Click here to tell us of any charity you are knitting for that would welcome help from other knitters

Here are some projects currently involved in raising money through Knitting for Charity

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Go Knit! The Bumblebee Conservation Trust: Update

Seasalt’s 2nd Go Knit! 2009 campaign has raised £2000 for The Bumblebee Conservation Trust. Our window displays across Seasalt stores in Falmouth, Fowey, Truro and St Ives were transformed during October and November, displaying and selling a bright display of handmade knitted scarves for charity. All of the scarves were kindly donated to us by people and knitting groups all over the country - from Cornwall to Wales and even Scotland.
 
An amazing army of knitters helped to make the 612 scarves sold, which raised the £2000 that will all go straight to The Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BBCT). The BBCT is a very worthwhile cause considering the dwindling UK population of bees and the fact that we need them to pollinate our crops and flowers.

We are also looking at getting people to contact us if they are interested in Knitting or Crocheting Christmas decorations for us to sell next year.

Click here for further information about The Bumblebee Conservation Trust

Click here to contact Chloe if you can help make Christmas decorations for next year

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The Big Issue in The North: Knit For The Homeless

Winter is Coming and the Homeless clients we work with are in desperate need of Gloves, Socks, Scarves and Hats! You could knit one or one hundred, it’s up to you.

Please send your items into:
10 Swan Street
Manchester M4 5JN

Click here for more information

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Arthritis Care: Competition To Raise Money

Knimble Knitters is a brand new UK-wide knitting competition being launched to raise funds for Arthritis Care’s free services, while giving entrants a chance to win prizes.
 
This is an opportunity to make a positive difference for people with arthritis – entrants will raise sponsorship money to support Arthritis Care’s work as they knit.
 
The competition

Entrants can knit hats, gloves or scarves for this year’s theme, Winter, and will have the chance of winning a cash prize
 
The winner will also be featured in Arthritis News magazine, which goes out to over 35,000 people. All entries must be submitted by 15 February 2010 and the winners will be notified by mid-March.
 
Click here for further information if you would like to take part

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The Big Knit 2009: Help Knit Hats For Innocent Smoothies

Across the country knitters have been producing wonderful little hats to help raise money for Innocent’s The Big Knit which goes into Sainsbury stores during November. This year as well as the cute hats innocent need cosies for their Veg pots and hats for their Squeezies.  This is where we really need your help.  The deadline is looming so we want to give a final boost to the figure that this campaign raises.

Last year The Big Knit raised £250,000 for Age Concern and Help The Aged and this year we could raise even more.  Each cosy or hat raises 35p towards the campaign, making sure that our Nanas (and grandads) won’t be cold this winter. Please let as many knitters as you can know about these patterns and let’s have one final push for The Big Knit.

Click here for more information

Click here for Veg Pot Hat pattern

Click here for Squeezie pattern

Please send hats and cosies to: The Big Knit, 1, The Goldhawk Estate, Brackenbury Road, London, W6 0BA

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The Children's Society's Big Stitch

Knit some love with The Children's Society

Love is the theme of The Big Stitch. Get sponsored to knit as many of these fantastic little hearts as you can. The money you raise will help The Children's Society to work with more children facing abuse, neglect and poverty in their daily lives - building the foundations of a good childhood with these children and their families.

We have a great heart knitting pattern for you to follow and lots of ideas about what to make your hearts into - as well as labels to attach to the hearts and tell your friends what you have been knitting for.

Together we want to make 10,000 hearts and we will be counting up the total at three key points in the year:

Universal Children's Day - 20 November 2009
Valentines Day - 14 February 2010
International Outdoor Knitting Day - 12 June 2010

Click here for more information and to let us know how many hearts you have made

Click here for Heart Knitting Pattern

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Go Knit! The Bumblebee Conservation Trust

	Click on images to view full size

Seasalt is a friendly little Cornish clothing company. Last year we ran a project called Go Knit! that raised nearly £3000 for charity. The campaign involved members of the public donating hand-knitted scarves for us to display in our shop windows which were then sold with all proceeds going to a chosen charity (last year we donated to The Cinnamon Trust). The campaign is back for its second year, this time to support The Bumblebee Conservation Trust, a lovely charity that is responding to the plight of the declining population of our bees and we wondered if you could help?
 
If you could donate a scarf we would really appreciate it. Alternatively, if you could pass on our message to anyone you know who might like to help that would be brilliant too! Each of the scarves will have a large ‘hand-knitted by…’ tag which is clearly visible to everyone passing the window. The knitter’s name (and optional website information) can be written on the tag, giving the knitter recognition here in Cornwall – and of course helping us to help the bees! The scarves will be displayed throughout October, sorry, we know it’s short notice! It would be great to have any scarves by the 1st October, or soon after as we will continually re-stock the charity window as scarves arrive.

