Happy Monday, dear T.H.R.I.V.E. Association family. Over the last decade, we have served countless Stand Downs. When serving at these Stand Downs, we have found that our underprivileged veterans and their dependents have a tendency to avoid colorful garments because they are deemed too loud, or maybe not serious enough. We strive to give the veterans what they want, which are garments in blues, blacks, greens, grays, and (our most popular) camouflage. As a side note, red and royal purple are also crowd favorites. However, as crafters we love our colorwork! It helps us build our skills and stretch our creative muscles. Colorwork is also a great way to use bits of yarn from other skeins so that we’re not wasteful. After all, yarn is a precious commodity to a crafter!

If we want to do some colorwork for a donated gift and we really want to use that bit of beautiful, bright yellow in our stash, how might we do that? We have a solution that has proven to be very successful – Show some team spirit!  Our staff has put together a handy dandy chart of some popular football teams for some inspiration! This is by no means an all-inclusive chart, it is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Remember, college football teams are also quite popular. We are always getting requests for hats in team colors. In fact, at the Dallas Stand Down, there were two veterans who wanted the same purple and gold beanie and we had very limited supplies of those. However, we promised to put the word out to our crafters to ensure that there were more for next year.

We’ve still got Stand Downs coming up, so please keep sending in your donations.