pennies per hour of pleasure

Volunteering at Knit Nation

Clare — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:35:22 +0000

If you’re reading this blog you already know why p/hop exists. The amounts of money donated by individual knitters may seem small, but together they make a huge difference to the lives of people in real need around the world – for example, £5 buys a mosquito net that will help a family avoid malaria, £47.75 buys a tent which provides shelter for families made homeless by natural disasters such as the horrific floods in Pakistan.

But why am I here, on the p/hop blog page, instead of the lovely GingerKnits. It was inevitable that I would end up helping out on the p/hop stand at Knit Nation. I already volunteer for MSF in another capacity; I get on well with Clare; I knit and want to learn more; the show was in London, where I live – so why ever not?

We met up at p/hop towers, MSF’s London office to collect the seemingly tons of patterns, sample knits, posters and raffle prizes. Rachel (knittingtastic) was patiently labelling the sample knits and Clare was double, double, double-checking we had everything we would need.

The taxi driver was charming and amused by the idea of a knitting exhibition, and he dropped us as close to the door of Sherfield Hall as he could possibly manage. We unloaded and went in to find our stand.

The first thing that struck me was the smell – the gentle, homely smell of clean sheep. Gorgeous. The next thing was the colours, the textures, the sheen of silk, the lustre of merino, a veritable feast of knitting gorgeousness. The only downside to volunteering at a festival is the temptation to shop. I was coveting a beautiful green yarn on the stand opposite ours in seconds. On Saturday, I gave in and bought.

Thursday evening’s preview show was immensely energising. People rushing from stand to stand to scoop up what they wanted most, before starting to broswe in a more leisurely fashion. Interest in p/hop was steady, and ranged from the converted – ooh you’ve got Flowers in the Rain knitted up, it’s gorgeous, I’ll take a pattern – to the new friends, people who hadn’t heard about the project before.

A German mother and daughter thought it was terrific but worried about the cost of sending a raffle prize if they won – they weren’t to be there on the Friday or Saturday – so they paid more for the patterns they wanted. A French lady wants to talk to our Paris office about translating the concept. Perhaps she will. We will certainly encourage her if she does take it forward.

On Friday, I had to go to work – boo hiss – but I was back on Saturday, just at the break between two classes. Friday’s raffle had been a huge success and, amazingly, I had won a prize: a beautiful skein of superwash merino/silk donating by the lovely Easy Knits. More amazingly, we had stall holders coming up every half hour saying, “I didn’t give you a prize to raffle yesterday, please take this for today,” or even, “I gave you a prize yesterday, please take another one.”

Interest in the patterns was high, with many, many people taking web details to download the pdfs later. I’ve been to enough exhibitions to know what state bits of A4 paper can be in by the time one gets home. One charming lady walked past the stand and said, “Now what is it you want me to do, oh yes, give you money.” She put a generous donation in the tin and said she might look at the patterns another time. She just didn’t want to forget us.

Knit Nation’s Alice kindly reminded shoppers of the time of the raffle and Wanderlustlost did a brilliant job of announcing our prizes, though her expression of awe at our treasure was priceless. Watching her pick up a skein of cashmere laceweight yarn, ready to speak, then shocked into silence by the shear softeness of it made me laugh out loud. I have never been lucky in prize draws of any kind – tombola, lotteries, even premium bonds – so I was thrilled to win again. This time a glorious bundle including Susan Crawford’s new book, Berroco ultra alpaca donated by Loop, and Fibre Harvest organic laceweight undyed and a terrific new pair of walking socks – happy feet this winter. I didn’t feel I could keep the prize the next time my name was drawn, and had to let another happy shopper take the prize home. My bag of swag is glorious and tempting enough.

The total raised over the weekend was £1054.16, a truly magnificent effort by you all. Clare, despite the enormous amount of work that she does to keep p/hop running, and all the other volunteers, Rachel, Ann, Judith, Rita, Charlei, Kianna, Ros, Heather, Claire and I are simply the cogs that allow you to be generous – and you are. Quirky, eccentric, colourful and slightly weird – knitters are a lovely bunch.

Thank you Knit Nation, I’ll be back next year.

