Samples and patterns on display at Glasgow School of Yarn

October was a bumper month for P/Hop fundraising, taking our total to a smidgen below £42,000 (£41,993.55 to be exact).  How amazing is that – £42,000 raised by the generosity of knitters, crocheters and spinners!

THANK YOU EVERYONE!!

Here’s a round up of what came in in October:

We received a cheque for £150 from Jenny Lee who organised the wonderful Big Textile Show. You can read our blog post on this event here: Big Fun with Big Textiles.  This was a percentage of the ticket sales for the event at which we also raised £280.03 in donations for our patterns on the stall.  Thanks to Jenny, who invited us to host a stall at her event, we raised a whopping £430.03 as well as awareness of the valued medical aid that MSF provide around the world. If you’d like to know more about MSF and what they do, please click here: What’s MSF?

Our fabulous volunteers, Angela Blair (Angelabdc on Ravelry) and Clare Devine (knitsforklipskaap on Ravlery, from Yarn and Pointy Sticks), at the Glasgow School of Yarn raised a whopping £733.94.  This couldn’t have been done without the generous support of Antje, from The Yarn Cake and organiser of The Glasgow School of Yarn. The figure includes 2 large donations which they collected, of £35.51 from The Chocolate Teapot  and £38.40 from The Yarn Garden.   Clare has very kindly written a blog about her day running our stall at the Glasgow School of Yarn, below.

If after reading Clare’s blog, you think that they’d like to run a stall at a show, please get in touch with me, Kate, by email at p-hop@msf.london.org

Clare with George from The Yarn Garden, handing over their fabulous donation

Clare’s blog

On Saturday the 18th of October I was lucky enough to visit the fabulous Glasgow School of Yarn, hosted by The Yarn Cake.  This two-day yarn festival hosts a wonderful range of workshops, a design competition and a very “enabling worthy” marketplace.   Needless to say I was very excited to be getting out on a little adventure, especially seeing as the adventure involved yarn.

The day was far more than just a “yarny” adventure though.  I was to be helping out on the MSF p/hop stand, a brilliant way to combine my love of yarn with a brilliant initiative to raise money for a very worthy cause.

I arrived very early on Saturday morning and found the stand wonderfully organised by Angela, my fellow p/hop volunteer who worked on Friday.  We had a huge selection of patterns on offer and many beautiful samples of all the designs, including some rather cute little reindeers that I became rather attached to.

Rudolph that reindeer, by Judith Baser

Angela reported that Friday had been busy so I braced myself for a busy day. Early on people started arriving, completely soaked thanks to the Glasgow rain, and our stall was there to welcome them in from the cold and wet.  Antje had given us prime spot right by the entrance, it was perfect.

In addition to the patterns we also had a raffle with magnificent prizes. The idea was started by Lilith from Old Maiden Aunt who presented us with a prize consisting of four skeins of Corriedale specially dyed in any colourway and a book of raffle tickets (talk about super organised).  The generosity of the knitting community brought many other prizes flowing in and by the time I arrived on Saturday morning the prize stash was pretty impressive.

Yummy raffle prizes!

The final prize selection included:

Old Maiden Aunt – four skeins dyed to order for the lucky winner)
The Yarn Yard – six skeins of lace weight
A Peppermint Penguin – project bag
Liz Lovick – CD with 250 Shetland Lace designs and stitch marker brooch
Skein Queen – skein of lace weight yarn
And Sew To Knit – project bag
Susan Sharpe Ceramics – set of buttons

Angela and I conducted the prize draw on Saturday afternoon once we had sold out of raffle tickets.  The raffle was such a success that we had to get Antje to dash off to The Yarn Cake and grab another book of tickets.  We drew a good crowd for the prize draw that even involved live phone calls to the winners … much to the amusement of onlookers in the hall.  There were four very happy prizewinners and a huge chunk of cash raised for MSF, which was the aim of the day really.

The day was chock full of highlights for me, I had an absolute ball chatting to all the knitters and discussing people’s projects, pattern picks and yarn acquisitions with them.  One of the main highlights for me was a visit from Louise and George from The Yarn Garden. They had travelled over from the NE of England to visit the event and bring a very special donation to us. When selling their beautiful yarn at recent yarn events they had also been collecting funds for MSF in exchange for patterns, designed by the fabulous Annie from  Knitsofacto.  They arrived with a carefully sealed box of donations. We unwrapped it and counted up the contents – £38.40 from generous knitters to add to our grand total. Impressive work!

