Ginny, one of p/hop’s brilliant volunteers, will be blogging about Knit Nation in the near future but in the meantime* I’d like to say a super massive thank you to everyone who helped make p/hop such a success at Knit Nation. This post will probably read like an Oscar acceptance speech but one of the brilliant and heart warming things about p/hop is the number of people who say “Yes, I will help”. So before I get too misty eyed and my ballgown gets covered in runny mascara here are the thank yous.

Thank you to Socktopus Alice and Cookie A and their brilliant team who gave us our stand for free, for their brilliant organisational skills and of course for holding Knit Nation. Cookie A also signed a copy of her book (kindly donated by Search Press) for our raffle.

Thank you to all our volunteers who helped on the stand,

Thank you all the vendors who donated a prize or two or ten to our raffle. I’m always very touched when small indie businesses donate prizes to us, plus they were beautiful prizes. I was so overwhelmed by people’s generosity that I had to sit on the lawn on the Imperial College Campus to have enough space to sort out all the prizes. Thank you to the Stitch London Stitchettes for helping me sort them out on Friday and to DeadlySmurf (Megan) who helped out on Saturday.

Here they all are in no particular (well alphabetical) order.

Artisan Yarns Babylonglegs Biggan Design Brownberry Yarns Claire Montgomerie Easyknits Fibre Harvest &  John Arbon Textiles Fyberspates Juno Fibre Arts KAL Media Knit Cave Knitting Magazine Knitwitches Yarns Krafty Koala Loop Nics Knots Old Maiden Aunt p2tog Purlescence Pure Purl Renaissance Dyeing Search Press Sparkleduck Skein Queen Susan Crawford Sunflower Swifts Tall Yarns’n'Tales Tilly Flop Designs The Bothered Owl The Little Knitting Company The Natural Dye Studio The Toft Alpaca Shop TheYarnYard TricotPlume Wild Fibers Magazine Yarn Box Ysolda and Thimblina (designer of these fab socks) who donated some gorgeous yarn from her stash. Phew, I think that’s everyone. If I’ve forgotten you let me know and I’ll add you to the wall of thanks.

I wish I had the time to list all the prizes but there were so many (you can see some of them on our previous Knit Nation post).

Thank you to our generous designers and our talented sample knitters. Without you p/hop would just be a bare stand.

It was great to meet some of our designers in person. I forgot to get my camera out on Friday, thus missing photos with Asa Tricosa and Joy …. but on Saturday I managed to get a snap shot of Woolly Wormhead and our Striped Beanie sample…

… and Probably Jane with our Karenina Socks sample.

Thank you if you brought us coffee or a welcome cup of tea

Thank you if you dropped off barnraising squares

Thank you to Jess and Casey for the fun Ravelry party which gave us all a chance to let our hair down and hang out with other knitters. Here’s some of our volunteers (Knitty flitty and her family) posing in front of giant Bob.

And last but not least thank you if you visited our stand, made a donation or entered our raffle. We couldn’t do it without you!

We’ll have the final total raised confirmed on Monday so check back soon to see how much we raised.

The horrific natural disaster currently happening in Pakistan is a vivid reminder of why p/hop exits. MSF are there, provding essential shelter, medical care and clean water.

I love the knitting community, it’s such a kind and gentle place but we can do great things with it and as I’m prone to saying “Knitting really can change people’s lives!”.

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If you have any photos you’d like to share from Knit Nation join our flickr group. We’d love to see them.

*(this is not a reference to a certain pale ale Raverly’s Casey was swigging at the Ravelry party)