Click here for further information on our website

Click here to contact Chloe with any queries
 
If you would like to support our campaign please send any scarf donations to:
Kathryn Wild
Seasalt
1 Church Street
Falmouth
Cornwall
TR11 3DN

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The Rape Crisis & Sexual Abuse Centre, Northern Ireland

The Rape Crisis & Sexual Abuse Centre in Northern Ireland is appealing for donations of Christmas items e.g. knitted, crocheted or sewn Christmas stockings, santa sacks, Christmas decorations, hats, gloves, scarves etc. to sell in their charity shop.

Those of you wishing to donate items should post them to:
"The Charity Shop"
130-132 Albertbridge Road
Belfast
BT5 4GS

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Macmillan Cancer Support: The Knitter Campaign 2009

The Knitter is launching a Nationwide campaign called the Macmillan Comfort Blanket in association with the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning on 25th September and supported by Rowan.

They are asking knitters all over the UK to knit squares – 20cm x 20cm squares to be precise. Perhaps you could host a Coffee Morning for your knitting group, friends and family and knit 40 squares to make a Comfort Blanket, 8 squares long by 5 squares wide.  Each Comfort Blanket made will be given to somebody who is living with cancer so the more blankets knitted, the more people will benefit.
 
The Knitter has asked designers from around the world to create lots of square patterns especially for this campaign. Based on Rowan’s Pure Wool DK there are squares by Debbie Bliss, Alice Starmore, Meg Swansen, Marie Wallin,  Kim Hargreaves…. the list is endless. The target is 100 blankets, that’s 4,000 squares.

Take your Comfort Blanket to one of our drop-off points (The Knitter Macmillan Comfort Blanket, Future Publishing Ltd, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW), or give it to The Knitter team at The Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace on October 8-11 and please include your name and address

Click here for patterns and all further information

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Update: July 2009

Sharon Newman of Avicraft Wool Shop, Bromley, Kent has written to let us know the latest in her quest to cover a football pitch with knitted blankets and raise money for BLISS.

Firstly we have managed to get a stall in the craft tent at the Southern Model Air Show at The Hop Farm in Paddock Wood Kent for 2 days - 19th and 20th September 2009 to raise funds for BLISS (for babies born too soon, too small or too sick). We will be selling knitted goods and inviting people to join in our Blanket Challenge.

The Blanket Challenge has been extended to 2012 - so we are now aiming to knit an Olympic sized blanket and raise £10,000 for Bliss. So I need 14,000 blankets by the end of 2011. Doesn't matter what yarn, colour or stitch. It can be one single piece or any combination of pieces as long as the finished blanket is 50cm by 100cm. And we are asking our knitters (or crocheters) to raise £10 in sponsorship or make a donation. I really need the knitting world to keep the profile of this blanket high.

Click here for further details if you can help

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Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) Update

P/hop (pennies per hour of pleasure) is a knitting fundraiser for Médecins Sans Frontières. We have free knitting patterns available to download on our blog. In return we ask that you donate based on the hours of enjoyment you had knitting the pattern. All donations raised at these events go towards providing medical aid to people affected by humanitarian emergencies or exclusion from healthcare.

Click here for more information about the project, how you can help and free knitting patterns

As part of Fibrefest on the 22nd and 23rd of August 2009, p/hop will be hosting the Multicoloured Fibre Swap Shop and Knitting Emporium. Bring along your unwanted yarn and craft equipment to the Swap Shop and exchange it for someone else’s item. At the Knitting Emporium visitors will be able to sit, relax, knit, swap ideas and try some of our free patterns.

Click here if you would like to get involved and contribute a square

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RNLI: Above And Below The Waves Update

Lifeboat Men	Mermaid	Coral	Fish

Click here for patterns of fish, coral, sand, sea scallop, whelk and sea flower. If you have any suitable patterns, please get in touch

Alison writes:
"We are hoping to construct a tunnel that will make it possible to walk under the sea, while above there will be rocks, a lighthouse, boats, beach etc. As this is a more complex project we are still working on the technical details and because of this the completion will be in 2010. However, we can start knitting and crocheting now and the following patterns are a rough guide to what we may need. As before there are simple patterns for rectangles and SQUARES, fish and coral but feel free to improvise and make shells, starfish, seaweed etc. Because of the theme we are aiming to raise money for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). The project is already booked for a national tour in 2010 – 2011 and we will keep you posted."

