During November I participated in the Knit Every Day in November Challenge for the American Cancer Society.  Almost 12,000 people joined the challenge to knit every day to raise money for cancer.  The fundraiser was through Facebook, and I was a little leery at first.  But I did my research and decided it was a legitimate cause.  The money we raise really does go to the American Cancer Society and Facebook doesn’t keep any of it.  So I signed up to participate.

The Knit Every Day in November Challenge wasn’t particularly difficult.  I usually knit an hour or two in the evenings.  I had a couple of days where I didn’t knit because I was running around the whole day.  But I also started in the middle of October, so I figured missing two days wasn’t a big deal.  In all, I ended up knitting more than 40 hours in November and raised $865 for the American Cancer Society.  I dedicated each day’s knitting to a person I know who has or had cancer.

In order to encourage people to donate, I gave away five hats.  Four of them were National Park hats from the “Knitting the National Parks” book that I love.  The first hat went to Kris Moye, who donated the first $25 to the fundraiser.  Kris is a friend from the Wedgewood Church.  She got the Smoky Mountains hat.

The second hat went to Denise Verba for donating before November 3.  She got the New River Gorge hat.  Tom and I work with Denise and Bob Verba when we are at Fort Frederica.

Sherrilyn Wilson won the third hat, but Sherrilyn doesn’t wear hats and told me to find someone else.  I decided to give the hat to Jamieson Livingston, a ranger we worked with at Fort Frederica.  Jamieson had donated and her name is the same as the name of the yarn.  The hat was knitted with Jamieson’s Shetland yarn that I bought in Shetland.  The hat design is Islesburgh Toorie and it was knitted on size 1 needles.  It took a long time to knit but turned out very well.

The fourth hat went to Harmon Gombash (his real name) for donating before November 23.  We worked with Harmon at Slate Run Farm.  His hat is the Hawaii Volcanoes hat knitted with yarn that I bought in Iceland.  I think the hat is a little brighter than his usual winter attire, but it would be good for hunting season.

The final hat was the Shenandoah pattern, which looks like fall leaves.  It was knitted with yarn from Iceland and some of my handspun.  The winner of that hat was Ann Trueheart, one of the volunteers we work with at Fort Frederica.

I really enjoyed participating in the Knit Every Day in November Challenge.  Being part of the group meant that I got to see a lot of awesome things that other people were knitting or crocheting.  Many people were donating hats to people who had chemo.  Others gave their knitted items to homeless shelters.

I don’t know how much they raised total – but the total toward the end of November was around $350,000.  I feel honored to be a part of such a worthy cause and was very thankful for my friends who donated to the cause.