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.

Since 2006 the idea behind the Knitting Olympics has grown and evolved.  The knitting and crochet social network Ravelry has adopted it.  With the Olympic Games in London this summer, a group of volunteers are hard at work organising the 2012 Ravelympics.

What are the Ravelympics?

Just like the Yarn Harlot’s original idea, Ravelry members will challenge themselves and compete in various knitting and crochet events over the course of the 16 days of the Summer Olympics.  The only rules are that a project must be completed during the Olympics.  There are medals (well, blog badges) for anyone who finishes and it’s up to each individual competitor to decide just how far to challenge themselves. Never tried colourwork?  There’s an event for that.  Scared of cables or lace?  Now’s your chance to have a go.  Always wanted to make a pair of socks, but never got round to it?  Maybe this summer is the time to do it.

Up for a challenge?

Challenging ourselves as crafters can be fun and rewarding.  Up until this year I’d never made a whole garment in fair isle.  I wanted to, but I was a bit daunted and kept putting it off, even though I had the yarn and a beautiful pattern.  A friend and I decided we would make the same fair isle sweater at the same time (in different colours, otherwise it would be a bit weird) so that we could help each other out if we got stuck, and offer mutual support and encouragement.

So, for the time around the VI Nations (my favourite sporting competition, and a brilliant excuse for sitting in front of the telly all weekend for weeks on end during the winter and doing nothing but knitting) we knitted a fair isle sweater each.  Achieving something that you weren’t sure you could do is pretty awesome.

Join in the fun!

I’d love to share that buzz of achievement with my fellow crafters.  So, I’m captaining Team P/Hop for this year’s Ravelympics.   You don’t have to be a member of a team to compete, but it is much more fun and we will be supporting each other in our challenges and celebrating all those successes. You can read more about it here.

At the moment we are discussing what events we might each enter.  For me, I ‘d like to see if I can knit a whole lace shawl from start to finish in those 16 days.  Maybe something like Crocus Pocus.

Do join us – we’ll be having fun, challenging ourselves, and hopefully getting P/Hop closer to that £40,000 target.

One of the runaway successes of p/hop has been the Cranford mitts pattern – 600+ projects showing on Ravelry. I’ve made a number of pairs and have knitted them while manning the p/hop stand at Knit Nation and in my breaks while volunteering at the Olympic fencing test event.

In fact I’d not worn fingerless gloves or mitts for years until I was introduced to Cranfords, and now I can’t live without them. But I like to have my wrists covered so started thinking about longer mitts and when I wanted to make a gift for a friend this long cuff design was the obvious way forward.

And because I wouldn’t have been inspired without the Cranfords, it was obvious to me I should write up the pattern for p/hop. Well, that and having spent a day as a volunteer in the MSF office and seen and heard first-hand the importance of its work.

The Jacquelines’ ribbed cuff can be shortened or folded to the length you want, the palms are smooth and practical, and the cable design is a little like an Argyle sock design. It’s made up of very simply two stitch cables so is straightforward even if you are new to cables. In my tests it looks best in a single lighter colour.

Mainly I hope you enjoy the pattern and that it inspires variations and other fingerless mitt ideas.

That’s the great thing about p/hop, you raise money by being creative with a recipient in mind (you, family, friends) rather than hoping your squares really end up in a blanket somewhere in the world.

So I wish you happy knitting and warm wrists.

Bronagh

Four years ago I emailed Natalie Fergie to thank her for running a competition where entrants had to come to the MSF UK website to answer questions and win a prize. She emailed back and said she had an idea.

That idea bore fruit. A lot of fruit.

Skip forward to now and I am trying to work out what would be the best indicator of p/hop’s success. I have access to all sorts of stats, but p/hop’s pretty vast and so much has happened…

Would it be the obvious? The £40,000 (in pounds, dollars and euros) that knitters have raised? This is the equivalent to paying for a doctor to be in the field for more than two years!

Or would it be the more than 200,000 people who have visited the blog and read about p/hop and/or MSF. They’ve come from 180 countries, including 61 of the 70 countries MSF has worked in in the same period (no fans yet in Turkmenistan, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Somalia, Liberia, Cameroon, Chad, Djibuti or Guinea unfortunately, but they’ll come).

Or would it be the ravelry and twitter numbers? Over 1,300 members between them, including an Olympic team! The hundreds (or is it thousands?) of threads on the ravelry discussion board?

Maybe it’s the numbers I can only hazard guesses at? The hundreds of events, swaps and competitions that have been organised? The tens of thousands of patterns that have been downloaded and knitted? The thousands of minutes of thinking and planning and talking and doing that made them all of it possible? Could it be, and excuse me for getting a little soppy, the millions of (what unit do I use?) of love and compassion and generosity that p/hop is built on?

Difficult to choose, right? It has to be something that ties this all together, the common thread that runs through everything ‘p/hop’….

How about metres of yarn?

‘But it is impossible to know the answer’ I hear you cry.

Not so. I have had seventeen volunteers working twelve hours a day for a month counting patterns downloaded, stitch and bitch meet ups, ravelry projects, yarn swaps and thousands of other bits of data. This has all been fed into a complex algorhythm which has given us the answer.

To date p/hop yarn metrage is exactly 17,980,641 metres

And whether that is accurate or not, I am proud to have contributed my few metres to the total.

On a personal note I’d like to say that p/hop has inspired me, taught me and taken me to places I never expected to go.

