Saturday the hubby and I took my stepson and his gal to an estate auction in the neighboring county. Hubby and I are old pros at going to auctions and hadn't been for quite awhile. We knew the kids were looking for dressers and other stuff so when we saw the ad in the local paper we asked them if they wanted to go. Neither of them have been to very many auctions, maybe one or two, so we thought it would be fun to break them in. We have them hooked now :)
Unfortunately, all of the furniture was going for big bucks so they didn't get to score there. But we sent the guys off to the other barn where they were selling tools and other guy stuff so us gals had fun at the main auction barn.
I didn't get pictures of anything but my yarn score (more on that further down in my post) but we did get some other stuff!
For those of you used to auctions, you know how sometimes they throw a bunch of stuff in a "flat" (basically it's a box lid) and you bid on the whole flat?
Our first score was one of those flats and we paid a whopping $2.50 for it. We got Miss M. 7 matching candlesticks, 4 or 5 pretty etched delicate wine glasses, a gosh awful amber jar with a lid, and maybe a couple other things, I don't remember.
Have you seen on Pinterest where you glue together candlesticks and pretty plates to make cute tiered display dishes for cupcakes and such? That's what Miss M. is going to do with the candlesticks! Even if she doesn't use anything else out of the flat, we got our $2.50 worth just for those.
Then we got a couple of nice decent sized pictures that no one else seemed interested in for $2.50 for both of them. They were both probably 2 feet by 3 feet. If nothing else the frames were pretty cool on them so they were worth it just for the frames. Miss M. is pretty crafty so she will probably do something neat with them.
While we were busy, the guys bought stuff like tools and drop cords and a tool box, a bug zapper, camping stuff, and all kinds of guy things.
We never knew what else we were going to find in our truck and their SUV when we took anything we bought out to the vehicles, lol.
All in all we spent less than $100 between all of us and declared the day a success and all had a good time. It was nice spending time with the kids too.
Ok. So now for the big yarn score I got.
For a whopping grand total of $8.50, I got 61 full skeins of yarn and an assortment of  partials and scraps.
I will apologize now for some of my pictures as I really need a new camera.

Here is a picture of all of it before I started to sort it out after I got it home. Remember, this was an estate sale, so a lot of it was older yarn. You can tell by the brands and the prices on the yarn wrappers. In my opinion, yarn doesn't spoil :)
I got the 2 flats for $1 for the both of them, and the big box for $7.50.
There was only one other lady that bid once against me for the big box, otherwise no one else there seemed interested in yarn, which was just fine by me.

These 6 skeins of green were in a clear bag all together and they must be all the same. There wasn't any "brand" on the bag, but it came from Rochelle, Illinois and the cost was $3.47 when bought new for all of them, hard telling how many years ago. You can't hardly buy one skein for that any more. It's a nice soft yarn. Maybe mixed with some white, it wold make a nice set for a boy baby.

There were 16 skeins of whites, off whites and yellows. We all know how many shades of whites there are right? The only thing that matched were the 5 Sayelle off white in the lower right corner. They had the Kmart brand on the label so I know they are old, but they match! You never have enough white, and if they are close and not right next to each other in a project, sometimes you can get away with using different ones.

This is one of my crappy pictures and I'm sorry. These are some of the blues, there were 13 in all. There were a few that matched but not too many. This batch had some skeins from Montgomery Ward for 99 cents each originally.













There were 10 skeins of pinks and a few partials, again quite an assortment with none matching. But I should be able to at least get a baby sweater out of most of them.

Here are the reds and oranges. There were 5 full skeins and some partials. See the third one from the bottom? I have never seen a skein of yarn as long as that one is. It's at least 18 inches long.





Another crappy picture, sorry. There were 3 full purple and a few assorted green partials. The 2 bigger purples are from Grants. You can't buy that anywhere anymore :)

This flat of yarns is all wool or wool blend yarns. I don't use wool yarn for the babies and I don't like to crochet it either as it makes me itch. So more than likely I will bag all this up with the odd ball stuff I don't plan on using and donate it to Goodwill. Someone will hopefully be able to make good use of it. I know I buy a lot of yarn at Goodwill, so it's kind of a pay it forward thing.




Sorry for the goofy spacing on some of this, Blogger wasn't playing nice no matter how hard I tried to make it.
So there you go for our fun day today. I was ready for a nap by the time we got home late afternoon, but it was worth it.

Donations To God's Tiny Angels March 2012

Here are my donations to God’s Tiny Angels this month.

