Edgebrook Covenant Church - Here are some helpful tips and tricks gathered from other charity crafting websites, and some of our own ECC crafters:

·  Perhaps most important:  Pray for the child, teen, or adult who will receive your item, while you are making it.  Pray for the recipient’s health, welfare, happiness, and openness to Jesus – and think warm and loving thoughts.  Crocheting, knitting, or sewing love into your gifts makes all the difference!!

·  Keep your projects simple -- eliminate fussy finishing details that make care and upkeep more difficult, take time, and don’t necessarily increase the functionality of the item.  For example, pom-poms, fringe, fancy ribbons, delicate buttons, beading, and lace all look wonderful – but their addition may mean that the item usually can’t be tossed in the washer and dryer.  Our gift should be a blessing – not a hassle!

·  If you are a beginning crafter, why not learn to make one type of scarf, hat, and mittens well – and keep repeating them?  You can experiment with colors and type of yarn, while increasing your confidence with the stitches used, gauge, and pattern reading?  Variegated yarns are great fun to work with – and make even very simple items look more interesting.

·  Focus on using acrylic yarn for knitting and crocheting projects for babies, children, and adults.  It is easily machine washable and dryable, and seems to wear like iron.

·  Focus on mixed cotton/polyester, fleece, or Polarfleece fabrics for sewing projects for children, adults, and toys – and Dacron or polyester stuffing.  Both are easily machine washable and dryable, and wear well, and don’t need ironing.  

·  Focus on flannel or Polarfleece fabrics for sewing projects for babies.  Both are easily machine washable and dryable, and wear well.  They also don’t need ironing.

·  Focus on cotton/polyester, flannel, or Polarfleece fabrics for quilts and sewn blankets – and Dacron or polyester batting.  All are easily machine washable and dryable, and wear well.  Machine stitching of the quilting is perfectly acceptable, and often much sturdier, for children’s quilts -- which will take lots of hard wear.

·  If you make stuffed dolls or toys for our children, please don’t use buttons, beads, bows, or “goggly” eyes on them.  No matter how carefully you sew these on, little ones always find a way chew or pull them off.  Instead, try embroidering the faces and details – or use washable fabric paints.

·  Many of the children who will be recipients of our gifts are of different nationalities, and look their best in brighter colors rather than just pastels.  If you are open to the idea, even baby clothing can be made in brighter colors!  

·  Don’t forget the moms and dads!  They need warm scarves, hats, and mittens, too.  

·  Why not work on a set – mittens, scarf, and hat – for a child or adult?  We’ll package it as a set for the recipient, and he or she will have a wonderful gift to boost their spirits – and keep them warm!