KNIT NATION

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  .

This was my first festival with p/hop and my first visit to Woolfest so I set off from London on Thursday evening with a mixture of excitement and mild nervousness. Did I remember to pack everything, did we have all the samples with us, would people donate money? I was with festival old hands Pete and Ann who soon put me at ease. After an good drive up to Cumbria (Pete is an excellent driver) listening to Ann’s choice of love songs, plus some Welsh radio and esoteric radio 3, we quietly set up camp at half past midnight.

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!

We’re back from a wonderfully woolly weekend at Woolfest where we raised a staggering £1094.05 for Médecins Sans Frontières.

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!

What is Skip North?

After all the wonderful support and donations in the aftermath of the devastating Haiti earthquake we thought p/hop would be fairly quiet until the knitting festival season. It’s always good to be proved wrong by p/hop. I went away for last week and on my return was delighted to see the total has jumped again. Looking at the donations I discovered something called Skip North happened. What is Skip North? Skipping with yarn? Some Northern tradition which has passed me by? After a little detective work all became clear and the answer will be revealed in the near future.

Where is Pete?

Pete is in Russia at the moment working on an exciting multimedia project with MSF Russia which you can read about on his blog. He did forget his knitting though I have a feeling he has been too cold to knit in the sub-zero temperatures in Moscow.

Where will p/hop be spending the summer?

The weather is warming up in London and we’re starting to think about summer. p/hop will be at the following festivals over the summer:

Woolfest, 25th & 26th June 2010, Cockermouth, Cumbria

Knit Nation 29th-31st July 2010, Imperial College Campus, South Kensington, London

I knit Weekender, 10th-11th September 2010 The Royal Horticultural Halls, Pimlico, London

We need you!

We will be asking for volunteers to help us run the stand nearer the time so keep an eye on here or on the p/hop Ravelry group for details. We also need samples of p/hop patterns knitted up. I’m currently putting together a list of what we need and will post this in the p/hop Ravelry group next week. The samples really help sell the patterns and wil also make our stand look beautiful.

How can leftover sock yarn make money for p/hop in Orkney?

If you haven’t been to a real life yarn swap there’s always something going on in the Ravelry group.

Woolgathered is collecting leftover sock yarns in return for donations to p/hop for her ferry knitting blanket project so if you like the thought of your leftovers ending up as a wall hanging in Orkney please take a look at her blog for details. Not only is she knitting the blanket on 2.5mm needles, she is also documenting where the yarn came from and any stories associated with it. I can’t wait to see the finished blanket but I have a feeling it will take a while. Which will be finished first? Pete’s scarf or Woolgathered’s blanket?

And that’s p/hop off the road for the winter… iKnit was the big shiny cherry on the massive fruitcake of love that has included visits to FibreFest, Woolfest and UK Ravelry Day for p/hop.

Again (and again and again), I can’t thank you all enough. iKnit raised just shy of £850, which is fantastic – it was rare that someone came to the stall and didn’t put something in, even if they didn’t take a pattern or buy a raffle ticket!

The raffle caused much excitement, especially with ‘our’ Natalie MC-ing the prize winners on the microphone (with a bright red face – sorry Natalie . Winners were almost jogging to the stall to scoop one of the many brilliant prizes and, of course, the afghan rugs, made specially by the p/hop ravelry clan, went immediately on both days.

Massive thanks to Gerard from iKnit for giving us the space and supporting us. And also a big thank you to all the MSF field staff who have made it to all the events. These are the people properly able to tell you about the business end of MSF. I think most were slightly confused at being asked to knitting festivals, but they were game and went home with massive smiles on their faces.

Now, on to p/hop’s first birthday. It’s been so cool so far, be a shame to let that little landmark go by unnoticed

We raised close to £700 through the patterns, Multicoloured Fibre Swap Shop and raffle, bringing the grand total to £4,482.83! Thanks to everyone who helped out with the p/hop stand and events. An even bigger thanks to John and Juliet (the organisers) for hosting us at the festival. A very enjoyable weekend had by all!

Taking a look at the  growing collection of patterns.

