Hats!

I seem to have gone a bit overboard on accessories knitting of late. Especially hats, which are such a satisfying knit. Round and round you go with nary a worry, till you get to the decreases and even those aren't that challenging so long as you can count to 9.

So, while the hat-fever's still upon me, I'm going to be starting a beanie today for www.homelessbeanies.org.uk, which have a branch in our nearest city, meaning we can deliver our goods direct rather than paying out for postage. Yay! Big plus in my estimation. And it's nice to focus on the local now and again anyway.

Our other current charity knitgroup project is knitting heart bags for Ruth and Belinda's joint venture with Kids' Company, and we now have a goodly pile. A fantastic idea, this - it's possible to make some very pretty bags with some very small oddments of yarn. They wanted about a million and a half of these by next Feb so we'll be knitting a few more yet.

And some people - better crocheters than me - have been producing granny squares to support the Mencap/Country Living project.  How worthwhile is that? And how pretty? And how useful for practising your crocheting skills? Go on, you know you want to have a go...

The shame of it

I can't believe it's almost a month since I posted on here. Where does the time go? Well, I know where it goes at this time of year - it goes on serving customers and ordering new stock and knitting up new sample garments and wondering whether the start of December is too late to Christmasify one or all of the windows. Hardly squandering precious time, but still...

Anyway, a week and a half ago six or seven of us spent the afternoon making 6" squares for the Big Issue Foundation as part of their Big Knitathon. Altogether we managed 17 (big yay for us!!) and I just need the final three to arrive safely back at the shop, then they can be sent off to be made into blankets for people without homes. It was such a lovely afternoon - we sat and chatted and knitted and chatted and...very relaxing and pleasant. Shoppers came in and out now and then, but local knitters are pretty cool generally and don't mind squeezing behind chairs and striding over bags.

So now we're seeking out a different cause for our first-Thursday-of-the-month charity knitting. Any ideas?

Fish and chip babies

Here we have the results of our knit group's time spent knitting for Fish and Chip babies in Africa. That's such a great name for the project - how could anyone forget a name like that? The idea behind it is that if no one knits for these babies, many of whom have AIDS, they'll go home from hospital wrapped in newspaper for warmth. Like fish and chips.

Check out the link above for UK contact details - a small donation towards the cost of shipping would be appreciated. (All details are on site.)

You can see from this picture that one knitter forgot the request to knit in dark or darkish coloiurs. Yes, it was me.