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Thank you Ginny, for your blog post and for all your help along with p/hop’s other brilliant volunteers. Check out my Oscar winning thank you post to read more hearwarming stuff about who helped MSF at the weekend.

I have to point out that the raffle WAS NOT FIXED. Ginny bought lots of tickets.

Here’s an example of how £1054.15 can be used by MSF right now to help people affected by the devastating floods in Pakistan:

£1054.15 = One Medical kit (£610), two three day cholera treatments (£80.34 each), four tents (£47.75 each), nine mosquito nets (£5.51 each) and eleven hygeine kits (£4.29 each). It’s pretty impressive what people with sticks and string can do isn’t it!

THANK YOU KNIT NATION

Clare — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:59:16 +0000

Ginny, one of p/hop’s brilliant volunteers, will be blogging about Knit Nation in the near future but in the meantime* I’d like to say a super massive thank you to everyone who helped make p/hop such a success at Knit Nation. This post will probably read like an Oscar acceptance speech but one of the brilliant and heart warming things about p/hop is the number of people who say “Yes, I will help”. So before I get too misty eyed and my ballgown gets covered in runny mascara here are the thank yous.

Thank you to Socktopus Alice and Cookie A and their brilliant team who gave us our stand for free, for their brilliant organisational skills and of course for holding Knit Nation. Cookie A also signed a copy of her book (kindly donated by Search Press) for our raffle.

Thank you to all our volunteers who helped on the stand,

Thank you all the vendors who donated a prize or two or ten to our raffle. I’m always very touched when small indie businesses donate prizes to us, plus they were beautiful prizes. I was so overwhelmed by people’s generosity that I had to sit on the lawn on the Imperial College Campus to have enough space to sort out all the prizes. Thank you to the Stitch London Stitchettes for helping me sort them out on Friday and to DeadlySmurf (Megan) who helped out on Saturday.

Here they all are in no particular (well alphabetical) order.

Artisan Yarns Babylonglegs Biggan Design Brownberry Yarns Claire Montgomerie Easyknits Fibre Harvest & John Arbon Textiles Fyberspates Juno Fibre Arts KAL Media Knit Cave Knitting Magazine Knitwitches Yarns Krafty Koala Loop Nics Knots Old Maiden Aunt p2tog Purlescence Pure Purl Renaissance Dyeing Search Press Sparkleduck Skein Queen Susan Crawford Sunflower Swifts Tall Yarns’n'Tales Tilly Flop Designs The Bothered Owl The Little Knitting Company The Natural Dye Studio The Toft Alpaca Shop TheYarnYard TricotPlume Wild Fibers Magazine Yarn Box Ysolda and Thimblina (designer of these fab socks) who donated some gorgeous yarn from her stash. Phew, I think that’s everyone. If I’ve forgotten you let me know and I’ll add you to the wall of thanks.

I wish I had the time to list all the prizes but there were so many (you can see some of them on our previous Knit Nation post).

Thank you to our generous designers and our talented sample knitters. Without you p/hop would just be a bare stand.

It was great to meet some of our designers in person. I forgot to get my camera out on Friday, thus missing photos with Asa Tricosa and Joy …. but on Saturday I managed to get a snap shot of Woolly Wormhead and our Striped Beanie sample…

… and Probably Jane with our Karenina Socks sample.

Thank you if you brought us coffee or a welcome cup of tea

Thank you if you dropped off barnraising squares

Thank you to Jess and Casey for the fun Ravelry party which gave us all a chance to let our hair down and hang out with other knitters. Here’s some of our volunteers (Knitty flitty and her family) posing in front of giant Bob.

And last but not least thank you if you visited our stand, made a donation or entered our raffle. We couldn’t do it without you!

We’ll have the final total raised confirmed on Monday so check back soon to see how much we raised.

The horrific natural disaster currently happening in Pakistan is a vivid reminder of why p/hop exits. MSF are there, provding essential shelter, medical care and clean water.

I love the knitting community, it’s such a kind and gentle place but we can do great things with it and as I’m prone to saying “Knitting really can change people’s lives!”.

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If you have any photos you’d like to share from Knit Nation join our flickr group. We’d love to see them.

