Jane, one of p/hop’s founders and coordinator, gave a great interview about p/hop with Knit Now magazine last month. You can read it online here. Thanks to the lovely people at Knit Now magazine for sharing p/hop with your readers.

We can’t believe that December is already upon us. To celebrate the season and get in the festive spirit we have a fabulous new pattern for you. Introducing Rudolph, that Reindeer! Designer Judith Baser says:

I first came across p/hop through Ravelry and thought it a brilliant scheme – anything that involves knitting will grab my attention, and the idea of raising money for such an excellent cause and being involved in knitting as well is great. I’ve knitted some of the samples so kindly donated by generous designers, and have been lucky enough to be able to help out on the stall at several events, spreading the word! Rudolph is my first attempt at producing a pattern. He was inspired by some birds I saw at a craft fair made out of bean bags, and I thought the basic design could be knitted into a cute little animal shape. I do hope people will enjoy producing a few of their own Rudolphs, and will take a few minutes to visit the p/hop site and make a small donation to help MSF continue with their work.

To download your copy of the pattern please click here

As I am sure many of you will know, Clare Storry, who has been our person at the Medecins Sans Frontiers Head Office for the last couple of years, has moved on to new and exciting challenges with MSF. Don’t worry, as a knitter and enthusiastic supporter of P-Hop, Clare will still be around but I’m sure you’d like to join me in a massive wave of the needles and hooks to Clare for all the fantastic work she has done to build P-Hop into the important fundraising campaign that it is today.

With Clare moving on, MSF needed someone else to join the team to continue to support P-Hop and I am delighted to say that they asked me! My name is Jane Lithgow, also known as Probablyjane on Twitter and Ravelry. I have been involved in P-Hop since it began, have designed some of the patterns, the most well known of them being the Cranford Mitts and have volunteered at a lot of festivals up and down the country. The photograph above shows me and our Intern, Nick at Woolfest last month where we raised over £900 despite Nick and Clare being trapped by floods at one point on an extremely wet and wild weekend even by Lake District standards!

I am really looking forward to working with you all, look out for some new patterns and activities and if you have any ideas , reports from swaps that you have organised or just want to say hello I really look forward to getting to know you better.

Dear knitters and crocheters

Thank you very much for all the hats you have made for MSF’s clinic in Pakistan. As you can see we were overwhelmed with your kindness.

These are only around half the hats as you made a whopping 433 hats (yes we counted them all).

At present we DO NOT need any more hats or other knitted items but please follow our blog as we may have requests in the future. Thank you again to all of you who sent hats in. They will be cherished.

Please browse our wide selection of patterns as you can still help MSF’s work in over sixty countries by donating for your hours of pleasure.

Best wishes

Clare

PS if you have made hats but haven’t sent them in why not take a look at the charity knitting groups on Ravelry who will know of lots of organisations who can use baby hats.

Before Pete finished his job at MSF I put him to work on one last p/hop job; measuring the hundreds of small hats you’ve generously made and sent in so we can sort them by size.

Of course he couldn’t resist trying some of them on.

We’ve been really overwhelmed with your generosity, making hats for premature babies and malnourished kids who are treated at MSF’s clinic in Qetta, Pakistan.

One person made a whopping 19 hats (which I think is more hats than I have made since I started knitting) and many knitting groups have got involved too. Check out these lovely hats made by the fab knitting group, Cannock Crafties.

In total there are over 250, yes two-hundred-and-fifty hats waiting to be shipped to Pakistan. Marvellous!

I’m packing up the hats tomorrow to send to the clinic, though they will probably go in the post on Tuesday of next week (22nd May). If you’ve got any hats you  haven’t sent in yet be quick.

Some of you have asked if we are going to do this again. That depends on the clinic, they are going to see how quickly they use the hats and let us know if they will need any more.

So once again, a MASSIVE THANK YOU to all of you who have taken part.

Stay tuned to the blog as we’ve got many more patterns in the pipeline.

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The address to send your hats to is:
p/hop
c/o Clare Storry
MSF UK
67-74 Saffron Hill
London
EC1N 8QX

Over on Ravelry (where all the cool knitting stuff happens) there are two sock knitting challenges currently at the preparation stages.

They are Tour-de-sock and Sock-Sniper, both of which raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

While they’re not quite p/hop in that you donate a set amount to take part (US$7.50) they are strictly non-profit and last year raised over $1,500 for MSF.

So if you fancy some training for the Ravelympics sharpen your DPN’s and head over to Ravelry.

