We don't often read the Wetherby News website, but one recent article caught our eye: Knitting Sicklinghall nun nets £9,000 for Bosnia orphans trumpets the headline, and the story contains even more impressive details. Sister Mary Duncan is 100 years old and undertook a grueling 24-hour knitathon to raise the funds.

It's well worth clicking through to read the full details – and the convent is still collecting money for this cause, so if you want to support her appeal you can.

Enter the Arthritis Care Knimble Knitters Competition and you could win £200!

All you have to do is knit a hat, gloves or scarf and send the team at Arthritis Care four photographs of it. If you're shortlisted, they'll want to see the item in person, but for now you don't even need to walk to the post office! You'll find all the information you need, including the rules, on the Arthritis Care website.

As the competition is raising funds Arthritis Care, there's an entry fee of £2 per item. The competition closes on 15 February 2010 so it's time to start stitching – or have a photo shoot with your favourite knit from 2009!

This November, when you put the kettle on with friends, why not think about joining the St John Ambulance Big Tea Cosy fundraising challenge?

It's really easy – all you need is a tin to collect donations from your fellow tea-drinkers, but you can make it more exciting if you want to: cup cake decorating, sponsored sock knitting or a raffle, to list just a few ideas.

St John Ambulance is the first aid charity: from responding to accidents to providing support at events to training first aiders in schools and workplaces they're doing their bit to make the world a safer place – and they need your support.



When it comes to providing life-saving training and equipment every penny helps, so whether it's just you and a friend, your whole knitting group or half the office, your tea party can make a difference.

As though knitting and tea weren't already a perfect match, the folks at St John Ambulance have provided a set of fab free patterns for cakes and treats, as well as a classic tea cosy.

You can make some to sell, have a sponsored knitalong or perhaps whip up a few gifts and donate the money you would have spent to charity.

Got any other good ideas? Having a tea party? Please let us know in the comments!

Updated 17 Nov 09 to fix broken link. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Two local charity knitting efforts have made the news, and both could do with a helping hand from keen knitters.

The Lincolnshire Echo has published Midwives' plea for knitted breasts to be used to help new mothers learn to breastfeed.

Find out more about how and why knitted breasts are used and knit your own.

The Isle of Wight Country Press is encouraging readers to Knit to help the Red Cross. Their sponsored knit-in takes place from 12-18 October 2009 and as well as raising money for the Red Cross, knitters will be creating items to be donated to orphanages in Africa. Scroll down to the bottom of the article for details of how to get involved.

The Innocent Big Knit Campaign is back – and more ambitious than ever.

Building on last year's amazingly successful campaign, Innocent are hoping to raise a quarter of a million pounds to support Help the Aged and Age Concern this winter.

Of course, they can't do it without your help – and the help of your friends. Here are 7 reasons to knit a hat.

1. You can't bear to throw away a single scrap of yarn.
   
2. You've always wanted to try a little bit of knitted sculpture.
3. You need something simple to knit while watching Gossip Girl.
4. You want to experiment with new colour combinations.
   
5. You need to keep the kids occupied for an afternoon – teach them to knit or whip up a few plain hats and get out the glitter!
6. You're thinking of designing a hat, and want to try out some ideas.
7. You've always wanted to learn to knit – they're great beginner's projects!

As we mentioned in a previous post, our sister magazine, The Knitter, has teamed up with top designers and Macmillan Cancer Support – and they need your help to knit blankets to bring comfort to cancer patients.

We've got good news if you're knitting for Macmillan – they've got loads of new squares up since we last posted, including designs by Debbie Bliss, Martin Storey, Mason-Dixon, Jean Moss and Belinda Boaden, so check out the Macmillan website now.

Once you've knitted a square or two, you can show them off in the Flickr pool dedicated to the Macmillan knit.

And last but not least, if you're on Facebook, you can become a fan of Macmillan and let people know about your coffee morning on the Macmillan Facebook page.

Our sister magazine, The Knitter has joined forces with top designers and Macmillan Cancer Support – and now they need your help to create amazing blankets to bring comfort to cancer patients.

"Macmillan Cancer Support is our charity of the year," says Juliet Bernard, editor of The Knitter. "They do an amazing job for people who are living with cancer and many of our families will have been helped by their services.

"So important is this charity to us at The Knitter that we are 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."

As knitters, this is an easy charity to support. All you need to do is gather your friends and family together for a knit and natter at a Coffee Morning, and knit some squares.

"We are asking knitters all over the  UK to knit 20x20cm squares," says Juliet. "40 squares make a Comfort Blanket, 8 squares long by 5 squares wide. Each Comfort Blanket we make will be given to somebody who is living with cancer so the more blankets we knit, the more people we benefit."

