April – May 2019 Project: Character Hats for kids

April 1, 2019 Bridget DavetLeave a comment

I have been working hard the past few months in preparation for our upcoming project. In January, I reached out to one of our local children’s hospitals about donating hats for the kids. They requested that the hats be character hats only, no plain ones. Whew! That was a tall order since we have just started the group and most have just started to loom knit. While there are tons of patterns for crochet character hats, there are almost none for loom knitting. My mission was clear.

I set out to design and make as many hats as I could. Now I have many designed and many already made, but plenty more in the works. Like the other projects we have worked on, I am making YouTube video tutorials for my group to follow. I have several already loaded but plenty more coming. It takes more time than you think to make, edit and upload the videos. I really have enjoyed making these designs. I have so many ideas filling the pages of my design notebook. I will continue design and make character hats since there are other causes/ places we will donate to in the future.

After I started designing these hats, I decided to also donate hats to local children with hair loss from Alopecia. I have a friend who’s 5 year old has complete hair loss from Alopecia. I thought of her and reached out to my friend. She is helping me coordinate the donations. Because we are custom making those hats for each kid, we are going to make the character hats over a two month period.

Several of the ones already loaded to YouTube.

For our side project, we are also loom knitting scrubbies to donate to the Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. These can be used for body/ face scrubbies, which will be perfect for the kids.

Here is a the video tutorial of how to make the loom knit scrubbies.

I encourage you to reach out to your local children’s hospital and see what their requirements are for donations. Please consider using my tutorials to make hats to donate. If you hospital does not take donations, then reach out to your local women’s shelter, church, foster care, homeless shelter, etc.

200 Chemo Caps donated to local chemo patients

March 18, 2019 Bridget DavetLeave a comment

In our second month as a group, we loom knitted hats for patients going through chemo. Most of the hats are being donated to our local oncology centers. A few were donated directly to individuals in need. My car is packed and ready to bring the bulk of the hats that have not yet been delivered. I will be taking them to the local oncology center tomorrow morning. I have no words right now to describe how honored I feel to have such caring ladies, men, teens and even young kids around me. People that are giving their time to loom knit these hats. I expected we would have a large number of hats, but 200? And how exactly did we get exactly 200? Last month we had exactly 150 NICU baby hats and exactly 25 activity books. I had to recount each several times to make sure I wasn’t wrong.

I had each person turn in their donations in plastic bags, so I wasn’t able to get a photo of all of them together, but you can still imagine what 200 hats looks like. WOW!

Each of the hats were placed in their own bags to keep them clean. I wanted to put a card with our group info in each, but the cards are not here yet. Instead, I made stickers and put one on each of the bags.

Here are some of the chemo hats being tagged.

Here are the ones that are going to be delivered tomorrow. These boxes are huge! I should have had my kids stand by the boxes to show the sizing. Say a prayer for each and every one that will be receiving these blessings.

Just some of the chemo hats boxed and ready to be delivered.

I encourage those that are following our journey to reach out to your local community and see how you can help. No matter where you live, there is probably a cancer center within driving distance. If not, there are places that you can mail them to their location.

If you’d like to help us by donating items needed for our blessings, we have an Amazon wish list of these items: http://a.co/gxuv6jj. Any items will be shipped directly to me for use in the group.

Chemo caps are super easy to loom knit! Check out my YouTube channel for tutorials, here is one of my most popular ones:

Loom Knitting

March 2019 Project: Operation Gratitude

March 1, 2019 Bridget DavetLeave a comment

We are doing several projects for our donations to Operation Gratitude this month. Each year, they send hundreds of thousands of Care Packages to those who serve our country. If you go to this page of their website, you will see all the ways that you can help out with the care packages and requirements on each of these projects we are working on.

Either a hat or a scarf is put into each care package during colder months. We have been working on hats for our February project, so any of those designs will work for this month as well. I will be adding a few more to my YouTube channel throughout the month. I have also designed some scarf patterns as well. Here is one of my favorites: https://youtu.be/Mp6r5xPUcbs

Hurdle stitch scarf design for this month’s donations.

In hotter months, they include a cool tie in the care packages instead of a hat or scarf. These are easy to sew. You can purchase the crystals from a link they provide to fill the cool ties. You can make 5 cool ties from 1 yard of fabric.

