I’m Helena Callum and I am writing this guest blog post for p/hop to introduce my new pattern, which is now available as a p/hop pattern.

Like all p/hop patterns, it can be downloaded in return for a donation to Médecins Sans Frontières .

The pattern is for a pair of colourful fingerless mitts using DK-weight yarn.

Several colours are used, but because the stitch pattern uses slipped stitches, only one colour is used in any round.

The mitts are worked in the round and incorporate a peasant thumb (sometimes called an afterthought thumb) which means that you just knit a straight tube for the hand, with no worries about remembering to increase for a thumb gusset.

Why are they called “Ermintrude”?

Well, though the stitch pattern looks most obviously like a brick wall, for some reason it reminded me of a cattle grid.

But a very pretty, soft and gentle cattle grid -suitable perhaps for a pretty, soft and gentle cow such as Ermintrude from the Magic Roundabout.

I hope you enjoy the pattern and supporting MSF!

I prefer small projects that I can finish quickly, and socks are a particular favourite of mine. There are so many beautiful feminine patterns out there, I could be knitting them for the rest of my life and never make them all! However I just couldn’t find what I wanted to knit for the men in my family – simple, versatile socks that are plain enough for the most conservative dressers, but not insanely boring to knit! I also wanted them to be stretchy to accommodate wider feet, and have nice round toes to allow good circulation.

I finally gave up looking and designed my own pattern, and these are the socks I have knit for my grandfather and for my father-in-law. When “Papa” Lyle passed away earlier this year, I decided I wanted to do something in his memory, and so I wrote up the pattern to share with p/hop. I know that MSF is an organisation that does exactly the kind of work of which my Papa would have approved. I have named the pattern after him, and I hope you will enjoy knitting it to keep your own loved ones warm.

Thank you all for supporting p/hop, and Happy Knitting!

Teeny Tiny Teddy is only 5 cm tall when standing so would make a great keyring toy, Christmas or nursery decoration, gift, or companion for your hamster.

This wee bear is straightforward to make so is ideal for a new knitter looking for a more involved project or a super quick knit for an experienced knitter.

It is easy to make a larger Teddy using larger needles and thicker yarn. If you are new to knitting and baffled by which needle sizes to use with which yarn look at the label on your ball of wool which should have a recommendation for which needles will suit your yarn. This will depend on how tightly or how loosly you knit but doesn’t matter too much on a project like this.

You can find Teeny Tiny Teddy pattern here.

It uses just 55m of Aran or Heavy Worsted Weight yarn, so would also be a good use of those precious scraps of handspun yarn, but would work great in any commercial yarn base too.
I have a headband in a similar shape that I get lots of use out of it in Winter (and Autumn and Spring given the Welsh weather!), the button fastening, and shaping at the back mean you can move your head around lots, without the headband getting in the way.
If you’re an experienced knitter it’s a quick knit, so would be great for last minute Christmas presents.

To download Clyd visit the pattern page here.

Here’s Patricia’s introduction to her pattern:

These mitts represent an early foray into stranded colourwork for me. I have always found colourwork to be a bit intimidating (and I’m still not brave enough for steeks!) but this project showed me that I really didn’t need to be. Inspired by the wonderful architectural detail in Manchester Town Hall they are a simple but striking project for an advanced beginner. As the new academic year approaches these would be a lovely gift to make in school or college colours.

If you are daunted by colour work these are small enough to not be overwhelming and the straightforward pattern is easy to get the hang of. There’s a great video tutorial on the knittinghelp.com (scroll down for the colourwork video, there are videos for both continental and english styles of knitting).

You can find the pattern here, as always for a donation to MSF.

Stay tuned as we will have more fantastic new patterns here very soon…

What better to adorn the table of a cricket tea than a tea pot with its very own cricket sweater?  When I first thought of this, I was certain someone must have already written a pattern for a cricket cosy, but after scouring the internet, it seemed not.  So I wrote my own and I’m very happy to donate it to p/hop, to extend their pattern range into non-garments.

Perhaps you could have your own p/hop cricket tea and raise money at the same time? Or just knit a couple for cricket-mad tea-drinking friends.  Simply pick their team colours and you have the perfect personalised gift.

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Thanks Ros.

You can download the Cricket Tea Cosy pattern here and you can find all the donation links in the side bar.

