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Do Penguins Really Need Jumpers?

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penguin sweatersThe story has been all over the Internet the past few days. A story out of Australia said that the Penguin Foundation was putting out a call to knitters for wee sweaters for penguins.

It said they use the sweaters to protect the animals after oil spills. It also said they only need about 20 a year, and that they have a good supply right now.

But that hasn’t kept the story from going viral, and no doubt caused lots of knitters to pick up their needles for a cute cause.

This is a story that seems to come up every couple of years, and it was even the topic of a web comic back in 2012, which noted that the sweaters aren’t actually all that helpful, because they use heat lamps to keep the penguins warm after a spill, and putting a sweater on an injured penguin more distress than just leaving them alone.

The Penguin Foundation, to be clear, says on its website

Please know that we do not urgently require little penguin jumpers for rehabilitation, we have a good supply of these which we use on any rescued oiled penguins and in the event of an oil spill, these jumpers are also sent to other wildlife rescue centres if required.

It also notes that excess jumpers are sold to raise funds for the important work the foundation does to rehabilitate penguins and for their research and conservation efforts.

So if you want to knit to support penguins, you certainly can, but know that there are other causes with more urgent needs that you could direct your needles to. And always check the source and check with the recipient to make sure there’s actually a need before you cast on.

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Knit a Log Cabin Blanket with All Your Scraps

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn. 

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small. 

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches. 

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come. 

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you. 

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?). 

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry. 

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns. 

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]