In every care package they put several cards to the service person. Thanks to a generous donation from one of our members, we are using blank cards to create cards for the care packages. These will be a great way for our kids to get involved as well.

Teens, kids and adults will also get to make Paracord Bracelets. According to their website: Not only do these bracelets look cool, they can actually be used to save a life in an emergency situation. We include them in our Care Packages because they’re both functional and meaningful, as they are handmade by an American who wants to show their appreciation to our Troops and First Responders.

They have a video on how to make the bracelets, both for left and right handed people to follow. Paracord can be purchase from Amazon.

I hope you will consider following along with one of these projects or one of the other ways you can help out listed on their website and mail them your donations.

Blessings Donated · hats · Loom Knitting

NICU Baby Hats and Activity Books Donated to Local Hospitals

February 27, 2019 Bridget DavetLeave a comment

Just some of the NICU baby hats donated to local hospitals.

January 2019 was our first month as a group. I can’t believe in such a short time what blessings have happened in our group. Besides the 65 hats we donated to the kids at the local women’s shelter, we donated 150 NICU baby hats to local hospitals and 25 activity books to the children’s hospital.

One member donated 33 red baby hats to a local hospital to be worn on Valentine’s day and was featured on their Facebook page.

The baby hats will be an ongoing project for our group. I have a tote that we will fill with baby hats and once full, we will bring them to the hospital. Baby hats are super easy to make. The loom is so small, you can take your project with you on the go.

Not only did the kids, teens and adults loom knit baby hats, but the kids also helped make activity books for children at the hospital. Each activity book contains 4-5 basic coloring pages with a colorful cover decorated by our kids. Each book has 3-4 crayons taped to each book. While the children at the hospital are waiting in the waiting rooms and such, they can have one of these activity books as their own to color and keep.

The hospital’s requirement is to use either pages from a basic coloring book, or print outs that are half sheet sized 5.5 x 4.25 inches. We would love to make more of these books on a regular basis. It is a good way for our kids to help us craft blessings. If you’d like to help us by donating paper, crayons or ink for our printer, we have an Amazon wish list of these items and more: http://a.co/gxuv6jj. Any items will be shipped directly to me for use in the group.

The kids had fun coloring the cover pages and helping to assemble the books. It was a great way for the kids to learn what it means to bless others. As my kids were helping me, we talked about how the kids at the hospital would feel when they got their own activity book.

I encourage you to contact your local hospital and find out what items they need and their requirements for the items.

Baby hats are super easy to make! Here is my video tutorial to help you get started in blessing others.

hats · Loom Knitting Tutorials · Tutorials

February 2019 Project: Hats for chemo patients

February 2, 2019February 2, 2019 Bridget DavetLeave a comment

We are now starting our second month of crafting blessings for others, whew hew! For those following along from a distance, here is what we have planned for this month. Our local oncology center has adult male and female patients, so we are making hats that will work for them. If you’d like to donate in your area, call your local oncology center and ask if they will take donations. If not, I’m sure a quick search of your area will lead you to a place to donate.

With the help of my video editing husband, I have filmed a bunch of video tutorials for hats that will be great for this month’s donations. Below are links to the ones I have uploaded so far. I will be adding more tutorials throughout the month as well. If you subscribe to my YouTube channel, you will get notifications each time I upload a new video. I will also be adding the videos under the LOOM KNITTING category under TUTORIALS.

I’m super excited to see what this month has in store for us. We are adding new members to our local group almost daily. I’m hoping to inspire others to start crafting groups in their area. Feel free to comment below with your donations made this month or on our Facebook page.

Hurdle Stitch Hat with Rib Brim

Diagonal Rib Hat with Rib Brim

Checkerboard Hat with Uwrap Rib Stitch Brim

Seed Stitch Hat with Rib Brim

Spiral Hat with Rib Brim

Though I added a Batman patch, the basic hat is perfect for any age, with or without a Pom Pom. This can be done in 1 color, 2 color, stripes or using a multicolored yarn.

Cute and simple Garter Ridge and Knit Hat with Rib Brim

Basic Easy Starter Ewrap Hat with Rib Brim

Examples of some of the designs for chemo caps.