Top designers including Debbie Bliss, Alice Starmore, Meg Swansen, Kaffe Fassett, Marie Wallin and Kim Hargreaves have designed squares for the campaign which will be available to download from the Macmillan website. Find out more and download the first square today.

It's so easy to help

If you'd like to support this campaign, it just takes 3 simple steps:

1. Invite your friends round for a knit and natter. (Squares are great for new knitters!)
   
2. Log on to the Macmillan website to register your coffee morning and download your free patterns. (You can also call 0845 602 1246 quoting NA3 to register your coffee morning.)
3. Send your completed blanket to: The Knitter Macmillan Comfort Blanket, Future Publishing Ltd, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, BA1 2BW or drop it off with us at The Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexander Palace.

Please help us to spread the word

"Our target is 100 blankets, that’s 4,000 squares and we are planning lots of exciting news between now and October so do keep an eye on our Ravelry group, the Macmillan and the Rowan sites," says Juliet. "We will also be Tweeting regularly from the Twitter name TheKnitterMag so please do re-tweet to your followers."

It's worth mentioning the campaign to non-knitters. Squares are really easy to knit, and a donation, whether it's time or money, means a lot – remember: every penny helps.

A cancer diagnosis is never easy to hear, but knowing you have support can help. "Think how much it would mean to you – the gift of a Comfort Blanket – knowing there are people out there you have never met who stand by your side lending you strength," says Juliet.

We know you'll do a great job and we hope you'll enjoy knitting the squares with your friends. So from everyone at Simply Knitting, The Knitter and Macmillan, we'd like to say THANK YOU! for your support.

It's National Breastfeeding Awareness Week, so it seems like the ideal time to highlight an appeal from one of our readers: Ruth Scott would like 50 knitted breasts.

It may seem like an odd request, but knitted breasts are proving themselves very useful in helping new mothers learn to breastfeed: they're soft, safe for the baby to play with and come in a range of shapes, sizes and colours – just like real breasts do. Breastfeeding can be tricky to get started with, so if new mums are going to have the option to try it, it's important that they get support.

Ruth is a health visitor and infant feeding coordinator in the Bath area, and says: "If people are happy to knit and donate breasts then I would like another 50 or so, which would mean we had one for every staff member."

Can you help? Then download the free knitted breast pattern (PDF) and email Ruth to let her know. You can use any colours, but skin-tone yarns are preferred and ideally they should be machine washable.

If you're not in the Bath area, why not see if there's a need for knitted breasts in your area? "Contact your local midwifery or health visiting teams," suggests Ruth, "or voluntary organisations such as La Leche League or the National Childbirth Trust, to see if they would like some support them locally."

You can also visit the NHS Breastfeeding site for more information about the benefits of breastfeeding and for helpful information for new mums.

Can you help a school raise money through knitting? Lindsey Metherell is running a craft stall at Primrose Hill School's Summer Fair. She's looking for knitters, so if you can spare some time to knit for the stall the school would be very grateful, but also for donations of yarn and needles so people with the time but no resources can make items for the stall.

If the stall is successful, Lindsey may start a childrens' and parents' craft club, so you won't just be helping raise money, you could be helping bring on the next generation of knitters.

To offer your help, please email Lindsey at lindsey.metherell@btinternet.com

Our sister magazine, The Knitter, has been helping Rowan to design this sweet little knitted red nose corsage to raise money for Comic Relief’s annual Red Nose Day, held this year on Friday 13 March 2009. The pattern is free to download from www.knitrowan.com but please think about the amount of pleasure you get from knitting this pattern and stop by our Red Nose Donation Page to make a donation – don't forget, every penny helps! All the money raised will go straight into the Red Nose Day pot and help to make a difference to the lives of people in need both here in the UK and Africa. So what are you waiting for? Get knitting!

Do knit chicks knit chicks? It's an eternal question and with the return of the Velindre Chick Knit the answer is a definite YES!

Velindre Hospital has been providing help and support for cancer patients for over 50 years. In 1996 a former patient, Julie Smith created the Chick Knit Appeal. Using a pattern created by volunteer Joyce Davies which you can now download from the Velindre website, knitters created 250,000 chicks and raised £250,000 for Velindre. Years later, Velindre still needs funds to keep up its good work and is once more appealing for knitters to knit chicks.

It's a quirky and simple pattern, so if you're looking for a quick knit, have a go! One school has already knit 200 chicks, so the campaign is well underway but we're sure they'd appreciate your support!

Millions of mums in poor countries get low-quality health care, or are forced to go without it altogether. Every minute a woman with no medical care dies in pregnancy or childbirth – a mum who would have cared for her baby, carried on being a friend, a sister, a daughter, a wife – and a mum to her other kids.



