Winners and Fundraising

Winners have been chosen and notified (or sent their patterns in some cases.) I want to thank everyone who entered the contest. It is so wonderful reading about the incredible women who inspire and support you all. It made my little heart all aflutter to read these comments about the awesome people we have in our lives.

Speaking of how awesome people are, I’m sure most of you have heard about the devastating earth quake that hit Haiti this week and basically destroyed the small island. The outpouring of support from the human race has really just touched me. Everyone I know is doing something they can to help, even if it’s just spreading the word about fundraising efforts and such. Lots of people in the knitting community have stepped up and started auctions, fundraisers and donation pools to raise money to send to the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and other relief organizations. The Yarn Harlot threw up the Knit-Signal  and one of my favorite groups on Ravelry the Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Group group (yes, I meant to type group group.) who is usually seriously dedicated to being whacky and random has pulled together and shown an awful lot of pointedness to put together an auction to raise money, if you’re on Ravelry you can view the auction thread here. Jesh who makes the most lovely spindles on the planet and has recently begun selling fiber as well (she also designs beautifully too.) is donating a portion of her profits and she has a donor who is matching any donations she collects as well. There are countless other knitters, spinners, dyers, designers and otherwise crafty folk who are either donating proceeds of sales or an actual specific dollar amount too, just look around and I bet you can find some of your favorite fiber folk doing something similar.

In the world outside of knitting this is going on too, my friend Pj Perez of Bleeding Neon is not only a talented journalist, drummer, party planner and all around swell guy, but he also draws these nifty comics too! You can buy his upcoming comic anthology right now and 100% of the sale will go to the Save the Children Foundation’s emergency efforts in Haiti.

www.chroniclebooks.com is donating 20% of their sales from their website to disaster relief and it looks like their also hosting a bake sale in San Francisco too.

For my small part I’m donating the money from every sale I make of either of my sock patterns; Polaris Sock or Chopstick Sock , from now until next Wednesday. So far I’ve raised just over $20 from sock pattern sales this way, which is not a whole lot but I’d like to remind everyone that every tiny bit helps. Even the $3 you spend on a sock pattern can do some good in the world and if enough people donate $5, 10, 20 it adds up to quite a bit. It all counts.

I’m making my donations through the Red Cross but you can donate to a whole bunch of different organizations that will help get the money to exactly where it needs to be. I do recommend donating through a reputable organization though. I recommend the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, Heifer International (they’re doing a special fundraising push right now for Haitian relief) or The Clinton Foundation.

If you can’t afford to spare any money right now towards the relief effort, worry not! You can still do something; tell other people about ways they can donate! Tweet, Plurk, email, Facebook, MySpace, carrier pigeon, smoke signals, just do it! Tell other people and remind people, there is a history of moving on from tragedy like this and putting it behind us awfully quickly. Donating today is great, but Haiti is going to need continued donations for a long time coming to get back on their feet and rebuild their towns and lives.

Also I hope you all take a moment to reflect on the things you have in your life that are a blessing. I know whenever something like this happens I am struck dumb by how lucky I am to have my health, my  home, my family and my friends. I cannot imagine going through something that horrifying and painful and while I may not have much in life, I do have a lot to be thankful for.