We are really, really excited about Knit Nation which takes place at Imperial College Campus in South Kensington on Thursday  29th July to Saturday 31st July 2010.

We’ll be there with the colourful p/hop stand (Stand no.132) where you’ll be able to have a squidge of our samples and browse our patterns. Come and say hello to us if you are there.

TREASURE

We’re having a raffle with one draw at the end of Friday and one at the end of Saturday. If you work in a yarn related business and would like to donate a prize please get in touch with us at P-HOP@london.msf.org

We’d like to say a big THANK YOU for all the prizes donated so far…

Knit Cave for her gorgeous sock yarn

Fibre Claire from Sunflower Swifts for a beautiful handmade swift

Designer Claire Montgomerie for a signed copy of Easy Kids Knits and some yummy yarn.

Alison at p2tog for a stunning KnitPro Symfonie Rose Interchangable Needle Set.

A signed CD from talented singer songwriter (and avid knitter) Abby Pond

Yarn Gatherer for a nifty Knit Kit in blue.

Julie from Tillyflop Designs for one of her fun Knitting Tea Towels

Susan Crawford for a copy of her simply spiffing new book Vintage Gifts to Knit

Thank you to Search Press for the following great books:

Interweave Knitted Gifts

Rowan Vintage Knits

Knitted Pirates, Princesses, Witches, Wizards & Fairies

Sock Innovation by Cookie A

UPDATE!!! We’ve got loads more prizes from some of the lovely Knit Nation vendors….

Beautiful Rosewood Ed Jenkins circular needle kindly donated by Robynn at Purlescence.

Five pound gift voucher to treat yourself at  Babylonglegs shop

Sparkleduck has donated a gorgeous skein of laceweight yarn.

Toft Alpaca have donated one of their beautiful Headband kits

The lovely Kim at Pure Purl has donated a skein of their squishy Love Yarn

TheNatural Dye Studio have donated two skeins of their Angel yarn.

Old Maiden Aunt is donating one of her one off skeins of stunning yarn.

Yarn Box have donated the beautiful Karen Scarf pattern plus a skein of Manos Lace in Prilla Purple to knit it with

Natalie from The Yarn Yard and p/hop founder has donated some of her vibrant yarn

Ysolda has donated one of her pattern kits to our raffle.

Be sure to check back here often as we’ll be adding more prizes to the line up!

BLANKET

We’re still after barnraising squares for the p/hop fundraising blanket. Check out the Ravelry group for details. They are easy to knit and only use a small amount of sock yarn, ideal for using up leftovers in your stash. If you’ve made some squares you can drop them off with us at Knit Nation. Thank you.

Right, I think that’s all for now folks. See you next weekend, we can’t wait!!!

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If you can’t make it to Knit Nation we will also be at UK Knit Camp 2010 and Ravlery Weekend at the University of Stirling, Scotland 13th August and 14th August 2010 and at the iknitweekender in London on the 10th-11th September 2010  .

After a good nights sleep in the fresh Cumbrian air we were raring to go and set up our display stand. Woolfest is held in an agricultural hall and all the stallholder stands are animal pens. This was perfect for our display as we rigged up a washing line to show off the p/hop samples which our supporters lovingly made. We even managed to fit in a hearty Cumbrian breakfast before the festival opened.

My nerves set in again, would the patterns “sell”, would our sample knitters hard work pay off??? I needn’t have worried, before I knew it it was 2pm and we hadn’t stopped. The stand was constantly busy and we’d already “sold out” of two patterns. Having the sample knits was brilliant as we know how much knitters love to feel things and they really made the display stand out. I had a great time chatting about knitting and pointing people in the direction of patterns which would suit them. Ann drew people in with her knitting and winning smile and Pete’s charm and enthusiasm for MSF won people over.

We were lucky enough to meet some of our designers and sample knitters so if time allowed we grabbed a photo with them.

Here’s Jacqui with the very first p/hop pattern, the beautiful Flowers in the Rain scarf…

… Ann Kingstone with her Socks for Little Wizards (sample knit by rosclarke)…

… Marly with the samples she knitted (Jacob Beanie and Stained Glass Window Sock)

and Beanz52 chatting with Ann about the Dido scarf sample she knitted.

It was great to meet lots of people who already knew about p/hop through a friend, or who remembered us from last year’s Woolfest or had read about us in magazine articles. Thank you to everyone who came and said hello from the Ravelry group too. It was lovely to meet you in person, I wish I’d had more time to chat.

Woolfest itself was great and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in anything woolly, from rare breeds to spinning to weaving. As well as all the traders there were demonstrations such as traditional feltmaking and the annual hand made sheep auction. The festival has an independent feel, and is surrounded by gorgeous scenery. There’s also a chance to see rare breeds up close with animals ranging from Wensleydale Longwool sheep, to freshly shorn alpacas and ridiculously fluffy angora rabbits. The organisers were friendly and helpful and it made my first festival very easy. Our stand was in an excellent location in between ice cream and beautiful yarn, opposite cake and interesting weaving and within earshot of the traditional music. There’s nothing quite like discussing MSFs work in Haiti to a backdrop of bleating sheep, a hurdy gurdy and the sound of Northumbrian Clog dancing!