Oxfam are campaigning to raise awareness and funds to stem this tide – and they've been doing it with knitting. Over the last six months thousands of knitters have created 14,000 squares, each one representing a mum who is no longer alive to care for her baby.

The next part of the campaign is the big stitch up: sewing the squares into blankets. Oxfam are looking for volunteers to help with the making up. The blankets will be exhibited aroudn the UK on International Women's Day in March and will afterwards be sold in Oxfam shops and at festivals to raise money for Oxfam's work to fight poverty.

Want to get involved?
Contact Alice Delemare, Oxfam campaigner, by emailing adelemare@oxfam.org.uk or calling 0113 394 4293. Give details of your name, group name, an address and the number of blankets you are willing to sew together and Alice will arrange for squares to be sent to you. Each blanket will be 48 squares large and will need to be returned to Oxfam before the beginning of March.

Alice says: “We need the help of enthusiastic groups of people who can sew! Everyone can get involved in the fight against maternal mortality, especially members of knitting circles, community or religious groups.”

So give her a ring, and see if you can help a fellow knitting fan out with a bit of making up.

Wallace and Gromit need your help!

Aided by the gang at I Knit London, Wallace & Gromit's Children's Foundation is trying to knit the world's biggest tea cosy, and with a deadline of 21 November 2008 they need all the clicking pins they can get!

All they're asking for is a 6in wide strip knitted in DK yarn. Use any colour and any yarn you like, make it as long or short as you fancy. You could tie all your leftovers into one long rainbow ball or stick with solid navy all the way through. Send your finished strip to the I Knit London shop at 106 Lower Marsh, Waterloo, London SE1 7AB.

Wallace & Gromit's Children's Foundation is raising money to help children and their families in hospitals and hospices around the country by having a Great British Tea Party. Get together with a few of your friends or colleagues for a cuppa and perhaps a spot of knitting, and raise a few pennies for sick children.

When it's sunny there's nothing we like better than spending our lunch hour in down by the river, knitting away in the sunshine. We're not the only ones, and World Wide Knit in Public Day on Saturday 14 June is set to be a stormer this year. There are already several events listed for the UK and we've just had some news in from a KIP event in another sunny place.

South African based Elle Yarns are encouraging local knitters to get out their pins in public – and to do it for a good cause. As well as working to raise funds and awareness by encouraging people to knit squares for a local breast cancer charity, they're also giving away a free pattern for a pretty pink knitted hat, designed specially for cancer patients.

It's simple to knit, making it perfect for a busy Knitting In Public event and once you've finished it you can either keep it or donate it. To download yours, all you have to do is sign up to their free Knitters Club and you'll find it among the 46 free patterns currently available.

If you're wondering where to donate your hat, contact the oncology or customer services department at your local hospital.

Many knitters don't bother with tension squares, but here at Simply Knitting we make loads! We also knit squares in various pretty patterns for our stitch library, and in a range of colourful yarns for our monthly yarn reviews. All in all, this adds up to a lot of squares – all about 4in by 4in (10cm by 10cm) of course – which are carefully knitted, lovingly photographed and then, having served their purpose, discarded.

We don't like to waste anything but as many of the yarns aren't machine washable and as they're all of varying weights and colours, there aren't very many charities who will take them. But we always find a good home for them in the end, and we've just had a lovely email from Jill at the Alzheimer's Society in Doncaster which included this photo of our swatches in action.

Jill and her team of volunteers have been making blankets for Alzheimer's patients and last year raised over £700 with their sponsored knit and crochet! They're still looking for more squares, so if you've got a swatch or two you can spare, why not email Jill or pop them in the post to: Jill, Alzheimer’s Society, 1st Floor, 58 Balby Road, Balby, Doncaster DN4 0JL and who knows, you might spot them in her next blanket!

We've already spotted the Grid Stitch sample from our stitch library in issue 36 and the Rico Carmen swatch from our yarn reviews in issue 33! It's great to see they've found a good home.

   

We're not asking you to knit anything, but if you've got a minute or two, have a quick look to find out how a cute knitted rabbit is helping raise the money to help a little girl get the treatment she needs to hopefully speak to her parents for the first time.

And maybe you can help, too.

Feed the Children have got a great knitting pattern book out. With pieces for babies and toddlers from fab designers including Heather Cawte, Mary-Louise Quick and Judith Whincup, it's a super buy and a bargain at only £3.50 (plus p&p). Knowing that proceeds from the book go to help some of the world's less fortunate children is icing on an already lovely cake. Check it out.

Visit their website for other ways to get involved, or if you'd like to get knitting for Feed the Children.