The response to the Haitian Earthquake tragedy by the knitting community over the last few days has been heart-warmingly inspiring.

On the social knitworking site Ravelry.com, knitters, crocheters and other fibre fans leaped into action, asking where they could donate money and if they couldn’t afford a monetary donation thinking of alternative ways to raise money for Haitian relief efforts.

The Yarn Harlot, famous knitter, writer. blogger extraordinaire and founder of Knitters Without Borders/Tricoteuses Sans Frontières lit the “knit signal” and the word to help Haiti and raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) spread like wild fire throughout the knitting twitterverse and blogasphere.

The p/hop ravelry group has been busy with lots of yarn swaps for donations to MSF. Please take a look if you fancy some new yarn or books or if you need to downsize your stash. Someone is bound to want your unloved yarn in return for a donation to p/hop and MSF.

The Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Swap Group on Ravelry has hosted a very successful auction which some beautiful handmade items as well as yarn being auctioned to raise money for relief agencies, including MSF.

A rather notorious Ravelry group (ahem, LSG) have roused their members into donating and have kept a running total which is currently over US$ 32 000 for various aid agencies.

A specific Haitian Humanitarian Aid group has been set up which is consolidating ways of helping both in the short and long term.

Several designers are donating a percentage of their pattern sales to help Haiti.

I’ve been inundated with enquiries about p/hop and our number of twitter followers has doubled since last Wednesday. I’d like to give a big thank you to anyone who has helped spread the word about p/hop and MSF.

We’ve got lots of new patterns in the pipeline thanks to the generosity of some wonderful designers. It’s worth reiterating that 100% of p/hop donations go to MSF and no one profits from them. The only people who benefit from p/hop are the people MSF helps.

Photo from MSF UK. Starting to unload the boxes to set MSF’s inflatable hospital on site in a football field in Port-au-Prince. Monday, Jan 18th 2010. Photo by Julie Remy/MSF

The problems the Haitian people are facing right now will continue for some time so please keep spreading the word and doing what you can. Let’s not forget that MSF continues to help people suffering in less “newsworthy” places such as Eastern Congo so please remember we are here all year round.

As always, p/hop is not the product of a few individuals but a community. If you’ve helped out in any way you can allow yourself a glow of humanitarian happiness knowing you’ve helped lessen people’s suffering.

If you’d like to help or have any ideas or suggestions for p/hop please get in touch.

Thank you and happy knitting.

Clare

PS If I’ve missed out anything you’ve done to help Haiti please leave us a comment below telling us about what you’ve done.