Grandma's House Hot Heads Competition

Here is how this will work:

Point of the competition:

Grandma's House is an organization that provides a safe haven for homeless or abused pregnant or parenting teens (12-19). It is a faith based, non-denominational group that offers help obtaining GEDs, HS diplomas, and pre/post natal health care and pediatrics. This is a non-state funded organization that is also a United Way Agency. Grandma's House strives to be a learning environment to help those who are carrying a child, whether they are planning on parenting or adopting. They provide education assistance as well as parenting, child birthing, and self-sufficiency classes and counseling.

This competition will allow us to go through our stashes in a friendly competition, and help those less fortunate than ourselves. Parenting a child as a teen is hard, and poor choices may have been made, but there is no reason to make the experience any harder than it needs to be.

There will be 2 categories to enter into, Crochet and Knitting. If you wish to participate in both you are more than welcome. The competition will start on May 5, 2010 and will run to May 26, 2010. All hats will be turned in on May 26th, and tallied. This falls on a Wednesday, if you do not come to the Wednesday night group at Dudley's or are unable to make it that week, I will be able to make arrangements to pick up your entries. The prizes will be given the following week, along with an interview of the winners posted with a picture of all their hats on this blog.

Prizes, yes there is something for the person who wins each category. I will be contacting several local and national fiber companies to sponsor this event, each winner will receive a gift basket filled with fibery goodness, and maybe some special little trinkets to remember the event.


Rules:
1. Use any pattern you want, just so long as it will fit a child's head between the ages of newborn and 5 years
2. Use yarns that are washable, and fun, try to avoid scratchy yarns, or things with too much halo that can cause issues for children with their respiratory health.
3. Hats that can be used in this competition must be done during the course of the events.
4. You may enter in both events, but each technique will be counted separately.
5. There is no extra points for making the hats with complicated patterns, so create at a skill level you are comfortable with.
6. Make sure all ends are woven in and tidy.
7. If these will be coming from a smoking or pet home, please wash them before you bring them in, even if you just wash them by hand.
8. Felt hats are fine, but please try to keep the felt thin and flexible as spring is here and summer is fast approaching

How to enter:
Leave a comment with an email or ravlery ID so that I can get you registered, let me know what technique you plan on using, and keep all of your hats in a basket or plastic bag with your name on it until the turn-in date.


Here are a few free patterns to help your inspiration

Crochet:




Pattern Here






Pattern Here








Pattern Here



You can also search Ravlery for "Free kids hats" or any variation of these terms.


Knitting




Pattern Here







Pattern Here








Pattern Here






Again, searching for "Free child's hat", "Free Toddler hat" "Free kid's hat" or similar variations on Ravlery or Google will provide you with hundreds of options.

A dream, a hope, a plan.

What started as a dream, just an idea to play with, has started to form into a reality that can help others.

My name is Echo, and I am the biological daughter of a teen mom. I am also the sister of a teen mom, and a friend to many more teen parents. In today's economy, there are too many teens who are raised in poverty, and many of them make poor decision or are caught in bad situations and find themselves pregnant, in abusive family situation or homeless. Too many teens in my hometown find themselves in a combination of these situations and need help dealing with them.
Often, everywhere, there are families that are strong and close, but can not always afford to do what is right for their children, other families spend every penny they have to help their children, and still it is not enough to save them. For these families I cry, for these families I do what I can to help the child in need, even if the only thing I can do is make them smile.

A little about me:

I was born in 1989 in an accidental pregnancy to two teens who were not ready financially or emotionally for the challenges and responsibilities of parenthood. They tried to care for me, and my older sister, but could not for one reason or another. I was in and out of the hospital, and finally given up for adoption when my health became so dangerous that my life hang in the balance. I was adopted by my paternal grandparents, and my biological father had some part in my life. After paperwork was signed, my biological mother did not take part in my life, not even contacting me until my 18th birthday. I have lost all faith in her, and her ability to be a parent, her choices were poor, and she did not learn from them as she could have.

It has taken many years to come to terms with the situation, and I still have not built a strong, or even stable relationship with my biological father. He later fathered two more girls, my half sisters. Born 2 years and 6 years after me, I had a strong relationship with both of them. I say had, as my youngest sister lost her fight with Brain cancer in October of 2009, she was 14 when she laid down for her eternal sleep. I still love her with all my heart, but can not do anything more for her but to love her and help others in her situation. For this reason, I craft a lot of things for childhood cancer research fund-raising and to make life a little more bearable for children undergoing cancer treatment. My other sister is currently 18, and mother to a beautiful 2 year old. A single parent, she is one of the strongest people I have ever known. She finished high school in the spring of 2009, and is working through a college program to support her daughter and stay on track with her educational goals. She has struggled to find a man who will support her emotionally as well as help financially with raising her daughter. Together, they are providing everything they can for the miracle that is Brooklin.

I am now married, and in a great and stable relationship, without children. I am using my time and my talents to do what I can to provide what help I can. You can find some of my projects on Ravlery.

I will be working with different groups in the Central Oregon area, as well as several companies across the US to help several organizations that make life easier and less painful and less stressful for parents (both teen and adult) and children.

My first Charity event I plan on working up and organizing will be to help Grandma's House in Bend, OR. This organization strives to provide a safe haven for homeless or abused pregnant teens age 12-19. More information on this project to follow. Need to iron out a few wrinkles, then all the details will be available.