Knitters Raise Funds to Aid Joplin, Thanks to a 9-Year-Old

A nine-year-old girl in Kentucky who had never heard of Joplin, Mo., before an EF-5 tornado hit there last year has raised more than $10,000 to aid rebuilding efforts, and she added to that total thanks to a trip to Stitches Midwest last weekend.

Cee Cee Creech has been knitting elephants and other little critters to raise money for Homes of Hope for the last 14 months, and at the yarn industry convention she sold 78 kits at $25 each to people wanting to make their own elephants. Combine that with $1,600 raised in an auction of elephants at the event and it was a good weekend for the organization.

They also raised money by raffling off some of the critters at the McAllister’s Deli in Joplin. Cee Cee says she doesn’t know when her efforts for Joplin will stop, and her mom notes that as long as people still want the elephants they’ll keep making them. You can follow her efforts and find out how you can help at the Elephants Remember Joplin Facebook page.

[Photo by Roger Normer/Joplin Globe.]

Next Pattern:

Using your yarn stash is important to me throughout the year, but as I start to feel the end of the year coming on I get more excited about using things I already have in the house. Maybe that’s because I don’t want to go to a store in the thick of holiday shopping times, or I like the idea of having a little space in my stash when the new year rolls around.

It’s super satisfying to use up all the little odd balls you’ve made over the year (or years), and I have several stash busting blankets I work on when it’s cold and will maybe finish someday.

If you’d like to start a stash busting project that’s perfect for using up odd balls, check out the Soukish pattern from Neisha Abdulla. This pattern is made for fingering weight/sock yarn, and it’s worked in a tube with allover color work.

This is great for a couple of reasons. You don’t really have to weave in your ends when you can hide them in a tube (this is one time you might even get by just tying a knot when you change colors!) and you can change colors whenever you run out of yarn and it will look good.

Of course the pattern is made with blocks where the designer changed colors, but you can change yours more or less often as you need to make it work for your stash. You can use blank charts to design your own color combinations, or even your own stitch patterns if you like. You can also adjust the length of the scarf as needed or turn it into a cowl based on the amount of yarn you have.

This project looks like a lot of fun and would be a great thing to have on hand to stitch up and then to wear during the cold, gloomy months.

You can get a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Neisha Abdulla]

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