Blessings Donated · hats · Loom Knitting

65 hats donated to kids at women’s shelter

January 19, 2019 Bridget DavetLeave a comment

This month has been a whirlwind! Just a few short weeks ago I had a dream to started a group of like minded people to help craft blessings for others. Many have not only stepped up to the plate, but have knocked it out of the park. While researching ways we can help in our local community, I reached out to our local women’s shelter. SaveHaven has been on my radar for the past several years. Every Christmas my playdate group adopts a family at the shelter. We fulfill the family’s Christmas wish list including basic need items and toys as well. SaveHaven in Tarrant County (Texas) provides services at no cost to domestic violence victims, including a crisis hotline, counseling, two emergency shelters in Arlington and Fort Worth, and many other services.

When I inquired about the kids currently in the shelter, the Community Coordinator gave me a list of all the kids by sex and age. There were 54 kids at the time with ages ranging from newborn to 17 years old. It was the week before Christmas, I had just started loom knitting and I had no clue how long 54 hats would take me to knit. I started them anyway. At the time, I hadn’t even told anyone about the group I was about to start. I trusted that God would show me the way, so I keep on knitting. At our first meeting, I showed some of the ladies one new stitch to add to the baby hat ewrap stitch they had just learned and how to read my very roughly written patterns. Ladies gladly stepped up and took on the task of helping loom knit 54 hats ASAP. Thanks to $60 in donations I had received that week, I was able to give yarn to ladies in our group.

The next week I emailed SaveHaven to make sure the count was still the same. The lady responded that a “few” more had come to the shelter. A “few” more ended up being 11 more kids. I reached out to the group and without question, ladies took on the task of knitting even more hats. We quickly finished up all 65 hats and brought them to SaveHaven this week. Though we were not able to knit hats for adults at the shelter, we will do something special for them in the future. We ask that you join us in saying a special prayer for the moms and kids currently at the shelter.

65 hats packaged up and ready to be delivered.

If you would like to help out in your community, consider reaching out to your closest women’s shelter or homeless shelter. If you would like to donate to our group to help purchase supplies, that would appreciated as well.

If you would like to know more about SaveHaven or feel compelled to donate, here is there website: https://www.safehaventc.org/

hats · Loom Knitting · Uncategorized

Loom knitted baby hats

January 7, 2019 Bridget DavetLeave a comment

Crafting Blessings first meeting was a success! 15 eager crafters joined together to learn how to loom knit baby hats. Our January 2019 project, the first ever for Crafting Blessings, is loom knitting baby hats to be donated to Children’s Health in Dallas, TX. Most were nervous about learning a new skill and skeptical about their ability to learn and complete our first project. As the teacher, I felt like I was the leader of the Skeptics Anonymous group from the Ebates commercial. But an hour or so later, our new loomers were looming away! Among the 15 crafters, we had 5 tween/teen youngsters. It absolutely melts my heart to see young ladies (or gentlemen) with hearts for service AND learning new skills. We have another meeting later in the month, where more crafters will be learning how to loom knit. We also have crafters that can’t make it to the meetings but are learning from my videos, located in the tutorials tab. I can’t wait to see the finished blessings at the end of the month.

Want to help out your local children’s hospital? First, give them a call and see what items they accept since each hospital has different requirements. Then start with this super simple video tutorial and start loom knitting away!

Here is the tutorial for making your own baby hats.

Uncategorized

The Journey Begins

January 4, 2019January 4, 2019 Bridget DavetLeave a comment

Thanks for joining me! I’m so excited to be starting this journey of crafting blessings for others. I want to share my love of crafting through handmade blessings for others, but also recruit others to help me. I can’t wait to see what this journey brings.

WHO & WHAT ARE WE?
A group of crafters and wannabe crafters with a heart for service. CRAFTING BLESSINGS group is a place to learn a new skill or develop existing skills to craft blessings for others. All ages and skill levels are welcome.

MISSION:
Proverbs 11:25 – “Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.”
I have been crafting for almost 4 decades and would love to share my skills and in turn bless others with our collective blessings that we craft.

WHAT DO WE DO AS A GROUP?:
Crafting of course! We will come together at meetings to learn new crafting skills. We will work on crafts at meetings and throughout the month on your own time. Those crafts will be donated as blessings to others. Crafting can come in all forms including (but not limited to) crocheting, knitting (with needles or looms), sewing (& no sew fabric projects), weaving, cookie/cake baking and decorating, card making, beading, etc. There are many ways that crafting can be used to bless others.