Category Archives: do-good-ery

I Am I Am I

Posted by Tata on

Annual report time! I’ve been avoiding this for over a month because wild things have been happening. We’re having a winter without snow! My sisters and I have been fighting! The restaurant I work in part time is on the market! My office has gone full-metal weird, and in five years, it’ll be nothing but me and six Vice Presidents standing at my cubicle doorway, shouting, “MAKE MY PURCHASE ORDER BEFORE HERS!” Hahahaha – I’m on break! But let’s get this annual report into the books, shall we? To recap:

This started out as the Cat Blanket Project. The Lovely Georg, Ceiling Cat Remember Her With Fishy Treats, asked friends to knit or crochet blankets for animal shelters, which I did. But then people from all over – possibly including you – sent me yarn in large boxes; other agencies/organizations asked for yarny help. So! You trusted me with art supplies. This is what I did with them in 2014, in 2015, in 2016.cornery

In 2017, I was making blankets for the animal shelters, baby blankets for the hospital, lap blankets for veterans, etc., but in 2018, things changed. The hospital developed new rules that did not allow for baby blankets. My connection to the veterans in need of lap blankets moved away. I made lap blankets for the cancer treatment center but haven’t had the chance to deliver them yet. They will make my 2019 stats super shiny! Look at me go!

I made 56 cat blankets and 58 cat toys. They’re supposed to be 1:1, but as we know I cannot count and yay extra toys!

I made piles of pussy hats that will be delivered at a time when I can account for them, in the fuuuuutuuuuuuure!

The other thing I was doing with my hands in 2018 (watch it, you!) was writing postcards for Postcards To Voters. Last year was a crucial year in the history of our country and I started writing postcards to overcome my despair. Writing each postcard was an act of desperate hope in the beginning, and then the candidates I was writing for began to win races. I won’t lie. I needed them to win. I needed them to win enough that I wrote 405 postcards last year, putting a crimp in my 2018 crocheting schedule and making my hands, which don’t work well on a good day, feel like reheated crap. For 2019, I’m going to try turning out 30 postcards a week, but we shall see how desperate I feel and how many special elections fill out the calendar. By the way, if you’re feeling desperate, you too can write postcards. It’s easy to join up and it really does matter.

In 2018, two stitchers died and their projects, tools, patterns and materials came to me. Thank you for trusting me! Tiny, tiny crochet hooks went to a friend who teaches people how to crochet lace. Some of those hooks were smaller than any my friend had ever seen, and they were certainly too tiny for me to use or even see. Seriously: they were tiny. When my friend died, projects, tools and materials came to me and they were special, because that stitcher was my friend and mentor for decades. I sent her many knitting needles on to Georg, Ceiling Cat remember her with fishy treats! I finished one project and gave it back to her family. This was really emotional for me, because it’s hard to work in the stitches of another person and think of their hands touching the same project. Nearly all of the yarn has been made into blankets that will keep people and animals warm, and all of it will eventually move on.

So: 2018 was really different from previous years: productive, but really different. I haven’t got the faintest idea if I can keep turning out more blankets for the animal shelters each year. Anyway, I will keep trying. Thank you for trusting me!

 

 

 

 

I Sing In Silent Harmony

Posted by Tata on

Annual report time, Poor Impulsives! I am reporting, most annually, and only somewhat timely-ly! Perhaps you’ve noticed I haven’t posted much lately. I’ve been stitching as fast as my tiny hands could crochet, so my annual report is somewhat tardy.

Let us report:

This started out as the Cat Blanket Project. The Lovely Georg, Ceiling Cat Remember Her With Fishy Treats, asked friends to knit or crochet blankets for animal shelters, which I did. But then people from all over – possibly including you – sent me yarn in large boxes, and agencies/organizations ask for yarny help. So! You trusted me with art supplies. This is what I did with them in 2014, and last year:

cat blankets These go to Georg or to a shelter with which Georg is in contact.

baby blankets A hospital near me has a baby blanket project. A friend coordinates. I try to make blankets early in the year or if I have a long car trip or a lengthy illness. You know: if I’m sitting, I’m knitting and I buy special yarn for this.

scarves There are a number of projects that ask for scarves. I send or deliver them all over the place. Mostly, I buy yarn for this that I think will be fun and soft to wear.

hats Several agencies ask for hats for infants, children and adults. Infant hats are quick to crochet, but I’m still learning adult hats. Mine are still a little odd.

lap blankets There’s a chemo facility nearby that asks for lap blankets for patients. I send these through a friend. She feels they are greatly appreciated.