If it’s not your think you can always check out our marvellous sock patterns and/or  join our Ravelympics team.

We’ve had a great response to our request for handknitted/crocheted small hats for the MSF hospital in Qetta, Pakistan.

THANK YOU to everyone who has sent hat(s) in so far. To date, we’ve received over 100 and my desk is by far the most colourful one in the office.

Hat sizes

I don’t know exactly how many hats the clinic needs, all they mentioned was they wanted a range of sizes from 25cm head circumference up to child age five. One of our marvellous volunteers in our Ravelry group (thank you dodiegirl) put together a list of hat sizes and here is what we have so far:

Premature
25cm-25.5cm / 9 ¾” 10” - 70 hats
28cm-29cm / 11”-11 ½” - 9 hats
30-31cm / 11 ¾” -12” - 8 hats

Baby
0-3 months (33cm-34cm / 13”-13 ½”) - 4 hats
3-6 months (36cm / 14”) - none
6-12 months (38cm / 15”) - 2 hats

Toddler /Child#
12-24 months (40cm-45.5cm) /(16”-18”) - 1 hat
2-5yrs (45.5cm-53cm)/ (18/20”) - none

As you can see we’ve got lots of the smallest size which is great but not many of the other sizes.

If you’ve made the smallest size we can still use them, but if you are still waiting to cast on please consider making some of the larger sizes. They’ll help keep young children with malnutrition warm and give them a better chance of survival.

A few of you have made hats in rib, with a brim, which are great as they will probably get more wear as they are so stretchy.

Pakistan clinic

If you’re wondering where your hats will end up you can get a glimpse of the clinic is this video featuring Scottish MSF doctor Marianne Stephens. I was lucky to meet her last week and she’s ace. A whirlwind of energy and enthusiasm. Life in the clinic is pretty tough, if  videos aren’t for you can read an article about her here.

She was really excited about the hats. If you’ve just seen this and want to make some hats to send to the clinic in Qetta the details are here. I’m aiming to send the first batch out at the end of April.

Knitters and crocheters, you are awesome!

Thank you!

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When you have finished your hats please send them to:
p/hop
c/o Clare Storry
MSF UK
67-74 Saffron Hill
London
EC1N 8QX

Last week in the MSF office I met Dr Miroslav who had just returned from working in an MSF hospital in Qetta, Pakistan. MSF runs a neonatal unit there and Dr Miroslav told me they need baby hats to keep the premature babies and malnourished kids warm. While this is a very simple thing it really can help save a kids life.

While we don’t usually encourage knits for overseas projects, as local people can usually supply these, thus contributing to the local economy, this is an exception.

So what do we need?

Dr Miroslav has asked for a range of hat sizes starting at head circumference 25cm (I’ve just measured that out with my tape measure, it really is tiny) up to age five years.

I asked him which material he preferred. The hats will be washed before use but he is more concerned about warmth than materials so whatever you have in your stash will be better than nothing, though superwash wool or wool-acrylic blends will probably be most useful.

We have a couple of kids hat patterns with Woolly Wormhead’s fun Stripey Beanie and Liz Lovicks snowflake hat.

These both start at toddler size so if you want to make smaller hats there are lots of free patterns on Ravely.

I asked Dr Miroslav if he needed any other items and he did mention baby socks would be useful but hats are the most important thing at the moment.

So knitters and crocheters, get cracking!

When you have finished your hats please send them to:

p/hop

c/o Clare Storry

MSF UK
67-74 Saffron Hill
London
EC1N 8QX

Thank you very much.

The photo above says everything I was going to say in this blog post.

This is an MSF team outside one of the many clinics MSF runs in Somaliland.

A big thank you to everyone who has made p/hop a success in 2011.

Here’s to a happy and peaceful 2012.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all our supporters.

If you’re in need of a very last minute gift these p/hop patterns are pretty speedy:

Clyd Headband is a great stocking filler and is a very quick knit.

Teeny Tiny Teddy would look cute on a key ring, or knit a few in festive colours and use them as decorations.

If you’re handy with a hook our Moebius Cowl crochets up pretty quicly too.

Of course many of us are too busy to knit at this time of year and most of our patterns require a little more time to make.

If you think you’ll have more knitting time in the new year why not make a gift voucher to give to a loved one, promising to make them a bespoke gift of their choice. You could let them choose from our wide selection of patterns.

Anyway, I’ll stop writing as you’ve probably got sprouts to wrap and presents to peel.

We hope you have a happy and peaceful festive season full of good company and cheer.

Merry Christmas Everyone!