Two Pink Scarves

This Saturday, there will be a 5K walk/race by the Hurwitz Breast Cancer Fund in my town. As part of the event, the organizers requested pink scarves to be knitted, crocheted, or woven for walkers/racers who are breast cancer survivors. These are the two I made for them.

I started the pink and white one thinking I would do the interesting knot from the All Wrapped Up Infinity Scarf. The pink section is the pattern from the Pound of Love Hooded Baby Blanket. The white section is a granny square pattern from Heather's Crochet Blog. Unfortunately, I made the two sections too wide so the knot didn't work well. I just seamed the two together to make a HUGE infinity scarf. You have to wrap it around three times, but it still works well as a scarf.

The dark pink one is a fan or shell pattern that I haven't written up yet.

This brings my lifetime donation total to 689 items.

Cheers!

Donors Choose

School has about started in most towns across the country, now. 

Several of my friends and people I went to high school with (or their spouses) are teachers now. I live by the words "those who have the ability to help, have the responsibility to help." I may not be a teacher, but I can help those who are, especially those in underprivileged communities. That's why I'm a regular donor on DonorsChoose.org.

Projects I've supported on Donors Choose over the years have included many projects to build classroom libraries, air conditioning units for classrooms in schools that lack AC, basic school supplies such as paper and pencils, and a trip to a bookstore 70-80 miles away from a Native American reservation in South Dakota so that the elementary schoolers could experience what it is like to go to a bookstore and pick out a book of their own.

While you are shopping for school supplies this year or reveling in the fact that you no longer have to, consider supporting a classroom in one of the 50 states and DC.

687

 I'm going to be brief. I've already worked almost 30 hours this week and it's only Wednesday. But thus is the life sometimes of a QC chemist.

I missed posting the donation of three scrap yarn hats in April (probably because I had just moved back to Maryland or was days away from moving).

Here are the pics of the three hats from April and seven items donated in December 2016:

Items:
-4 hats
-1 earwarmer
-2 knitted cowls (both scrap yarn)

Cheers!

677

Hi, all. I just accepted a job in Maryland so I will be moving back very soon. In the meantime, I'm trying to whittle down my yarn stash so that I have less to ship back. This turns into hats and mittens and donations to Jee Jee at ARC. Here are the latest:

Donated items:
-16 hats
-2 knitted hats

-2 pairs of adult mittens

-1 pair of child's mittens

Those of you who are mathematically inclined may have noticed that I donated 21 items above but my total increased by 22. The extra item was a hat that I gave to a woman I met at a knitting group in Columbia, MD. She makes and collects handmade hats for children at a local elementary school. One less cold head.

Cheers!

655

So busy. Can't stay long. Today I sent off six more items for ARC, bringing the total number of items donated to 655. And in other news, I just made my 308th loan on Kiva.org.

Donated items:
-4 hats
-1 cowl
-1 pair of mittens







Speaking of Kiva.org, I'd like to promote the organization a little. Watch the short video below. If you like it and want to loan on Kiva, use this link to sign up and start loaning to people around the world.

Cheers!

649

Things are just now starting to get back to normal. Almost two months ago I had knee surgery to reconstruct a torn ACL. During in initial recovery period, I was able to send out a few things to ARC. Here they are. There will be another shipment soon. Right now, I prefer to send Jee Jee a few things in a smaller box more often over sending a lot of items in a large box a few times a year. And the next box is almost full.

Items:
-1 pair of mittens
-1 dog sweater
-1 scrap yarn scarf
-5 knitted (yes, knitted) hats

In addition to sending these items to Jee Jee, I also crocheted a mammoth and a plesiosaur for the silent auction at this year's SVP meeting in Dallas. Hopefully, they'll bring in a lot of money for SVP's educational fund. *fingers crossed*

641

 I'm finally getting around to writing this up, now that I injured my knee and can really only sit and hobble-walk.

This is actually a post for the second shipment of yarn items to ARC for the year. I missed the post for the first one (took the total to 630) so I'm just going to combine the two into this post.

Items:
-16 hats
-1 earwarmer
-3 pairs of mittens
-5 scarves/cowls
-2 knitted hats

Fun fact: The number of child/teen/adult hats and the number of scarves/cowls I've crocheted and donated now equal each other at 142 each.

Cheers!