George and Louise (The Yarn Garden) after handing over their donation

While they did not have a stall at GSOY I hear they have a pretty impressive “Garden style” stall at yarn shows and I am looking forward to treating myself to some of their squishy yarn very soon.

In total the generous knitting community visiting the Glasgow School of Yarn raised a whopping £733.94 for MSF!

That is certainly worth celebrating!

Thank you to everyone who popped along to say hi, donated for patterns and bought raffle tickets.

October is quite a busy month for yarny fundraising events in aid of MSF.

Friday 18 & Saturday 19 October

The ever popular Glasgow School of Yarn is taking place, once again, at the Mackintosh Church from 10 am to 6 pm on both days.  We will have a P/Hop stall there, manned by fabulous volunteers: Angela (angelabdc on Ravlery)  on Friday and Clare (knitsforklipskaap on Ravelry and from Yarn and Pointy Sticks) on Saturday.  Thank you so much for volunteering ladies.  If anyone fancies helping them out for an hour or two, you will be most welcome, just pop along to the stall.

Saturday 19 October

Melinda (melindaj on Ravelry) is hosting a knit and crochet day, where you can craft and natter, at Accrington Library and will be accepting donations on behalf of P-Hop.  I’m not too sure of the details, but if you wish to go and would like to know more, please contact Melinda through Ravelry.  Her user name is Melindaj.

Sunday 27 October

Loop, in Islington, is having ‘The Big Yarn Swap‘ at their beautiful shop on Sunday afternoon, from 2pm until 4pm.  Please see their Facebook page for details, but here’s a taster of what they say:

‘Yarn, haberdashery, knitting & Crochet books are all welcome! It will begin at 2pm with browsing beforehand from 1:30pm. The idea is that it’s a great time to de-stash to get ready for Winter knitting and crochet projects and just have a bit of fun while getting some really fantastic bargains. We will have cakes and tea and coffee but please feel free to bring some yummy cookies etc if the baking urge strikes!’

You can read all about the last yarn swap in our post: Yarn Swapping at Loop

Susan and Juju eating cake at the last yarn swap

The P/Hop stand next to Project Linus, where you can see Paula and Lynda

Wow what a lovely show!  I was at The Big Textile Show in Leicestershire at the end of September and it was such a great show.   Quite a small show, so you could get around it easily knowing you’d seen it all, but with lots of different textile crafts being represented.  Not only could you buy things to try different crafts or to top up your supplies, but there were plenty things to try and do too.

All kinds of textiles were covered: knitting, spinning, lace making, sewing, quilting etc, it was a feast for the eyes.  Just look at these lovely quilts, which were on display all around the venue:

Judith (jaberknits on Ravelry) came along to give me a valued helping hand on the Saturday afternoon, so I was able to have some lunch and wonder around the show.  I even had time to make a Morsbag, which was great fun.  For those of you who haven’t come across morsbags, you can read all about them here: http://www.morsbags.com/ They are a charity which encourages us to make and use fabric bags rather than plastic ones.  Everyone at the show was able to make a bag at the show, with full instruction, for free!  Here’s mine:

My Morsbag

In addition to Judith, I would also like to thank Jenny, who organized the event and the wonderful Jo, who gave me a bed for the night, complete with home cooked dinner and wine, in her beautiful home!  And, not forgetting Lynda and Paula from Project Linus (the stall next to P-Hop’s) for their fabulous company throughout the weekend and for manning the stall for my lunch and loo breaks!  Project Linus is a great charity which makes and then gives quilts to children in need of a hug.  Lynda runs the project for Leicestershire area.  If you enjoy quilting, check out their website: http://projectlinusuk.org.uk/

And finally… a huge thank you to all those who popped by and donated for our patterns.  MSF really couldn’t do what they do without your donations.  We raised £280 in donations over the weekend and the fabulous organizers are sending us an additional donation based on the number of ticket sales, so we are absolutely thrilled!

We are honoured that Anna Fisk, aka narnie83, has donated the Dear Green Shawl to our P/Hop project.  It’s a gorgeous shawl that can be knit in a variety of sizes and will make a really cosy autumn/winter cover up.

Clare has just dashed a copy off the printer and is going to cast hers on really soon!

Here are a few pics – not only did it win a prize at the design competition at the Glasgow School of Yarn in 2012, but it has already made it’s stage debut!

