Elaine Glimme wrote:Pinole Senior Center's gift shop has a ton of yarn on sale for about 50 cents per skein. These of course are left overs from projects.
Leftovers from projects are great for making small squares.
Square Peg, thanks for the suggestion about houses of worship. I live in an area where there are tons of churches everywhere.
Re: gift shop pricing. It reminds me that sometimes, rarely, but sometimes, Goodwill has yarn. I know because I donated mine there in addition to the senior center. I can call thrift stores to see if they sell yarn.
There's something call freecycle.org where people give stuff away. I could try there.
I know the way I would do this is very different from the average approach. I can't help approaching it like a professional designer. There were yarn projects shown in the window of our local library done by the senior knitters group. I know this sounds awful but I really cringed when I saw them -- absolutely atrocious!
The sad thing is, I could have easily taught them really simple tricks to make them look professional. That's what I'm hoping to do if I put this together. All I have to do is give them a little template, sample squares, and one easy direction -- if your work is getting smaller, knit looser; if it's getting larger, knit tighter. That's it. Simple. Easy. Direct from a professional designer. And the outcome will be uniform and beautiful.
If I stop by and collect the squares and take them home, I can arrange them really beautifully and stitch them together. I can take my time with the arrangement and enjoy the visual as I sew them together. Then I can leave the finished blanket for people to see, and then leave a photo of it when I send it off to the charity.
I know my approach might seem a bit controlling, but I think people would love to learn from a professional. It would help them with their other projects. What I described above about work getting bigger or smaller is the biggest challenge for every knitter -- it's called gauge. If your gauge is too loose, your baby hat can turn into a hat for a lumberjack. If your gauge is too tight, the Christmas sweater you're knitting for your husband is going to end up the right size for your toy poodle. Tension is critical; if they learn that one thing from me, everything else they knit will be the right size. A very cool thing to learn.