From September 19 – October 3 Habitat for Humanity volunteers in South Seattle and East King County participated in their first annual Habitat Build-a-Thon.  I was lucky enough to be able to volunteer at the above site on September 26th, located in Rainier Valley. See those yellow shingles on the far-left – those were painted by yours truly! I have to admit, I’ve never actually worked on top of a scaffolding before and it can be a little scary at first.

As of this morning, the Build-a-Thon has raised $98,218 from our amazing supporters. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my personal supporters too – Kate S., Marilou U. and Nikki H.! Together we raised enough to purchase 10 2x4s! And if you’ve ever helped build a home, you know that you can never have too many 2x4s. Your support will help to continue building affordable housing like the one seen above which will be the new home for three families in need once completed. Thank you so much for your support!

My quilt-in-progress for Project Linus

Project Linus Blanket Bee
Date: Sunday, September 27
Time: 12pm – 5pm
Location: All Pacific Fabrics stores

Project Linus is a national organization that collects handmade quilts for children in need. The quilts are brought to area hospitals, summer camps and anywhere children need the special warmth of a handmade quilt or blanket created by a network of “blanketeers.”

Pacific Fabrics in Seattle is holding a Blanket Bee to put together quilts for the Project Linus organization. I attended the bee last fall, and I can’t explain what a great event it is. I met some amazing people who craft simply and quietly for children in need.

You don’t need to know how to quilt to help at the Blanket Bee. If you can tie a knot, you can help hand tie quilts! Hope to see you there!

Gleaning is the act of allocating and collecting a little extra harvest for those in need. Wikipedia explains the long and interesting history of gleaning, noting that it is a practice that has existed for thousands of years.

Today, gleaning can help provide fresh and local fruits and vegetables to local food banks and those in need. Several community groups offer ways for everyone to get involved in gleaning .

Here are three quick ways, even non-green thumbs can help by gleaning fruit trees:

1. If you have a fruit tree, let a gleaning organization know about your tree. You can pick the fruit yourself to donate to a gleaning organization, or have some volunteers come to your tree to pick the fruit
2. If you don’t have a fruit tree, plant a fruit tree in your yard. After time, it will be ready to harvest (see #1)
3. If you don’t have a yard, volunteer with a gleaning organization to help pick fruit around your neighborhood

Get started with a gleaning group in your area. Here are two Seattle gleaning groups:

Seattle: Lettuce Link

West Seattle: Gleanit.org

“You should always to talk to people who are different from you.
Because when you get to know someone, you can’t kill that person.
And when you can’t kill that person, you can’t let your government kill that person either.”

Sue McGann, Lettuce Link’s Marra Farm Coordinator, told us (a group from Seattle Works) that story before we started our Saturday volunteering at Marra Farm.  Pretty heavy thought for a day spent mostly weeding artichoke beds. But Marra Farm is doing a lot more than just growing vegetables.

Marra Farm started out as an Italian family farm in the early 1900′s. When the Marra family stopped working the land, they gave it to the city, under one condition – it remain land for community farming forever. And it is – with the help of many non-profits and volunteers. Nearby schoolchildren learn have their own little plots, families grow their own food and community members take the harvest to local food banks.

Did I mention Marra Farm is located about 20 minutes from downtown Seattle? There are many opportunities to learn about the farm and get involved with the many organizations that support it. I hope to back at the farm soon!

This amazing fence art project was led by Outdoor Knit to bring attention to an empty, deserted lot in her neighborhood.

The saddest part is I think many neighborhoods (I can name a few in Seattle – ahem Pike & Pine) have spaces like this just sitting there with their coldness sucking the life out of a community. Many are staying empty for a long time as developers abandon shiny condo projects.

And when citizens have real ideas to at least have some temporary events to bring some life to the dead concrete lots, it’s hard to understand why cities just fence ‘em up for years!? Grrrr…

Via Craft:

Last year when my friend had her baby I dreamed of making her a “hippie quilt.” She’s very into nature and sustainability and all those good things. The pattern was shared by Lizzy Dish.

Now it’s time to commit.

My new crafty goal:
Crochet 20 items (hats or scarves) by September 15th.

I’ve calculated that I’ll need to make about 2 items per week and so far I’m about half-way done with my first scarf…

Hopefully I’ll have some pics of finished projects projects posted soon!

It’s here and I’ll be there! Beat the heat, shop till you drop and support local independent crafters at Seattle Center Exhibition Hall this weekend (August 1st and 2nd from 11:00am – 5:00pm).

I will be volunteering on Sunday so stop by and say hi!

Urbancraftuprising.com

This year, the goal is to collect over 1,000 hats and scarves by 11/15/2009 (Pacific Fabrics will be collecting again). According to the Warm for Winter website, “The number 1000 represents the number of housing units needed to be created each year to successfully tackle homelessness in King County.”

If you could make a hat week between now and 11/15, you would be able to help 17 people stay warm this winter.

I know it seems strange to think about in this 90 degree weather, but tanning while crocheting sounds fun to me. I’ll be hosting crochet/knit social this fall so stay tuned!