The photographs of the large mustard shawl, are used with the kind permission of Antje Karl.

OK bonanza is an over exaggeration – but we have, not just one new crochet pattern, but TWO.  Yes! TWO brand new crochet patterns to get your hooks waving.

We have a lovely triangular lace-weight shawl from Katherine Mills of Redclover Crochet and a fabulous retro baby buggy blanket by Helen Westerby, aka ThredHED.

The October Leaves Shawl and the Retro Baby… Buggy Blanket

For more info click on the links below:

The Retro Baby… Buggy Blanket by Helen Westerby

October Leaves Shawl by Katherine Mills

We are thrilled that these two designers have donated their patterns to raise much needed funds for MSF.  A lot of work goes in to pattern design, so please remember to make a donation so they know how much their work is apprecitated.

As many of you will know, we recently exceed our £40,000 target for donations raised through Pennies Per Hour of Pleasure for Médecin Sans Frontiéres/Doctors without Borders.  We were totally thrilled by this amazing achievement and THANK YOU all very much for helping us to achieve it.  Of course, we can’t just leave it there though… oh no!  We must set a new target.  Not just a target though, this time we have a target with a deadline!!

In November P-Hop will be 5 years old!  It’s come a v long way from Natalie‘s kitchen table and the single Flowers in the Rain pattern.  We now have over 40 patterns, with lots more in the pipeline (if only there were enough P-Hop hours in my donated day)!  So what we propose is to raise our target to FORTY FIVE THOUSAND pounds with a hope of achieving that additional £5,000 by our 5th birthday.  Five for Five – get it?

We’re really hoping that you can all get involved to help and we’ll be letting you know how, over the next few weeks so you can get planning.  In the meantime, perhaps you could let us know what you fancy doing?  Holding a crafty meeting where you all donate, perhaps you could organize a yarn or book swap with donations for taking part… what do you think? There’s a new Ravelry thread so you can let us know -  It’s over to you!

Well, we are back from Fibre East and have recovered from the busy weekend.  We had a great time catching up with supporters and meeting new ones.

I was there all day on Saturday and Clare all day Sunday and quite a good chunk of Saturday too.  I had a great time, even though it was scorchingly hot.  I was ever so grateful that our part of the marquee had a “window” in it, so we did manage a little bit of a breeze.  The “window” also set off our shawl samples really well, which were blowing in the breeze on a washing line, with the sun shining through the lace stitches.

As usual, we were helped by an army of supporters on both days.  I would like to give special thanks to Liz (aka Lzi on Ravelry), who drove Clare, me and all our stuff to Bedford, helped us set up and did a stint on the stand, and helped to pack up (make the stall rain safe) before driving me all the way home again!  I would also like to thank Judith (Jude00) and Mandy (Millywipstash) for helping set up and for folding lots of patterns and Jo (aka Shinybees) for helping on the stand, not forgetting Jane (ProbablyJane) who was a big  help at the end of the day.  I’m sure that Clare would like to thank lots of people too and will probably do that in the comments below!

It really wasn’t the weather to be wearing your knits, but the lovely and brave Tiger Bee donned her Spiral Socks, by Jane Lithgow, especially for us to take a photo!

Natalie (artandcraftlover) cleverly got around the heat wave by wearing a Teeny Tiny Teddy pinned to herself for us!

An the lovely Terri (designer donator of the Jacob Beanie) stopped by  to show us her knitting…

It wasn’t all fun and catching up, we also raised over £460 for MSF  – all in the name of yarn!

We’re very hot and busy in the MSF/P-Hop office this week, but we’re also very very excited! Not in the least because we reached our latest target of £40,000 last week after we added our £744.55 total raised at Wool Fest. The MSF peeps were so very excited about this that they got us a card and bought us cakes! Not just any cakes but gorgeous personalised P-Hop cakes!!

Aren’t they gorgeous? We are bringing them with us to Fibre East – if you’d like one, come see us on Saturday and make a donation for a cakey!

Here are a few MSF peeps from the office donning P-Hop knits and eating cake!! Hurrah – thank you everyone for celebrating with us!

Following the success of Wool Fest, we are now fervently preparing for FibreEast, printing off patterns and sorting table clothes, pegs, pins, wires, stands and posters for the stall. I (Kate) will be there on Saturday with Clare (P-Hop stalwart) and Clare will be coming back on Sunday with her partner Alex who has offered her a helping hand.