*(this is not a reference to a certain pale ale Raverly’s Casey was swigging at the Ravelry party)

Stina – a gorgeous new baby pattern

Clare — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:09:06 +0000

We had a brilliant time at Knit Nation. There will be more about that once we know the final amount raised.

We launched a brand new pattern at Knit Nation. Stina is a gorgeous sideways knit baby kimono designed and generously donated to p/hop by the talented Åsa Tricosa. (designer of the beautiful Dido Shawl) who we were lucky enought to meet on Friday.

Instructions are given for two sizes, 0-3 months and 9-12 months, and uses two colours of double knit yarn plus a small amount of a third colour for the contrast triangle. Stina uses an unusual construction method and comprehensive instructions guide you through the process.

We’re now busy getting ready for UK Knit Camp in Stirling so if you are coming to that please come and say hello. We’ve got two lovely samples of Stina (one of which I was modelling at Knit Nation, wishing I was small enough to fit into it) as well as many of our other patterns you can have a look at. We’re looking forward to seeing you there.

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Despite all our best pattern checking efforts we noticed an omission on the paper copies of Stina at Knit Nation. All the pattern is worked on 4mm needles except for the i-cords which are worked on 3.5mm DPNs. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Please feel free to download an updated version of the pattern. Thank you.

Knit Nation, treasure and a blanket!

Clare — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:13:50 +0000

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 .

Woolfest 2010

Clare — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 21:09:59 +0000

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!

Iris

Clare — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:41:34 +0000

We released a new pattern at Woolfest which is now available for you to download right here on this very website.

It’s gorgeous. It’s another marvellous Susan Pandorf creation and it’s called Iris.

I’m not going to write any more as I think the pattern does the talking but as always please remember to make your donation to MSF using Just giving (£) or first giving (US$). We’ve recently upped the targets to a whopping £20000 and US$5000 which we won’t reach without your help and generosity. Thank you in advance.

Clare and the p/hop team

PS. Click here for the Iris pattern page.

£1094.05 Raised at Woolfest!!!

Clare — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:14:08 +0000

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!

Wanted: A deserving home for a beautiful wedding shawl

Clare — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:42:59 +0000

One of our lovely, fantastic and generous supporters knits shawls, lots of beautiful shawls. One shawl in particular would be perfect for a bride on her special day. Woolgathered (aka plumbum on Ravelry) is looking for a special recipient for the stunning frozen leaves shawl in return for a donation to p/hop or directly to MSF.

Please take a look at her blog and her gorgeous knitting for further information.

Knitting socks in Kenya

Clare — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:48:13 +0000

Seeing as Pete took his knitting up a mountain in Lesotho I took mine on holiday to Kenya. While I was too hot or too busy to knit most of the time I did finish a Without Borders sock for p/hop’s festival display.

A few of us in the p/hop Ravelry group have signed up for knitting 52 pairs of socks in one year and we’ve been wondering how to use it to raise money for MSF. I made a little video while on holiday and though I look a tad weary as I’d spent the previous night fighting a mosquito net in a traditional hut I had a great time.

While I wasn’t there for MSF I was aware of the work MSF do in Kenya. Kenya has suffered from droughts for the last two years. Luckily there was lots of rain while I was there and the people I spoke to were very relieved about this as their crops are growing well, unlike the last two years. There’s a new MSF campaign to raise awareness about malnutrition called Starved of Attention which is well worth a few moments of your time.

Tea cosies for MSF

MSF-Pete — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:50:44 +0000

Just a quick shout about the Old Forge… Open as part of Brighton Festival Artist Open Houses, Rhoda and friends have been knitting tea cosies, which they will be letting go for a mere £20, in aid of you know who (MSF), via you know what (p/hop). Extract from their blog:

Second weekend has already passed and still no pictures! It was rainy and wet on but still there was a wonderful and constant stream of visitors. The Margo Selby cushions and bags sold really well and another beautiful Eloise Grey coat left the building… They are such good value for ethically sourced tweed. We sold our first tea cosy for Medecins Sans Frontieres. With such an amazing choice and so beautifully knitted and for such an amazing cause, I hope we sell all 20 of them.

Still got two weeks, so if you’re local, maybe you might want to pop down and show some p/hop support (and definitely eat a cream tea).