Lakers Afghan

     For the past year and a bit I had been really wanting to make an afghan to donate to the Fort Frances Lakers in order to help them raise money, and finally, after completing my brother's birthday blanket I decided to dive right into it.  Having completed my brother's afghan in record time I felt confident I could keep the streak going and finish up the Lakers Afghan in no time, and though I may not have finished this one in record time, it is completed and I'm glad to see how wonderful it turned out.

I started out with the lettering for the logo

Then worked on the afghan background.... Of course Zija was all over it.

And more work on the lettering

Background finished, lettering almost done

Lettering finished! (no easy task)

Ready to scope out how big to make out the rest of the logo

Kitten just waiting for me to turn my back so she can pounce on a fresh afghan

This is how it starts.... two paws at a time 

Kitten caught!!

Logo placement, still needs to be sewn on

Friday the 16th, in the morning, sewing on the logo

And the afghan makes it to the first pre-season game!

      The Lakers Afghan is part of a Lakers raffle to be drawn on December 19th 2011 at the last Lakers home game before the holidays.  The draw will be for the Afghan and 2 chairs (seen in the above photo).  Tickets are 5$ each and ALL proceeds go directly to the Fort Frances Lakers.  The blanket was 100% donated :)  I am planning on having the Afghan available for custom order sales, however since it took up so much time to make, the price will be adjusted accordingly plus part of the proceeds will go to the Lakers.  Once I've crunched up all those numbers it will be up on my Etsy site and this one as well as the Facebook page.
     When it comes to labours of love, they are always long and arduous but ALWAYS well worth it in the end. :)

Updates

This is what HN&S has been up to this week,    
  

Crochet

    Lakers Afghan

     I've been hard at work focusing mostly on this project for the past week as it needed to be done for today.  The Fort Frances Lakers are the local Junior A hockey team.  They are part of the SIJHL and judging by the exhibition games we've recently had I think they are gonna kick some ass this year! :D.  I'm very glad I finally decided to dedicate myself to making up this blanket to donate in order to raise money for the team.  After over a year of "wanting" to do it, I finally got to it and set a date: it *MUST* be done for the first pre-season game.  Tonight is the first pre-season game and I'm finally done! If you are in the Fort Frances area, stop on by at the Ice For Kids arena to watch a good game of hockey and come see the beautiful afghan! The raffle will be going on until December, the fund-raising comity has decided to do the draw for Christmas.

     I have to say, I am INSANELY happy to be done with this afghan... I was really getting sick of working on it lol, but the satisfaction of seeing it completed and knowing it will raise money to help support our hockey team is well worth the effort.  Tomorrow I will have full post on the Lakers afghan and how it went at it's debut tonight at the arena.

Knitting

     New Slippers. 

     I haven't done much knitting this week. The past couple days I needed brief distractions from the Lakers Aghan so I started working on some slippers.  I've been 'tweaking' an old slipper pattern to make it more comfy and better fitted.  I haven't assembled them yet so I'm not sure how it'll will turn out.  I should know by this weekend and the slippers might be up on my site by the end of next week (assuming the 'tweaking' of the pattern worked).

Sewing

     New Series.

     I've not done too much sewing this week as I was more focused on my crochet project though I did do a little work on my new series and did TONS of computer work for it.  I've set release dates for the new series here, made up the free demo letters and made up the page that will be posted on the public release date.  I never realized just how much work needs to go into launching a new line!  But like the Lakers Afghan, I'm sure it'll be well worth it in the end.

     Now, for those of you who are waiting on the new series: here is a sneak peek! Every week until the public release date I'll post one random pic here in the weekly updates! They may be close ups of an actual product or just of the materials used. Hopefully they won't be too obvious.... or too confusing :) Enjoy!