Over the course of Woolfest last week, a staggering total of £894.78 was raised for p/hop! Special mention to the Kindred Knitters for their generous contribution and Joy Edwards for donating the Forest Canopy Shawl as a raffle prize.

A full Woolfest update from Ray to follow shortly.

Thanks for all the support! 

Ray, Sonja, Aisha and Lou

Just a reminder we are off to Cumbria this Friday and Saturday for Woolfest. 

We will have handouts of the patterns available, including the lastest Hopsox and Chevron De Paix Socks, and a display of the entire knitted p/hop collection. So if you haven’t yet got around to knitting up one of the patterns yourself, come and have a look at the end result.

As well as the Hopsox pattern, Joy Edwards has also donated the lovely Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl to be raffled off at Woolfest. Tickets will be available at the stall and all money raised goes to p/hop.

Joy Edwards has designed and donated the latest p/hop Hopsox pattern. Thanks Joy!

To download Hopsox click here.

Once you have knitted up these beautiful socks and would like to make a donation for the hours of enjoyment you had click here.  

If you have any queries or comments regarding the pattern, Joy can be contacted on Ravelry by clicking here.

Thanks to Debbie Tomkies, we now have a brand new p/hop pattern!

The Chevron De Paix Socks are a pair of cuff-down socks with delicate lacy chevrons.

Chevron-de-Paix Socks

You can download the pattern here, visit other p/hop patterns here and donate for the hours of pleasure you get from them here. Couldn’t be simpler…

Mike Patmore, veteran MSF lab technician, but virgin knitting festival goer, writes of his experience at Ravelry Day ‘09…

Who would ever have thought of it, MSF attending a knitting convention. Nevertheless Louise Salkeld, Anne Lomole, and myself headed to Coventry Central Hall, on a cold and wet June morning to attend the UK Ravelry Day 2009, which celebrates all things knitting. We set up our stand among many others selling balls of wool, finished knitted articles, patterns etc; there was even one lady, dressed up in 17th century style, demonstrating the art of spinning.

Heather (or Cybil) at the p/hop stall

If we thought we were in for an easy day, then we were mistaken. Within minutes of the doors opening the place resembled Waterloo Station in the rush hour; it rapidly filled up with enthusiastic knitters from all corners of the country, all very inquisitive and experts in their field. The MSF stand proved extremely popular, most people already knew us, some were regular donors, and we received many plaudits on our humanitarian efforts. Most were impressed by our fund raising method (p/hop = pennies per hour of pleasure) where we gave out free knitting patterns, and they, after knitting one or more article, would donate online according to the amount of pleasure it gave them.

Jane with the Crawford Mitts pattern

Trade was brisk, and we even managed to run out of some patterns before the end of the day; not a big problem as they can also be downloaded from the internet. An ‘on the day’ collection of 255 pounds and the likelihood of further donations, bears witness to the generosity of the knitting world, and our thanks go out to them.

Mike's first stitch

Amongst all this, our expert resident MSF knitter, Anne, managed to teach me some of the art, but alas I was not an apt pupil, and my speed was less than adequate.

All three of us enjoyed the day it was a great success, which bodes well for Louise who will embark on a similar venture later this year, and we finally celebrated with a welcome drink in the local pub before boarding the train back to London.

Mike's first encounter with 'the knitters' leads to heavy drinking

Mike Patmore.

What did I say? I said, “I will take a pic everyday (as long as I can) and post them here.”

This I have not done. However, I have been knitting! Which is the point… Been a crazy couple of weeks, including a football tour to Florence where we beat the Italians on penalties in the final. Then a week working from the MSF office in Brussels (great people, great beers, a lot of fun). Then a final football competition in Belgium, which we got knocked out of in the final on golden goal. Hence, not much photo taking and blogging, but………………………….

………………… lots of knitting (for me anyway). The only days I knitted nothing were the three days of football in which I was either playing, celebrating, commiserating or sleeping. Change of colour wasn’t too hard, although I have a funny line of white running through the red. Something to improve on I guess. Suggestions of what went wrong welcome…

Not sure how this happened....

And, unfortunately, my first hole. At least it’s a good one. I lulled myself into a false sense of security thinking I could watch Che at the same time as knit. Wrong!

Blame Che Guevara

Now things have settled down, I will begin charting progress again. I’m getting there though. Soon be time to get your cheque book out Steve!

Full report to come soon, but just wanted to let you all know how well it went!

1. Over 400 p/hop patterns were handed out to eager knitters over the course of the day!
2. Over £250 was thrown into the tins on the stall! Total for p/hop has now breached £2,000!!!
3. Lou, Ann and Mike had a brilliant day (Mike learnt to knit)

Mike's first stitch

So, really, just thank you to everyone who came over to the stall and talked to the guys. A great result for p/hop’s first outing!