We were concentrating on Easter blankets for the babies and I managed to make 6 quilts and crocheted one blanket so I feel pretty good about that.

I don’t usually get carried away with any “fancy” quilting on my quilts. My sewing machine is pretty basic and I never got a good handle on free motion quilting, so I just do my basic up and down the rows quilting. At least that way it does get quilted, they don’t take as much time, and I can make more quilts quicker to help more babies.

Remember back in July when I got all those really great fabric deals at Wal-Mart because they were clearing out a bunch of their fabric packs? I finally got a chance to use some of them. Here’s the link for that post if you didn’t get to read it.

Wal-Mart Fabric Score

This is one of the blanket kits that I got for $2.20. It measures 36” by 44”. It ended up smaller than that after quilting and trimming it but still a nice size newborn quilt.

 I’ve been watching Hobby Lobby’s ad every week and when ever they have a 40% off coupon I’ve been using it to go buy a quilt batting so it only cost me around $3.00. So I only have a little over $5.00 wrapped up in this  particular quilt. The first picture is the front and the second is the back.

This one is smaller and is a preemie size. I thought it would be really cute for Easter since it has the cute little bunnies and chicks on it. I was really happy to find some solid pastel teal fabric to match the main color of the front so that is what the back of it is and I just bound it with some of the same solid fabric.

This one is also a smaller preemie size. The colors on the first picture are closer to the real color of it. I realize there are flowers on the squares but I’m hoping since it’s predominately blues it will work for a boy as we don’t get as many items for the little guys.

This one is another preemie size. I was having a hard time getting good colors from my camera the day I took these pictures. The colors are more of a pastel and not so washed out looking as this shows, but you get the idea :)

The print squares are actually pretty little purple flowers.  Quite awhile ago I got this huge roll of the purple flower fabric at Goodwill for next to nothing. It’s about 5 inches wide and there are yards and yards of it, so I’m sure you will be seeing more quilts with the purple flowers in it in the future. There is so much of it that I’m thinking about ruffling a bunch of it to make a ruffled dress for my grand daughter.

The teddy bear quilt is also a preemie size and it’s made out of fabric that I got a really good deal on last May at Hancock Fabric. Here’s the link for that post if you want to read about that shopping trip. 

Hancock Fabric Deal

I had plenty of that fabric so I backed the quilt with the same teddy bear fabric and bound it with white to match the other squares.

I call this one my zig zag quilt. It’s made from fabric from the Wal-Mart shopping trip and has Looney tunes characters and Winnie The Pooh on it.  It turned out in between a preemie and newborn size but it should work for a smaller newborn. I used strips of the same fabric with white in between for the backing.  It turned out pretty cute but I doubt that I will be making this pattern again for the babies. It took a lot of piecing so it took a lot more time to put together before I could quilt it. I like how it turned out and I like the pattern but I feel I could have made 2 simpler quilts in the time it took me to make just this one.

I did get one preemie blanket crocheted. It’s made out of an ombre cotton yarn. Can’t for the life of me remember what brand it is.  I THINK it’s the I Love This Yarn cotton that you can get at Hobby Lobby but don’t quote me on that. I do know that it’s really super soft and really nice to work with.

On to other stuff!

Aren’t these little preemie sleepers just the cutest things? My daughter found these at T J Max a while back on clearance and only paid $1.00 each for them. If they would have had more she would have bought them all. Got her trained ! I thought wouldn’t these be neat if someone had triplet boys? So I made a different hat to go with each one. That way you could tell the babies apart. At least that was my thought when I was crocheting them.

On a somber note, unfortunately there is always a need for burial items for the wee angels and I try to make at least one set with every donation I make if I can. Again I was having trouble getting pictures with decent colors, but this is a soft pink and white gown and hat I made for a tiny angel. As I have said before, I don’t crochet all that fast so I didn’t make a blanket to go with the hat and gown, hoping the family can find a pretty blanket to go with it. It has to be difficult to find anything tiny enough when the need arises, so I’m hoping my little set will help ease the pain for at least one family.

On a lighter note, I always make sweaters so I’m just posting pics of all the ones I sent this time. They are made from an assortment of yarns, whatever I happen to pull out of my stash each time. I did manage to get 6 of them done, even with sewing the buttons on, which is my least favorite part of making sweaters. Otherwise I really like making sweaters because they work up fast. I tried to make more boy colors this time as we never seem to get enough for the boys. The blue and red one and the orange and white one were hard to get good pictures of but you get the idea.

And that’s my haul for this time.