Newsletter 599
As you know by now, it's been a tough week for Music City and a good portion of Middle Tennessee. Our hearts go out to everyone affected by the tornado that tore through earlier this week. Haus owner Meg experienced the 1998 East Nashville tornado firsthand when it slammed into the house she rented on Woodland Street; this one followed a very similar path, which seems almost impossible to believe. It takes -- at best -- years for a neighborhood to fully recover from the type of beating North Nashville, Germantown, East, Donelson, Mt Juliet, and Cookeville (among others) took in the early Tuesday morning hours -- but Tennessee isn't called The Volunteer State for nothing. When a tornado decides to march through, we just say "hold my beer."
There are many, many ways to get involved if you'd like to help. At the bottom of this newsletter, there's a short list of links to reliable organizations doing hard, good work. We urge you, beg you, to click on one of them and participate as much as and in any way you can.
And we've got three special fiber-related ways you can contribute as well. Read on!
1: Helping Our Friends at Nutmeg Fiber Arts
Our friend Meg Anderson -- the creative force behind Nutmeg Fiber Arts -- suffered extensive damage to both her East Nashville house and her tiny backyard dye studio. She'll tell you others have it worse (and they do!) but the extent of tornado damage she suffered will keep her from the dye pots for some time. To help alleviate that and (hopefully) get her back to doing what she's supposed to be doing, we're selling every single skein of Nutmeg Fiber in the shop -- with 100% of those sales (every dime!) going back to Meg. You'll be helping Nutmeg in two ways: the more you put in your basket, the more she makes...and the more we'll have to reorder from her!
2: Nashville, Tennessee: Home
We asked Sarah at Wuthering Sheep if she would whip up a number of these terrific handmade Tennessee "Home" project bags for us and she didn't hesitate; she said "yes!" before we were even done asking the question! Each one is stitched and sewn by hand, so we won't have them to ship until late-April, but you can pre-order them now via this link! 100% of the $40 price goes to the Middle Tennessee Emergency Response Fund organized by the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. Every single cent! There are fifty of these in the works; that's $2000! How long before we reach that number? We bet not long!
3) Nashville Patterns: Knit for Nashville!
You might be aware that Mama Jo -- Haus' most industrious sample knitter -- has designed an entire series of patterns based on famous Nashville landmarks: Meet Me at the Ryman, the Ryman Wrap, Parthenon, the Parthenon Wrap, Printers Alley and The Tracks at Union Station.
For the month of March, whenever you buy any of the six Nashville Collection patterns in-store (we have printed copies of each!) or directly through Ravelry yourself via those above links, 100% of the proceeds from those sales will go directly to the Middle Tennessee Emergency Response Fund organized by the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.