The Swap Shop in action!

Note the funky sign designed by John and Juliet for our stand.

Browsing some of the books in the Swap Shop. We even had visit from one of the authors, Sashsa Kagan!

p/hop road trip no. 3… FibreFest!

And, it’s looking to be the biggest event for us yet. The lovely FibreFest people have not only given us a stall to distribute p/hop patterns to you lucky people, have not only let us host the knitting emporium, but have also given us responsibility for the multicoloured swap shop!

Here, you can bring your old stash, a bag of fibre a set of needles or an old pattern or book and swap it for something magical and new (or nearly new at least). What we really need is for people to spread the word that this is happening and get anyone that is coming to bring any swap items they might have…

AND there will be a new pattern! Anni has donated a shawl pattern to p/hop although we are cutting it so fine timing-wise, it hasn’t even got a name yet and a competition was had to try and find one (pics and comp here)! It looks amazing.

Joy's Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl

AND LAST BUT DEFINITELY NOT LEAST….. Joy has made another shawl to raffle! And it is beautiful – check it out here. As with all things p/hop, raffle tickets will be in exchange for a donation of your choice, although my mum would love this so I think I’ll probably fix the competition (JOKE).

Come see p/hop at FibreFest

Ray, MSF Logistician writes of his adventures at Woolfest..

When I got the request from Aisha to help at a festival in June, I wondered which bands I might want to see, and would my steel toe-cap wellies be too much for Glasto. Then I saw “Woolfest” WHAT??? I imagined a big knitting circle with old ladies in coats, making oversize jumpers. How wrong could I be? The venue is huge, a massive modern barn usually being employed as a livestock auction room. For that weekend there were about 150 stalls with a serious display of variety, and showing me that there was a lot more to wool than I thought. There was everything from live sheep, alpaca and some other things I couldn’t identify (large rabbit like creatures), through the spinning, weaving and knitting bits, and including finished clothes, buttons and every imaginable item that could be used with wool. A group was knitting squares to make blankets for Afghanistan. The Red Cross tent stayed quiet, thankfully. All others were regular hives of activity. We were placed right next to the ice-cream seller. “What does ice-cream have to do with wool?” I hear you ask. This delicious ice-cream was made from ewes milk, of course, and was selling like hot-cakes. (I couldn’t think of a worse simile than that).

Aisha giving out patterns

I even got involved with a little impromptu knitting, as the mood overtook me. Logistician’s big, fat sausage fingers, combined with my ineptitide, were too much though for such a delicate art.

Sonja and Ray

The reception was beyond warm, and so many visitors/donors stated that MSF was the only cause they found worthy of their support. Some emotions ran higher, and even rose to tears when one lovely lady spoke with Sonja (our midwife) about the work she had done.

Gavin, Ray and Sonja at The Yarn Yard Stall

The aim of the two days was well and truly acheived, as the message about our work was thoroughly well spread among the knitting community. Who would have thought that MSF and knitting could be linked like this? Whatever next? I look forward to any new ventures along these lines. Any suggestions anyone?

One similarity to Glasto……we camped. Thanks to great weather, and to a site full of spinners, the festival continued into the night.

A big thanks to all involved, lovely people, all of them, who won’t mind being called a little wooly on this occasion!

To the next time.

Over the course of Woolfest last week, a staggering total of £894.78 was raised for p/hop! Special mention to the Kindred Knitters for their generous contribution and Joy Edwards for donating the Forest Canopy Shawl as a raffle prize.

A full Woolfest update from Ray to follow shortly.

Thanks for all the support! 

Ray, Sonja, Aisha and Lou

Just a reminder we are off to Cumbria this Friday and Saturday for Woolfest. 

We will have handouts of the patterns available, including the lastest Hopsox and Chevron De Paix Socks, and a display of the entire knitted p/hop collection. So if you haven’t yet got around to knitting up one of the patterns yourself, come and have a look at the end result.

As well as the Hopsox pattern, Joy Edwards has also donated the lovely Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl to be raffled off at Woolfest. Tickets will be available at the stall and all money raised goes to p/hop.