Besides spending time with my daughter… crafts, volunteering, fitness, gardening, and writing are the things I enjoy most.
Earlier this week, I stumbled upon an amazing opportunity, called The Mother Bear Project. I learned about it through a local yarn shop, Lovely Yarns.
The Mother Bear Project is a grass-roots, non-profit group dedicated to providing comfort and hope to children, primarily those affected by HIV/AIDS in emerging nations, by giving them a gift of love in the form of hand-knit and crocheted bears. To date, 27,300 bears have been sent to South Africa, Zambia, Swaziland, Lesotho, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Burundi, Malawi, Botswana, Rwanda, Uganda, Namibia and other countries as we find out more about children in need.
What a great cause, right? I did have a slight problem…I haven’t crocheted in years. Last week I told one of the ladies from my quilting group that I wanted to pick up crochet again. She told me to bring my hook and yarn the following Monday.
Naturally I took her up on that offer. Do you think I’m going to pass up on that opportunity? Mrs. G was thorough! I really appreciated that she took her time to teach me some crochet stitches. Thanks to YouTube, I was able to brush up on the basic and the more complicated stitches that she showed me.
Being that it’s been a while since I’ve picked up my hooks, I was repeatedly pulling out my stitches before I finally hit the sweet spot (well at least for the basic stitches I’m doing) and I wasn’t making anymore mistakes. What a great feeling! I won’t be making a bear right away, I want the first bear I make to be really nice, and so the next few months I’ll devote to making a variety of items before I make a bear for the project.
I learned about The Mother Bear Project (indirectly) through Julia, of Aberrant Crochet. Julia makes gorgeous crochet, so be sure to take a peek at her virtual home. Julia was kind enough to reply to my comment in her Mommy Can’t Right Now, She’s Texting. In her comment, Julia was kind enough to share a few sites that would be beneficial to a noob crocheter like myself.
The website, Ravelry, is an online knitting and crocheting community. It’s chock full of information, through my virtual puttering around on that website, I discovered there were quite a few local yarn stores in my area! Who knew? I visited a few of the websites, and that’s how I eventually learned about the Mother Bear Project.
Crocheted Projects
Let’s see… I’ve already made a shocking pink cape for Draculaura, one of my daughter’s Monster High dolls. Currently I’m working on a cute cream colored mini-skirt for Clawdeen — another one of the Monster High dolls.
My daughter is a true fashionista, and so for Christmas (or perhaps a little after) I’m making her a scarf with beads woven in the fiber. It’s safe too say that I’m enjoying my crochet time. 😉