614

I'm going to keep this brief because it is getting late on a Sunday and I still have a lot of things I need to do before work tomorrow.

Here are the latest items I've donated. My total is now to 614 items since 2009.

-9 pairs of mittens
-2 pairs of slippers
-1 pair of booties
-1 bookmark

-1 earwarmer
-6 cowls
-13 crocheted hats
-1 knitted hat (the orange one at the top left)
-4 scarves (including a braided one)
-1 knitted cowl

....for a total of 39 items donated in December 2014.

Cheers!

575 Items

My graduate advisor and me.

Hello all. The semester has ended and now the summer is about halfway done. I'm very close to turning in my thesis and officially graduating with my Master of Science in Geological Sciences (Paleontology) from the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. After that, I need to publish my thesis chapter and get hired. I've had one interview and I'm hoping the best for that one. But if anyone knows someone looking for an entry-level chemist who learns very quickly and is willing to move for free, please send them my way. I'm about to be unemployed and it scares the shit out of me.

But here are the latest crocheted stuff I donated to Jee Jee. This brings my total to 575 items donated since 2009.

Items:
-9 cowls
-1 scarf
-3 hats
-1 pair of mittens
-1 pair of slippers

Cheers!

560 and I'm graduating in May (hopefully)

 And thus we start what will hopefully be my last semester at UT. I'll likely post again about finishing my master's here, but it is after midnight on the night before school starts for the semester and I want to go to bed after I post this, so this is going to be short. And that was a run-on sentence. Yes, I am in graduate school. :P

Anyway, I'm now at 560 items donated since 2009. Here are the items from the latest shipment to ARC:

-1 cardigan for a ~2-year-old
-9 hats
-6 earwarmers
-3 pairs of mittens
-1 pair of slippers
-27 scarves and cowls

513

I'm going to keep this brief because it's that time of year when everything is due in every grad class and my advisor is clambering for data from me. These were donated earlier in November with the penguin from the previous post, bringing my total to 513.

Items donated:

-1 hat
-3 earwarmers
-8 pairs of mittens
-5 pairs of slippers
-2 stuffed animals
-3 scarves

-3 cowls

488 Items Donated!!

So it's Labor Day weekend and I'm preparing for the Auburn vs Washington game tonight (note: I am not an Auburn fan. Go Terps! But a fellow grad student is having a cook-out at his house. He is an Auburn alum). I just sent home the rest of the stuff that will be donated to ARC when it all arrives in Maryland. Combine the items in this post (minus the penguin because I couldn't fit it in the box. He'll be donated later) with those in the last post for one shipment of 41 items to Jee Jee at ARC.

Items in the second part of the shipment are:
-2 pairs of socks/slippers
-4 scarves
-6 pairs of mittens


Cheers!

Year Number 2

So I figured I would post something before the semester started. I'm about to start my second (and hopefully final) year of my MS at UT Austin and I'm going to keep this post short since I have to get up in about 5 hours to get to BWI to fly back to Texas. I did get some data collected during the summer, but not enough, although that was outside of my control. In addition to collecting data, I also collected crocheted items. I thought I should post them now instead of when they are donated since there is already quite a few of them. 

To be donated (assume they were donated with the stuff in the next post about donated items):
-5 hats
-2 scarves
-7 pairs of mittens
-11 pairs of socks/slippers

-4 earwarmers

447 and Kiva.org

So the semester has ended, except for a final I have to grade once I get back from Akron, OH, which means I get to send Jee Jee (ARC) all the items I've crocheted for her during the semester.

Items:
-5 pairs of socks
-1 hat
-2 earwarmers (one is very small)
-1 cowl
-13 scarves

Now my total is 447 items donated since 2009.

So now to some of my thoughts (if you aren't interested in my life as a grad student, you can skip down to the next section on Kiva.org):

An update on the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship: I didn't get it :D. I didn't want it since I don't want a PhD at this time and getting the NSF GRFP would have forced me into one. I'm still uncertain what I want to do in life. Now that I'm actually moving on my master thesis research (the reason why I'm in Akron), I feel better about paleontology. However, even though I'm enjoying it, I still can't see a future in paleontology for me. I think I still want to get a masters in chemistry and work in industry for a bit and then decide if it is something I want to continue with. A non sequitur, but I like teaching. I really enjoyed TAing GEO 404C Plate Tectonics and Earth History. In fact, I liked teaching more than I liked doing work for my thesis this semester. Meh. I guess we shall just let time tell...

