Beading – Knit-Spin-Quilt

Back & Forward

Hello, all! It’s been a very busy semester in graduate school: I’ve been working on my dissertation proposal, teaching a seminar and working at a library, and it’s been eating most of my time.

That has prompted a little bit of news on this front though: after trying out SquareSpace, I’ve decided it won’t work well for what I need right now: I don’t have the time to market as aggressively as I had planned, so I’m back on Etsy, and you all can find me at: https://www.etsy.com/shop/knitspinquilt again.

This won’t change the % I donate to charity — in 2017, it’s 30% of the listed price to Doctors Without Borders, and if you use a discount code, that doesn’t change the amount I donate.

Watch this space for updates on Monday, the 22nd: I’ll have some new products and some exciting news about this summer.

In the mean time, have a teaser of a product I think some of you might appreciate:

Doctor Who Stitch markers

Knitting, blocking, sewing, etc.

I’ve been quiet here, but I’ve been crafting up a storm behind the scenes. I’ve knitted several shawls, and just blocked the three of them. First up is a semicircular shawl in a handspun merino/yak yarn from Spunky Eclectic:

Next up, New Hope Creek by Naomi Parkhurst (gannet designs).

In sewing news, I’ve done two hedgehog bags (Spoonflower print):

Custom listing here for orange or teal or grey tops – or others!

I also ended up with one WHOOPS bag that is on sale:

(Click the photo for details and to be taken to the listing, and the WHOOPS photo.)

Finally, I’ve gotten new charms in to make steampunk / engineering-themed stitch markers:

There are new discount codes on my Etsy shop (see the shop details) and as always, all purchases help me fundraise for the Flint Child Health & Development Fund.

We’ve raised $200 for water in Flint this year and $700 for FlintKids.org – and I couldn’t do any of it without you.

Keep posted for a handspun handknit shawl that I’ll be raffling off in mid-May for charity.

As always, thanks for reading, and I wish you all the best!

Fundraising for Flint, MI water

All income (not profits: 100% of income) from January and February 2016 will be donated to Water Aid for Flint, MI, via the The Mission of Hope Shelter and Pastor Bobby Jackson, and the GoFundMe setup here: https://www.gofundme.com/rjp53vz8

Help me raise money to provide water to the kids of Flint, MI, where the water has dangerously elevated lead levels.

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KnitSpinQuilt on Etsy.

STEM education and scholarship fundraiser

I’m sure by now you’ve all heard about Ahmed Mohamed, the Irving, TX 9th-grader who took a home-made clock to school and was arrested for a bomb, then charged with making a hoax bomb — even though he only ever called it a clock.

Ahmed has received a huge outpouring of support on social media — just check out #IStandWithAhmed on Twitter — and invitations from the President, NASA, and too many other places and people to count.

But there are still far too many other children in the USA who face systemic inequalities and prejudices that get in the way of them making home-made clocks or learning about biology, or becoming engineers. Helping Ahmed is the first step: helping correct some of the educational barriers is another step.

So I’m running a fundraiser to raise money for STEM education. Here’s how it works:
-You buy something from my ETSY store, KnitSpinQuilt
-I mail it to you
-I donate the entire purchase price to charity

That’s it! You get stitch markers or a project bag or earrings or handspun yarn, and I donate the full amount you paid toward scholarships for low-income children to go to the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) summer program run by Johns Hopkins University.

So far, I’ve raised $133.00 – I’m hoping to hit $250. I’ll put an image in the sidebar, and together hopefully we can help send a kid to CTY to learn that there are lots of other geeky, talented, academically-minded kids just like them, regardless of their family’s income.