I am both excited and a little apprehensive about this wonderful show. I can’t wait to go, but it’s also my first show for P-Hop (or as any stand holder) so I’m a tad scared! :/ I’m hoping you all pop over to say hi and put me at ease! We will be in marquee no. 1.

 The Teeny Tiny Teddy

The wonderful Jo of the Shinybees podcast and blog is very kindly hosting a P-hop  knit/crochet along on her Raverly forum.  We are very grateful to Jo, for choosing to have a KAL of any p-hop pattern, which will spread the P-Hop love to people who may not have heard about us yet.   So, if you knit or crochet, want something quick and simple, or something a little more challenging, we’re bound to have a pattern for you, so that you can join Jo and me (Katestwirl on Ravelry and Twitter) in the knitalong.

We are also tweeting as we go.  The hash tag is #phopkal – sorry crocheters, but having a tag of phopcal at the same time would be tricksy so we would like you to use the same tag as the knitters – after all, a lot of us do both anyway!

Here’s what Jo had to say about it at the top of her thread:

“I’m starting a new KAL/CAL on 1st July 2013 – the phopkal.

This will be a knitalong/crochetalong of any of the 45 patterns currently available on the Pennies Per Hour of Pleasure website (and on here) which raises money for Medecins Sans Frontiers. So, it is charity knitting, but not as we know it!

The idea is to choose a pattern, which you download for free, but you make a donation to MSF on the P/hop website. I will be aided and abetted by the new P/hop co-ordinator, Kate – Katestwirl,who is well known for wanton enabling when it comes to KALs.

Let’s get some chatter going about which projects we will be doing on here before the mass cast on on 1 July. There are loads of patterns to choose from depending on how much time you have to spare. We will also be using the hashtag #phopkal on Twitter to keep up to date and have a bit of a giggle too. If there are enough of us, we can even split into teams based on the patterns we are doing.

Who’s in? More importantly, start flashing the yarn and project combos!”

Jo also talks about the knitalong in her latest podcast and about why she supports P/Hop & MSF and in particular their work in South Africa where she lives…. for now anyway!  Don’t worry that the official start date was 1 July – it’s definitely not too late to join – we all have lots of WIPs and deadlines and non-craft lives getting in the way, so don’t feel pressure to cast on right away.  It would be nice if you’d pop by and tell us what you’d like to make though…

I have chosen to knit The Trinity Shawlette, a gorgeous pattern by Anniken Alis.  It’s a rather simple but extremely effective lace pattern and, best of all, you can choose to knit it in 3 different ways! 

Here’s where I’ve got to – photographed very un-artistically on my P-Hop desk!

Jo has chosen the ever-popular Cranford Mitts by our very own and fellow P-Hop volunteer Jane Lithgow.  DQKnits on Ravelry has chosen the Cranford Mitts too, from her ‘short’ list of 8 patterns!  Others included the  Twisted Twigs hat by Sarah Louise McAdie, the Minerva Cowl by Anna Richardson and the very cute Rudolph, that Reindeer! by Judith Baser. 

Carlé has chosen the uber cute Teeny Tiny Teddy, by Alessandra Parsons.  Carlé says  ‘I have a thing about taking a bear to Paris,…. long story’  - perhaps best not to ask!

We have crocheter’s taking part too – gingerbreadbunny is making the Cable Scarf and CarrotyCarrots (her first ever KAL – we are honoured) is making the Mobeius Cowl, both patterns which were kindly donated by Laura Cracknell.

Please come and join us and share your progress and pics (we love pics) as you go and raise a little for P-Hop in the process.  You can donate here!  We are very nearly at £40,000 – it’d be so great if this little craft a long would take us there!!

Hurrah!  Wimbledon starts today!  Why not enjoy some valued knitting time whilst watching Murray, Robson and Watson battle it out for Britain.

You know how stressful it can be watching our heroes – so when you’re too scared to watch, knit a few rows and de-stress…

So grab some strawberries and cream, download the fabulous Wimbledon footlets pattern and get knitting for Britain!  Come on Murray!

Wimbledon footlets by Ros Clark for P/Hop

Crafting humanitarian work

This pattern has been generously donated to the p/hop project by MSF supporter, Ros Clark and is available for your knitting pleasure.

In return, we ask that you make a donation to p/hop based on the hours of enjoyment you will get from our patterns.

Making your donation is easy, just click here for pounds, here for US dollars or here for Euros. Thank you very much.

To download your PDF of the Wimbledon Footlets pattern please click here.