Now to Kiva.org.

If you can't tell already (which actually you may not have been able to tell), I LOVE Kiva.org. To date, I've made 32 loans to 28 countries. Kiva is a microfinancing charity, in which lenders can loan as little as $25 to people all over the world (specifically in 64 countries). Usually, the people are in developing countries, although Kiva does have loans in the US. This is how the process works:

• The borrower requests a small loan (from as low as $150 to as high as $6,500, although the US loans can be up to $10,000) from a micofinancing institution (MFI) in their home country.
• The MFI disperses funds to the borrower and sends the loan information to Kiva, which then places the loan online.
• Lenders (ordinary people, like you and me) from around the world lend as little as $25 to any of the 300 to 3,000 loans listed at any given time (there are usually just a few hundred around the 17th of each month and usually a few thousand around the 14-15th of each month for reasons I will explain later).
• Your and my money is used to backfill the loan that has already been distributed to the borrower. This takes the risk of the loan off the MFI and onto you, which helps the MFI continue to provide more loans to be people who are looking to improve their qualities of life.
• The borrower repays the loan as set by the schedule of the MFI. The money first goes to the MFI and then to Kiva and then to you.
• The money arrives back in your account on the 15th of each month (everyone relends the money to new loans then so that's why there are so many listed prior to this date and so few after). You can relend the money to your heart's content or withdraw it.
• Kiva costs nothing to sign up or to use ever (of course not including the money you lend). If you follow this link, http://www.kiva.org/invitedby/feliciakulp you (and me) can get a free $25 loan to a listed loan of your choosing (this money will be repaid to Kiva, not you or me).

Now I don't want to scare you with the "takes the risk of the loan off the MFI and onto you" part. I have never had a loan that ended with a loss. Although I have had a few loans that were delinquent (a late repayment), they always picked it up during the next month's repayment. Overall, lending on Kiva is very low risk and in the process, you are helping someone improve their life, help send their children to school, help expand their business so now they can hire additional employees and in turn improve their lives, and so on.

To help give you an idea of what your money can help do, here are some details about some of the loans that I have contributed to:

• Countries: Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Georgia, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iraq, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Mali, Mexico, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United States, and Zambia (28 total)
• I've donated to women, men, groups of one gender, groups of both genders, married people, single people, old, young, widows, widowers, mothers, fathers, a Palestinian refugee
• Some are taxi drivers or wives of taxi drivers, some work in motorcycle or car repair shops, some are farmers, some sell food and other general supplies, some are artisans and make clothes and jewelry, some wish to make improvements to their home or even just build one
• To see a full list of my loans: http://www.kiva.org/lender/feliciakulp
• Also if you are a Nerdfighter, the Kiva Nerdfighter team

Recently, I received an update from one of my loans (Made, Indonesia; jewelry artisan). Using the funds from the loan he requested, he has made the jewelry that has been listed on NOVICA and is available for purchase. Now, I'm not trying to promote him, but I am trying to give you the sense the the money that is lent to people through Kiva really does produce results and can true help their lives.

Peace.

425

Old Ellicott City

During winter break, I went home for a month. It felt so good to see Maryland, my Maryland again. Walking the hills of Old Ellicott City and Oella, it seemed that I had never left, their 300 years of life still soldiering on after a flood and a train derailment since my departure. Also, while I was home, I crocheted, having not had the chance to do so since arriving in Texas. Below are the items I donated to ARC in December and January, bringing my total to 425 items donated since 2009.

Items donated:
-2 hats
-7 earwarmers

-2 pairs of adult mittens
-1 pair of child mittens
-2 pairs of socks (pictured twice)
-13 scarves (includes 3 cowls)

2 Shy of 400

So I'm now in Austin, Texas, getting ready for graduate school to start. Moving 1500 miles from my home, I was limited by what I could fit into my car. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to use up my entire stash of yarn before I left, which is mostly in these blankets (they each use 3 strings of yarn at one time). With these items that I'm donating to ARC, I am now 2 items shy of 400 items donated. 

Items:
-15 pairs of socks
-3 pairs of booties
-1 cat bed
-5 cat/dog mats

-5 baby blankets

Cheers!