British Women Knit for Animals

A couple of really sweet knitting stories have come out of the UK in recent days.

First there was Nicola Congden and her mum Ann, from Cornwall, who estimate they’ve knit 150 sweaters for chickens oven the past six months. The project was prompted by Nicola seeing a story about battery hens, who often lose or pluck out their feathers in the cramped and stressed living conditions they are under. When they’re rescued they can’t acclimate to the cold.

Nicola says she also uses the jumpers on her own chickens, and they love them, but she doesn’t leave them in them long if she’s not around. She says their behavior is the same when they have the sweaters on.

She says she’s had requests for jumpers from locals and as far away as Canada. They’re happy to share, and ask for people who want jumpers to donate to Project Primrose, a charity that gives money and support to an orphanage in Africa for kids affected by AIDS.

And Jan Brown of Sunderland says she’s spent about 4,000 hours making sweaters for abandoned dogs. She’s come up with about 300 different designs for different kinds of dogs, and she donates the sweaters — as well as hats, snoods, scarves and antler hats — to shelters around the country.

She also sells knit items for dogs and uses the proceeds to buy supplies to make more items to give away.

I just love these stories! It’s so great when people find a way to use their creativity to help others, even when those others aren’t human!

[Photo via Yahoo News UK.]

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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