The pattern has been designed to fit as many different shapes and sizes of feet and ankles as possible. The rib gives it lots of stretch, the heel flap and the horseshoe heel turn give some extra room, and the travelling cable adds interest to the pattern. The construction of these socks is somewhat unusual and there are times when you just have to blindly trust the pattern, but I promise it works.  I would say that this pattern is intermediate difficulty.
I hope you all enjoy knitting and wearing these as much as I enjoyed designing them.  You can download the (Can)tab pattern here and don’t forget to make your donation to p/hop too.

P.S. Thanks to Ruth (Grandy on Ravelry) for her beautiful photo of her gorgeous (Can)tabs.

As you might have realised from the name of the socks I am a Harry Potter fan. What we knitters always look out for is the latest Christmas offerings from Molly Weasley’s
needles, both in description in the book, and visually on the films. It has always seemed that her knitting for the boys of the family, and often Harry, are a little hurried
and done because there was not a huge amount of money in the house hold.

After the battles and the wars, and the family had grown up and left home, I began to wonder what Molly and Arthur Weasley would do with their time. I knew that Arthur would be happy in his shed with his Muggle bits and pieces, but what about Molly, with time and stillness on her hands, what would she knit? She’d often knitted for her boys and Ginny too, but what could she knit that was a little bit special? What could she knit for the possible daughters in law? Socks seemed to be the perfect answer, and for all the daughters, what better than lace socks? Or perhaps during a lull in family life Molly treated herself to a pair of these?

Molly Weasley's Gift Socks

The lace pattern was based upon one in the Barbara Walker Treasury series of books, and charted to be knitted in the round. While it is a pretty lace pattern it is not complicated, and I and my test knitter found it a joy to see the pattern emerge. I have one other sock pattern donated to P/hop and always had this in mind when I wrote this pattern.

Close up of vine lace pattern

Everyone in life needs a little help, even in every day life, but when disaster strikes they need all the help we can give them. So I hope you enjoy the socks, and the pleasure of knitting them, and I know that the money raised is going to a wonderful and worthwhile cause, Doctors Without Borders, MSF.

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A big thank you to Susan for another great pattern (click here to go to the pattern page) which will help MSF weave their humanitarian magic around the world. If you like this pattern please take a look at Susan’s other p/hop pattern, the popular Ruth’s Harvest Socks.

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As a keen supporter of p/hop it’s been incredible to watch the total given rise and rise over the last year, and I got a great deal of pleasure myself from the leftovers from last year’s huge swap at iKnit.  But having nobly helped to clear the huge pile of yarn, I found that as a crocheter, there were no p/hop patterns that I could use my newly increased stash on.

Of course, there are plenty of other patterns out there, and I certainly got my hours of pleasure from working p/hop yarn, so the thought went out of my head again.  But watching the news this year, I knew that MSF would be out there, right in the middle of the disaster zones, and I started doing some reading.  What really struck me was that MSF aren’t just there when there’s an emergency.  They’re in countries for longer periods, dealing with long-term health problems as well as responding to acute need.  So I decided I wanted to do something more than just make a one-off donation, and hopefully give something that would go on being of use for time to come.

I’d been using these patterns for a while to teach improvers crochet classes, although I’m also very grateful to the p/hop group on Ravelry who helped me iron out the creases and correct my stitch counts.  Because they were for intermediate classes, both patterns use techniques that beginners might not have come across before.  There are full instructions for making crochet cables in the cable scarf pattern, and for the Moebius cowl, there’s an alternative starting row for anyone who isn’t confident with foundation stitches (I recommend looking them up, though!)

Ultimately, I want people to enjoy making the patterns, because the more pleasure, the more pennies, and the closer p/hop gets to raising its next £25,000!

One of the first things we learn about Tzenni is that she is scared of heights, and particularly of staircases, which puts her at something of a disadvantage living in a world of vertical city-states, or Spires. So I knew straight away that the socks would have to have a staircase-like stitch pattern. However, I didn’t want Tzenni’s socks to define her just by her fears when I had been inspired by her awesomeness. Fortunately her society has a complex system of heraldic devices, and Tzenni’s personal symbol is a rose-glyph, so I took the Rosebud Lace from the first Barbara Walker Treasury, charted in in Excel and then added a framework of purl stitches around the rosebuds to represent the staircases.

I’d never designed anything before, let alone written a pattern, but a few people on Ravelry asked if I was going to write this up, so I thought I’d give it a go. Once I’d made that decision I knew I wanted to offer the pattern to p/hop; I’ve had a great deal of pleasure from knitting p/hop patterns myself and I really hope that other knitters will enjoy knitting their very own Tzenni socks and knowing that they are helping MSF at the same time.

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Thank you Sadie. You can read more from Sadie on her blog, the Knitting up the Ravelled Sleeve of Care.