Highlights have got to be knitting on a mountain in Lesotho, making a music video in Ghana, watching RooKnits on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, watching Natalie get teary at the justgiving fundraising awards and meeting all the knitters at the various festivals across the country (who knew there were so many knitting festivals?)

I have also learnt more about online community and fundraising and engagement and empowerment from you guys than from any of the conferences or seminars I have been to or the articles I have read.

Last of all, a few thanks…

A big one to Natalie of course. p/hop’s mum, visionary and legend.

Then to Louise, my first intern (now works for RedR in Australia), who looked after p/hop through it’s tender toddler year, bravely taking p/hop on its first tour of the UK despite knowing next to nothing about knitting.

Then to Clare (who is actually taking over from me as international blogging editor at MSF). Under Clare’s care p/hop has really gone to a whole new level in the last couple of years, both online and on the road. Can’t thank her enough for her time, enthusiasm and commitment! Good luck to her filling my boots in the MSF comms department. I know she’ll be great.

Lastly, and most importantly, to all of you. Because you are p/hop. The knitters sans frontiers. A group of people I barely knew existed that have had a huge impact on me, on the MSF UK office and on our work in the field. Total inspirations. Thank you.

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!

Check out our lovely Ravelry group who are busy knitting away, sharing hat patterns and tips.

p/hop supporter Nic has written a beautiful blog post about why she is taking part.

One thousand women a day die during childbirth

MSF have released a new report on the tragic numbers of women who die during pregnancy and childbirth, the majority from preventable and treatable conditions.

You can read more about this and the work MSF are doing to improve obstetric care for women over on the MSF UK website.

Life-saving p/hoppers

Our knitted hats will help babies in one MSF clinic, but the money you donate to MSF also keeps new mums and their babies alive.

p/hoppers, we thank you for you life saving donations.

This story from new mum Laura in Haiti is a great example of the difference we are making to women and their children around the world.

Felted crochet bowl

I became aware of MSF from news bulletins where the organisation was often giving aid to people in the most desperate of circumstances. Alice and I have science and medical backgrounds, so when the chance came to support MSF by donating patterns we have designed, we jumped at the chance.

I have long had an interest in crochet but shyed away from the contrasting colours of the 1970s and the lace chair backs of my grandmother’s era! I wanted to use the technique for something simple, that a beginner could do, and practical, that anyone could use.

Thanks Sue

A newborn patient in the neonatal inpatient department in the MSF supported Dera Murad Jamali District Headquarter Hospital in eastern Balochistan, Pakistan. © PK Lee/MSF

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.

Natalie and I had been on the judging panel for this year’s awards and had been invited to the ceremony which was a great honour.

The evening began with a drinks reception. We ddin’t know very many people there though people kept on smiling at us. For ages I couldn’t work out why until it dawned on me it’s because I am on the Just Giving website. Durr.

p/hop was well represented throughout the night.

Firstly, at the start of the awards the video encouraging people to take part in the awards was played. Jane Lithgow aka probablyJane, designer of three fantastic p/hop patterns, Cranford Mitts, Karenina Socks and Spiral Socks, looked brilliant on the huge screen.

You can watch the video here.

We had a lovely evening with good food and company. Pudding was a tasty carmel desert plate: hot sticky toffee pudding, caramel opera (?), banana banoffee pie and toffee ice cream. Yum yum yum.

True to form we knitted. I had cast on a Molly Weasley’s sock and Natalie was making a colourful toe-up sock.

There were some pretty inspiring people recieving awards. I didn’t take photos of all of them but you can read all about them on the Just Giving website.

I did take a photo of Dave Heely collecting his award who runs marathons, and cycles huge distances to raise money for Marie Curie, which is an impressive feat in itself but it even more admirable as Dave is completely blind.

Bob Wilson, footballer, brought a tear to my eye describing the personal interaction he had with parents of cancer patients on his cycle ride around England.

One person who deserves a very special mention is Harry Moseley’s mum. Harry was an inspiring eleven year old boy who sadly lost his battle with cancer last year. Despite having a debilitating brain tumour Harry raised a staggering £85,000 for charity and his mum accepted his Lifetime achievement award on his behalf. She was incredible and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house at the end of her acceptance speech.

Natalie presented an award…

and looked fabulous on the big screen…

…and speaking of fabulous, we had an absolutely fabulous person on our table, the lovely Joanna Lumley.

When she arrived she grinned at me knitting and made a knitting gesture. Natalie later discovered that she knits before going on stage as it calms her down.

I really wish we could have had every p/hopper at the awards as it was a lovely, yes fabulous darling, evening and I hope we represented you all there. One thing Natalie and I both noticed this year is that the nominees were mostly individual fundraisers which reinforced our belief that p/hop really is special in that so many people can contribute to it. And as Jane says, “it’s the less sweaty way to give”.

I took a video on the night to give you a feel of the atmosphere. It’s not great quality but it will give you an idea.

Finally a big thank you to the Just Giving team for a wonderful evening and for all their support for p/hop.

The Minerva Cowl pattern has been designed and donated to p/hop by the generous and talented Anna Richardson aka @onehandknits and you can find more details about the pattern and the PDF here.

The pattern is very versatile and can be knitted as a single or double wrap cowl.

If you are going to Unravel at the weekend please go and say hello to Anna along with Sarah from the p/hop-supporting Undercover Owl.

This is our 40th pattern, which is very exciting. We’ll have a new crochet pattern coming soon making it 41 patterns raising money for MSF. Wowzers!