"I have now booked up our Knitting In Public weekends: ..We will be be at Coldharbour Working Wool Museumwith with Above and Below The Waves for the Fibrefest 22nd and 23rd August, and at I-Knit London weekend 11th and 12th September.( We had hoped to have the The Gingerbread House at Coldharbour Working Wool Museum from the middle of July to early September, but this has now been posponed until 2010 )

The colours we need would be any shade of blue, aqua ,navy, sand ,beige, greens and browns, rust . We have had our first parcel from Paris a pirate knitted by 6 yr old and mum they have also sent a photo. Thanks for all your help and best wishes"

Click here to contact Alison for further information

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Special Care Baby Unit Knitting Project

Daphne and Janet are project co-ordinators: "We started in a very small way back in March 2008 by knitting hats for local units in Chesterfield and Sheffield. Once customers and knitting groups joined in we were rapidly able to expand and now we supply over 150 units nationwide. To date the total number of items sent is well over 16,500. We are completely self-funding, relying on donations and money raising ideas to finance postage, yarn and other costs."

Click here to contact Daphne and Janet if you would like to help

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Donation of yarn

Mary Jones of Basingstoke has lots of odd balls of knitting wool that she would like to donate to anybody who knits for charity

Click here to contact Mary

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Bonnie Babies:

Bonnie Babies is a non profit voluntary organization. We knit, crochet and sew tiny premature items for our UK Hospitals. We also make burial gowns for the little ones who sadly don‚t make it; we offer keepsakes to parents of an Angel, our way of showing we care.

Click here if you know someone who knits, crochets or sews or know someone who does and would like to join us?

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SANDS (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society)

The Sands Society have recently launched their Precious Memory boxes and need to recruit knitters to make the blankets for these. The blankets are knitted in two sections the inner square section is knitted in simple bias garter stitch and the outer lacy trim is knitted separately then sewn on.

Click here for pattern

Click here for more information about how you can help

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Update: March 2009

Sharon Newman of Avicraft Wool Shop, Bromley, Kent has written to let us know the latest in her quest to cover a football pitch with knitted blankets and raise money for BLISS.

"I am hoping to have a stand at out local craft market in Bromley (Chatterton Village) over the spring/May bank holidays (4 & 25 May)to raise awareness of BLISS, our challenge and sell some knitted goods to add to the funds. If anyone local would like to come into the shop I have a mountain of donated yarn to make things to sell and fund raise. I am hoping to have a stand at The Southern Model Airshow at the Hop Farm in Paddock Wood, Kent 19 &20 September, to do the same thing. If anyone knows of any school/community fetes and fairs that will give us a stand please ask them nicely and let me have the dates so I can organise the stand (and, hopefully some volunteers)

Keep knitting, you can only begin to imagine the incredible difference your contribution is making to other peoples lives, love to you all. Sharon".

Click here for further details if you can help

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Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders)

A new knitting project has been launched to raise money to provide emergency medical aid to people affected by armed conflict, natural or man-made disasters, epidemics or exclusion from healthcare. The project is called P/hop, which is short for 'pennies per hour of pleasure'. MSF aims to call on generous knitters to combine their goodwill and love of knitting and donate to the project based on the hours of enjoyment they had knitting the free patterns.

Click here to find out more and learn how you can help

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Little Lamb Charity Blanket Project: Now Closed

Lindsay and Maureen Hall would like to thank all the knitters who contacted them through this site.

Click here for news of where the blankets went and other information

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Loving Hands

Linda 'Lou' Jaap, the founder of Loving Hands, set the group up to provide knitted items to charities. It started with two knitting groups in Fife, but has spread throughout the country with knitters, crocheters and stitchers sending in their items to Lou at HQ. Lou sorts and distributes the items sent in to the various charities.

Abi Williams has just helped to set up a new Loving Hands Knitting Group in Portsmouth: "4 times a year we have a challenge - this year's Spring Challenge is for the following: Items to keep the elderly warm in European countries like Croatia, Romania, Moldova etc for Blythswood Care - things like lap rugs, hats, scarves, gloves, mittens, socks, cardigans, jumpers etc.
Knitted or Crocheted toys for ambulance and fire crews in UK to give out to children they meet in emergency situations - approx 8 to 10 inches in size - and for our stitchers 12" square bags with no seams and drawstring tops used to help save baby Puffins blown out of their nests."

Click here to contact Abi if you can help or would like to join her knitting group in Portsmouth

Click here for the Loving Hands website

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