I started sorting out the finished and unfinished projects left behind in our room. There's a pile of finished baby hats to go to the hospital, a pile of hats that need a little attention (ends woven in, bad seaming, etc...), and some miscellaneous knitted items that will find a good home soon.

We started a little late in the year on our pet bed project for the Kentucky Humane Society. We have only 3 completely finished beds done and I counted 9 beds in various stages of completion. Fortunately, we wised up this year and all the unfinished beds are neatly folded in gallon sized storage bags with the name of the person who was working on it. I put all of those in a box and brought them home with me along with my sewing machine, which has been living at school since April. I'm going to start with the beds that are furthest along and see what I can get finished. Anything I don't get to, I will know who to talk to about it in the fall at least.

These beds are our own design and I plan to write up the pattern nicely at some point, but here it is in a nutshell. Basically, we used semi-circular cardboard for templates that we placed on a folded piece of fabric (straight edge on the fold). The template is 1/2 the size of the finished bed. You need to cut out two pieces of fabric for the outside and a third piece of something for the filler. Batting could work, but we liked towels or old blankets. They are soft and give it a little more weight. You then stack the outer fabrics right sides together and put the towel on the bottom of the stack. Sew around the outside edge leaving a two to three inch opening along EACH side (for turning and also to add stuffing later. After turning the bed inside out, sew a line around the center about 4 inches from the edge. Now, stuff the outside ring and sew the holes shut. Pretty simple! My parent helper came up with this and it has worked great and is easy for the kids to do.

I bought some more yarn today for the Charmed Knits KAL (ignore the striped yarn, that's for me *smile*). I have been eager to start a Gryffindor hat, but could not find the right colors until today. Lucky me! I'm finishing up a Hufflepuff hat (hat number 8) and will start the Gryffindor ASAP. I hope some of you are doing some knitting too...

Remember SFC members, if you got my mailing and are interested in coming to the knit-along event next month, please email me. I am planning to order yarn and needles for us and need to have some idea on how many people are coming. You don't have to dress up in a costume, but I'm going to (come on, it'll be fun!). Start looking for your wizard's robes now!

Finally, I've been thinking about making this a Team Blog open to those of you in the group (sorry other blog readers--you are certainly welcome to comment). Let me know what you think. That would give you the chance to post directly about what you are working on and ask questions or make comments. The jury is still out on this idea, but I'll take your feedback into consideration.

I've met a few times with my friend who owns Sophie's Fine Yarn Shoppe and we were able to schedule a Louisville area Charmed Knit event in July! If you're local and would like to come, click here for the details. Please pass the word to other knitting friends. We'd love to see a big crowd of Muggle knitters!

Big mailing going out today to Stitch for a Cause members, so check the mail this week for details on the knit-along and other stuff. I will have information about what to bring. Start planning your costumes too! I'll have some prizes for my best dressed members!

In addition to being busy with this, I've been knitting a few more Ravenclaw and Slytherin hats this week. I've been listening to the audiobook of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as I work and have now finished six hats. I've read all of the books previously, but have never listened to them and it's very entertaining. I finally ran out of yarn, but since I couldn't find any Gryffindor colors, my next batch with be for Hufflepuff.

Well, I've finished my first two hats for the Charmed Knits Knit-along! I did a medium Ravenclaw hat and a small Slytherin hat.

The Ravenclaw was my first and since I'm so used to knitting preemie hats, it seemed like it took a really LONG time to complete (not really though!). I had it done by the last day of school and one of my advisees insisted on wearing it for most of the day, so at least I know it'll fit a child.

I realized that the official beanie pattern uses a multiple of twelve stitches, so for the hat I'm working on now I only started with 72 stitches. I'll try another larger hat soon though. The knit-along folks have said it's ok to make modifications to the pattern, so one of my completed hats has a different decrease and an i-cord on the top.

I have a meeting this week to help plan a Louisville area Charmed Knits Knit-along in July. Look for details soon!

The school year is over and my classroom looks like a knitting bag exploded. Kids had gotten into the habit of leaving their knitting in the cubbies in the back of my room and sometimes never picking it up again, resulting in many orphan who-knows-whats, dusty balls of yarn, and mismatched pairs of needles.

These cubbies were originally intended for book storage (a cast-off from a lower school teacher), but I think I'm going to make it yarn storage (off limits to kids' hands). We received a nice donation of yarn at the end of the year from a knitter who was moving, and I've run out of storage space.

This is what it looks like so far....looks like I'm running a yarn shop!

Welcome to our blog! It is still under construction, so check back later! Coming soon, updates on our recent projects and a summer knit-along with Charmed Knits for Charity. In the meantime, visit our newly updated site at http://www.stitchforacause.org.