If you’re reading this blog you already know why p/hop exists. The amounts of money donated by individual knitters may seem small, but together they make a huge difference to the lives of people in real need around the world – for example, £5 buys a mosquito net that will help a family avoid malaria, £47.75 buys a tent which provides shelter for families made homeless by natural disasters such as the horrific floods in Pakistan.

But why am I here, on the p/hop blog page, instead of the lovely GingerKnits. It was inevitable that I would end up helping out on the p/hop stand at Knit Nation. I already volunteer for MSF in another capacity; I get on well with Clare; I knit and want to learn more; the show was in London, where I live – so why ever not?

We met up at p/hop towers, MSF’s London office to collect the seemingly tons of patterns, sample knits, posters and raffle prizes. Rachel (knittingtastic) was patiently labelling the sample knits and Clare was double, double, double-checking we had everything we would need.

The taxi driver was charming and amused by the idea of a knitting exhibition, and he dropped us as close to the door of Sherfield Hall as he could possibly manage. We unloaded and went in to find our stand.

The first thing that struck me was the smell – the gentle, homely smell of clean sheep. Gorgeous. The next thing was the colours, the textures, the sheen of silk, the lustre of merino, a veritable feast of knitting gorgeousness. The only downside to volunteering at a festival is the temptation to shop. I was coveting a beautiful green yarn on the stand opposite ours in seconds. On Saturday, I gave in and bought.

Thursday evening’s preview show was immensely energising. People rushing from stand to stand to scoop up what they wanted most, before starting to broswe in a more leisurely fashion. Interest in p/hop was steady, and ranged from the converted – ooh you’ve got Flowers in the Rain knitted up, it’s gorgeous, I’ll take a pattern – to the new friends, people who hadn’t heard about the project before.

A German mother and daughter thought it was terrific but worried about the cost of sending a raffle prize if they won – they weren’t to be there on the Friday or Saturday – so they paid more for the patterns they wanted. A French lady wants to talk to our Paris office about translating the concept. Perhaps she will. We will certainly encourage her if she does take it forward.

On Friday, I had to go to work –  boo hiss – but I was back on Saturday, just at the break between two classes. Friday’s raffle had been a huge success and, amazingly, I had won a prize: a beautiful skein of superwash merino/silk donating by the lovely Easy Knits. More amazingly, we had stall holders coming up every half hour saying, “I didn’t give you a prize to raffle yesterday, please take this for today,” or even, “I gave you a prize yesterday, please take another one.”

Interest in the patterns was high, with many, many people taking web details to download the pdfs later. I’ve been to enough exhibitions to know what state bits of A4 paper can be in by the time one gets home. One charming lady walked past the stand and said, “Now what is it you want me to do, oh yes, give you money.” She put a generous donation in the tin and said she might look at the patterns another time. She just didn’t want to forget us.

Knit Nation’s Alice kindly reminded shoppers of the time of the raffle and Wanderlustlost did a brilliant job of announcing our prizes, though her expression of awe at our treasure was priceless. Watching her pick up a skein of cashmere laceweight yarn, ready to speak, then shocked into silence by the shear softeness of it made me laugh out loud. I have never been lucky in prize draws of any kind – tombola, lotteries, even premium bonds – so I was thrilled to win again.  This time a glorious bundle including Susan Crawford’s new book, Berroco ultra alpaca donated by Loop, and Fibre Harvest organic laceweight undyed and a terrific new pair of walking socks – happy feet this winter. I didn’t feel I could keep the prize the next time my name was drawn, and had to let another happy shopper take the prize home. My bag of swag is glorious and tempting enough.

The total raised over the weekend was £1054.16, a truly magnificent effort by you all. Clare, despite the enormous amount of work that she does to keep p/hop running, and all the other volunteers, Rachel, Ann, Judith, Rita, Charlei, Kianna, Ros, Heather, Claire and I are simply the cogs that allow you to be generous – and you are. Quirky, eccentric, colourful and slightly weird – knitters are a lovely bunch.

Thank you Knit Nation, I’ll be back next year.

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Thank you Ginny, for your blog post and for all your help along with p/hop’s other brilliant volunteers. Check out my Oscar winning thank you post to read more hearwarming stuff about who helped MSF at the weekend.

I have to point out that the raffle WAS NOT FIXED. Ginny bought lots of tickets.

Here’s an example of how £1054.15 can be used by MSF right now to help people affected by the devastating floods in Pakistan:

£1054.15 = One Medical kit (£610), two three day cholera treatments (£80.34 each), four tents (£47.75 each), nine mosquito nets (£5.51 each) and eleven hygeine kits (£4.29 each). It’s pretty impressive what people with sticks and string can do isn’t it!