The Ships Project

The Ships Project sends handmade slippers, hats, neck warmers, and "coolers" to troops stationed overseas and deployed on ships. The items can be sewn, crocheted, or knit. This is perfect for me, as I love to give away my stuff. By all reports, the guys and gals in uniform even love getting these "hugs from Home." It's win-win!

As you may know, however, I have OCD. This means when I embrace a project, I go a little overboard. I embrace it until I get so sick of it I can't stand it anymore. So, what started out as marginal contentment in crocheting a black or camo (oops, pardon me, "cammie!") hat or two out of leftover stash, turned into a household-wide project that consumed all of my spare time for a week or two.

Sorry, Fechak. The blanket is coming. I swear.

The final tally for The Ships Project is 26 hats (23 reversible fleece, one crochet cammie, one crochet black wool, one knit black wool) and 20 pairs of slippers. This involved multiple trips to the fabric store, and a little haggling with the counter ladies for sale prices (which I got, thank you very much Gretchen.)

While machine sewing is not my favorite activity, I am reasonably competent at it (I worked in a sweat shop, back in my "Top Ramen" youth.) What I hate doing, however, is hand stitching. Yet, because I oh-so-thoughtfully chose a pattern that the project leader said was in demand, I discovered I was stuck hand-sewing inch-long holes shut, after pulling each hat inside out. Happily, my mother "volunteered" to help, and that got me out of hand sewing about half of them. Then, like a rat off a sinking ship, she left for a vacation in Hawaii (suuuure it was planned....) which left me to hand sew the other half. I assure you, the closures are not nearly as pretty as hers. However, none of the recipients will know who I am, and this IS free shit, after all, so they can't whine too much, amirite?

By the time the last slipper was hemmed, the last hat was reversed, and the last hole sewn shut, I was pretty sick of sewing. I'm pretty sure I'll be sticking with crochet for a while. (Honest, Fechak!)

More pictures to come when uploading isn't sucking.