We did find time to relax and enjoy a good pint of Cumbrian ale in the pubs in Cockermouth. Woolfest is a lovely way to support Cockermouth which was devastated by floods last year (as written about by Sefronia in last years blog-a-long). While most businesses have reopened there is still evidence of flood damage. There’s a hearty resilience about the town so if you are in the lakes I would recommend you visit. We had some delicious meals in Cockermouth and there’s a local brewery tour as well as many other places of interest to visit as well as the stunning scenery.

Back to business, Woolfest was a huge success for p/hop. We raised £1094.05 as well as raising awareness about the humanitarian work MSF does.

We’d like to say another HUGE THANK YOU to the Woolfest Organisers, everyone who visited the stand, helped spread the word and made a donation and to all our sample knitters and designers. Next year Woolfest will be on Friday 24 and Saturday 25 June 2011. We’re looking forward to seeing you there, with ice cream, yarn and cake.

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We’re now getting ready for KnitNation which will be different to Woolfest (as far as I know there won’t be any sheep in on the Imperial College campus) but just as much fun. See you there!

It’s gorgeous. It’s another marvellous Susan Pandorf creation and it’s called Iris.

I’m not going to write any more as I think the pattern does the talking but as always please remember to make your donation to MSF using Just giving (£) or first giving (US$). We’ve recently upped the targets to a whopping £20000 and US$5000 which we won’t reach without your help and generosity. Thank you in advance.

Clare and the p/hop team

PS. Click here for the Iris pattern page.

A full review of the weekend is coming soon but in the meantime we’d like to say a huge THANK YOU to the Woolfest organisers who make life very straightforward, everyone who visited the stand and made a donation and everyone who has donated a pattern and knitted samples for us.

We couldn’t do it without you!

Please take a look at her blog and her gorgeous knitting for further information.

A few of us in the p/hop Ravelry group have signed up for knitting 52 pairs of socks in one year and we’ve been wondering how to use it to raise money for MSF. I made a little video while on holiday and though I look a tad weary as I’d spent the previous night fighting a mosquito net in a traditional hut I had a great time.

While I wasn’t there for MSF I was aware of the work MSF do in Kenya. Kenya has suffered from droughts for the last two years. Luckily there was lots of rain while I was there and the people I spoke to were very relieved about this as their crops are growing well, unlike the last two years.  There’s a new MSF campaign to raise awareness about malnutrition called Starved of Attention which is well worth a few moments of your time.

The brilliant supporters in the Ravelry p/hop group are organising another knit-a-long to make squares for blankets which will be raffled at knitting festivals over the summer. If you remember last year the group made a beautiful barn raising blanket from sock weight yarn. The lucky person who won it in the raffle at the I Knit Weekender practically ran to claim it.

This year there are two patterns to choose from, the barn raising blanket or the Lizard Ridge blanket which can be found on Knitty.com.

If you want to take part you will find details in the Ravelry group.

Thank you and happy knitting…

Here’s Pete reading all about it!

Hello to any new readers who’ve found us through Yarn Forward. You can keep up-to-date with all the p/hop news here on the blog, via our twitter feed and in the p/hop Ravelry group. Please feel free say hello back to us, we’d love to hear from you.

You may recognise Pete from the article, he’s the one holding* his now infamous scarf for Arsene Wenger.

We’d like to say a BIG THANK YOU to the Yarn Forward team for the feature.

Now back to knitting my scarf for the PHKCOW competition. I’m in the office tomorrow and must beat Pete. My knitting pride is at stake.

*Note that’s Pete holding his scarf, not knitting it

Pete's fighting face is designed to strike terror into the heart of Clare

Little did she know that my knitting inactivity was a clever and underhanded tactic to lull her into a contest, so I could become the first p/hop knitting champion of the world (PHKCOW)! Having feigned reluctance to the proposed knitting race, I have stormed off the blocks with a massive 11 rows on the first weekend….

‘I thought he’d forgotten how to knit!’ I hear you mutter.

And you were nearly right. But, when I heard about a local knitting group called Stitch Mark East (here for ravelry and here for facebook), I knew it was destiny… Not only did the experience inspire me to my personal record for number-of rows-knitted-in-one-go. And, not only was it a very cool and relaxing afternoon chatting and knitting. It was also in Cafe Oto in Dalston, which is a wicked place… With the company of Rachael (Stitch Mark East founder) and her friends, good tea and good music, 11 rows flew past in no time.

Clare, I have thrown down the gauntlet, the race is on… I await your response

*Stitch Mark East (or Knits of the Round Table as Rachel regrets not calling it) is on every Sunday in Cafe Oto, so if you are a local reading this, feel free to drop by.*

I meet Rachael, Stitch Mark East founder

There will be more on this next week so watch this space. There would be more on it today but Pete has left his knitting at home. Bad Pete.

Here he is back in January with his scarf, I think he’s knit about 2cm more since then. I can’t give him too much grief as I’ve been working on my scarf since April 2009.

I think Pete thinks us knitters get everything finished quickly so if you have something that is taking forever please join in. The more the merrier. Let us know about your WIP (Work In Progress) that is taking forever in the comments or over on Ravelry.

Happy (slow) Knitting.