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.

We are delighted to have received a generous donation from Jeanette and her fellow YarnGatherers from their P-Hop/MSF fundraiser in Stone!

Here’s Jeanette to tell you all about it:

“YarnGathering in Stone may be no more but all the wonderful crafters and makers I met are still around so I arranged a get together for us all. An opportunity to sit and craft, share our skills and eat cake

It was wonderful, a lovely mellow relaxed atmosphere with crafters coming and staying all day and others popping in for a short while. Spinning wheels were brought along and demonstrations given, spindles were passed around to try. There were knitters, crocheters, tatters, quilters. And all the while we ate cake, made by Sophie from ‘Eat One – Knit One’, her new business. The Vitamin C cake was just heavenly……

Every occasion has to have a raffle so we had a Chinese Auction, sort of raffle. Crafters donated craft goodies, I sorted a lot of samples from YarnGathering and away we went…….£64 was raised from this and from some donations. A display of the work MSF carries out caught the attention of all and was a talking point, many had not heard of it before. I had worked with 2 doctors during my nursing career who were involved in MSF work and continue to be in awe of the individuals who give their time to this worthwhile organisation. Likewise the profile of p-hop was raised with a selection of the donated patterns and items made up on show.

So, the day was wonderful, even the weather played along, the venue just right, the cakes…well, the cakes! I think we all went away feeling happy and very thankful for our lot. After all if we are ill we only have to worry about getting better not whether our home or loved ones are threatened too.
Visit Jane’s blog to see the day in action.“

A heartfelt thank you and cyber hug to all those involved.  We’re very happy P-Hoppers!