Since we opened in 2005, we’ve offered patterns from Cottage Creations. These fantastic patterns have clear directions, fun illustrations, and something for everyone in the family. The Wonderful Wallaby and the Rambling Rows Afghan are two of their better known patterns, but peruse them all and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.

The Wonderful Wallaby Pattern

While you may know their designs, you may not know that Carol Anderson, the woman behind the patterns, lives and works in Iowa. She recently told us that she’s collecting knitted items for victims of this season’s floods and could use our help. (Carol had only a little flooding at her home; neighboring counties were hit hardest.) Carol is collecting mittens, caps, scarves, afghans, prayer shawls, baby blankets, dishcloths, socks, and sweaters for infants, kids and adults.

We’d like to help and you can too! Bring your knitted and crocheted items here and we’ll ship them to Carol. Each item should have a card attached with the following information: name of item, size if applicable, fiber content (machine washable and dryable are preferred but not required), your name and address and any words of encouragement.

As a thank you for helping, you’ll receive 10% off any purchase you make the day you deliver your donation (classes, private lessons and gift certificates cannot be discounted). There’s no limit to the number of donations you can make or discounts you can receive. The last shipment will be sent to Carol on November 1, so that will be the last day donations are accepted.

This is a great opportunity to help others, so please spread the word!

After many hours of knitting, we have 3 blankets to donate to Project Linus!

Thank you to everyone who knit squares and who helped sew them together. The blankets will bring comfort and warmth to a young person in need.

The Loop Charity Knitting Club held its first meeting yesterday. Twenty-one knitters joined the effort to knit squares for a blanket for Project Linus. Here’s a few of us who were at the table -

See how hard we’re working? (that’s because everyone looked down when Laura said she was taking the picture!)

Alina finished her square - well done! - while the rest of us got off to good starts. Our goal is to complete our squares by the end of August, so we can assemble and then donate our blanket(s) right after Labor Day.

We can still use more volunteers. Stop by anytime and pick up a ball of yarn and a pattern sheet if you’d like to get involved.

Thanks to everyone who came yesterday and helped get this project going!

Through my participation in Stitch N’ Pitch, I met the Janet Geissler, the President of The Project Linus Philadelphia Chapter. Project Linus is a national non-profit organization dedicated to providing “love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer “blanketeers.” As of March 31, 2007, Project Linus has donated over 2 million blankets made by volunteers in 406 chapters! The more we learned about Project Linus, the more we wanted to get involved.

Janet told us that what she needs the most are blankets for teenage boys, so that’s where we’ll start. We’ve come up with a blanket made of large squares knit in various stitch patterns. Loop will donate the yarn and if you can knit one square, we should have several blankets in no time!

The Charity Knitting Club will meet on Sundays from 1 to 3 pm. The first meeting is this Sunday, July 15. Please call ahead and let us know if you plan to come, so we know how many people to expect.

If the meeting time is inconvenient, you can still help. Just stop in any time after July 15 to pick up yarn and a pattern sheet.

We’re very excited about this new project and hope you’ll be able to join us!