In 2016, 50 blankets went to one cat shelter and 4 to a local animal rescue. Once I switched from knitting to crocheting, this went a lot faster, but took up more yarn. Crocheting does!

We Are Billion Year Old

Posted by Tata on

Apologies, Poor Impulsives, for the lateness of this, but it’s time for our 2015 annual report. Lest you think this is something serious, here is a picture of Drusy, Queen of our House and a 6 lb. cat who seems to live on air and chin scritches alone:

Ferocious!

Ferocious!

This started out as the Cat Blanket Project. The Lovely Georg, Ceiling Cat Remember Her With Fishy Treats, asked friends to knit or crochet blankets for animal shelters, which I did. But then people from all over – possibly including you – sent me yarn in large boxes, and agencies/organizations ask for yarny help. So! You trusted me with art supplies. This is what I did with them in 2014, and last year:

cat blankets These go to Georg or to a shelter with which Georg is in contact.

baby blankets A hospital near me has a baby blanket project. A friend coordinates. I try to make blankets early in the year or if I have a long car trip or a lengthy illness. You know: if I’m sitting, I’m knitting and I buy special yarn for this.

scarves There are a number of projects that ask for scarves. I send or deliver them all over the place. Mostly, I buy yarn for this that I think will be fun and soft to wear.

hats Several agencies ask for hats for infants, children and adults. Infant hats are quick to crochet, but I’m still learning adult hats. Mine are still a little odd.

lap blankets There’s a chemo facility nearby that asks for lap blankets for patients. I send these through a friend. She feels they are greatly appreciated.

In 2015, 52 blankets went to animal shelters, bringing our humorously inaccurate total to 307. This total is both too many and too few because I started counting a little later than the people at the post office began frowning at me. Also: I’ve been struggling to turn out 50 blankets a year, but I’ve learned to crochet and can now turn ’em out faster.

Two baby blankets went to the hospital project. Auntie InExcelsisDeo contributed a beautiful quilt.

Thirty-seven scarves went to the men’s shelter, the soup kitchen and the unnamed university’s anti-hunger project. Eight hats, and four hat+scarf pairs went to the same agencies.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I sent other things hither and yon, but forgot about them. Late last year, I gave up thinking, ‘That was a metric buttload of work I’ll never forget,’ before promptly forgetting, so now I write down what I’m sending out as I do it. Today, we have temperatures hovering around 1 entire degree, so Pete and I dropped off some scarves. When I pushed open the soup kitchen door, dozens of men sat at tables, doing little or nothing. Everyone was very nice, but there were no empty seats. These were just the men who took shelter there, not even the soup kitchen’s regular clients. I waved and smiled as they thanked me – for something or nothing, I didn’t know. But I was there, I guess.

It’s almost unbelievable to me, but I’ve almost stitched my way to the end of everything donated to the cat blanket project. If you’d like to contribute, let me know. If you have suggestions for how we can do more or better or know of an agency looking for help, that news is welcome too. Please keep in mind: I’m a terrible knitter and cats don’t care!

Kittens Cats Sacks Wives

Posted by Tata on
The Drusy-approved project room is a work in progress. On the left, cat blankets; center, scarves and hats for whichever project asks; on the right, loosely organized ideas and a photo of my grandfather from The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. This evening, I accidentally shut Wednesday in this room by accident, a foible of which Drusy also approved.

The Drusy-approved project room is a work in progress. On the left, cat blankets; center, scarves and hats for whichever project asks; on the right, loosely organized ideas and a photo of my grandfather from The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. This evening, I accidentally shut Wednesday in this room by accident, a foible of which Drusy also approved.

One Seems To Hear Words

Posted by Tata on
Yesterday, the unnamed university's hunger project wrapped up; for half an hour, I was a middle-aged woman walking up and down the avenue with a hand truck. The Devil is in the details and, though I was overjoyed to be finished, I would have been happier riding in a litter, holding a cocktail.

Yesterday, the unnamed university’s hunger project wrapped up; for half an hour, I was a middle-aged woman walking up and down the avenue with a hand truck. The Devil is in the details and, though I was overjoyed to be finished, I would have been happier riding in a litter, holding a cocktail.