Charity knits

One thing that almost every knitter I know has in common is knitting for charity; be it a local raffle, national or international charity.  When I first decided to knit something for charity I was surprised by what came up when I did a Google search, I was so overwhelmed and didn’t know where to start so just gave up.  Now that I have a few more contacts in the local knitting community I have more of an idea where to look and which projects I like to give to.

An easy place to start if looking for a charity to knit for is your local maternity hospital. I remember on my first visit to our maternity unit I got talking to the person manning the desk because they were knitting a hat for the premature babies. It is best to ask what the unit needs; they may have an abundance of hats but not many cardigans or blankets.  Some units accept “angel pockets” for babies born sleeping and also smaller sized items for burial but others will direct your donations of these to a local charity.

A common pattern for the knitted blanket requires 200g of double knit wool and size 8 needles and is knitted in garter stitch (all rows K) The blanket is knitted as a diamond shape giving a nice diagonal stripe effect.

 Cast on one stitch.

Row 1: increase (2)

Row 2: k1, increase 1 (3)

Continue increasing the 2^nd stitch only on each row until you have used the first 100g ball.

Next row: k1, k2 tog, k to end.

Repeat this row until you have 2 stitches then k2 tog, break off the wool and pull through the last stitch.

Depending on you tension you could have between 160 – 190 stitches at the end of the first ball if you are as varied as those of my knitting group. The blankets are used to cover the incubators providing some shade, as well as keeping the babies warm when being held, and the blankets are theirs to keep and take home.

A project brought to my attention by our local library knitting group is Teddies for Tragedies. This is more of an international project than a charity as you could even start up your own local project collecting bears for any group or charity which would like to receive them. Most people imagine them going abroad but there are plenty of children in the UK who would love a little hug from one of these, you may want to ask your local childrens hospital ward or womans refuge. Please only knit these if you know someone who is collecting them or needs them, you can use the contact section of the website to find out if there is a project in your area.

The bears are knitted in one long piece then folded at the top of the head before picking up stitches to knit the arms. You can see why I like this one as there isn’t much sewing up to do at the end. There are few special instructions with these bears:

Do not use white for the face as in some cultures this is associated with death in many cultures.

Use black for the facial features, secure the neck with a running stitch , only secure the scarf at the back of the neck so it can be tied by the child.

Operation Christmas Child is another project which helps children both in the UK and internationally, you can even pay a donation to find out where your box goes. A local toddler group introduced me to this on last Christmas, everyone knitted or donated one or more items and we used them all to make up boxes. This is good as it means even those who can’t knit can still put items in the box so non craft groups such as schools and youth projects can get involved. The site lists a number of patterns, I knitted a few purses due to short notice as they were quick and easy to produce using scraps of wool. Even my beginner friend did great as it is just garter stitch knitted first with a single the double strand, she was so impressed when she made her first button hole.

Sometimes a chance to knit for charity comes from the most unusual place, like twitter. Blogger @chaoskay tweeted about her blog project  Penguin amnesty, so I just HAD to knit a penguin for her. The problem was that my son decided it would get lonely in the post and I had to make another one to accompany him on the journey. The project has snowballed and you can check out her blog for an update on all the donations she has had so far.