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Forget Penguin Jumpers, Knit a Marsupial Pouch!

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Knit pouches for orphaned marsupials.I don’t know how great a demand there really is for handknit marsupial pouches, or if it really is like the sweaters for penguins thing that comes around every couple of years when in fact sweaters for penguins are not really needed (charities sell them on stuffed penguins, so they do help, but not in the way you might think).

So I was a little skeptical when a link talking about knitting pouches for marsupials appeared in my Facebook feed, but it looks like there are a few wildlife rehabilitation places in Australia that use the bags to keep babies warm.

Take this, for example, from WIRES Northern Rivers‘ donation site:

Having joeys in care not only takes time with chores such as feeding many times throughout the night and day, cleaning enclosures, making bottles etc etc. Each joey be that a possum, glider, macropod or tiny Bandicoot needs a pouch.

and

The size of pouches vary greatly depending on the stage of development of the joey in need and unfortunately with washing regularly, the life span of a pouch is not unlimited and as such the need for pouches is always great for marsupial carers.

While they say they have dedicated sewers and knitters who regularly provide pouches, more are always needed. The Kangaloola Wildlife Shelter also mentions pouches (though their patterns are for the fleece lining only).

If you want to knit a pouch for a joey, they like 100 percent wool outer parts lined with washable fleece or cotton. You can find more information here. They like them just in garter stitch, so knitters of any skill level can help.

[Photo via WIRES.]

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Comments

  1. There was a need for penguin jumpers after an oil spill. To clean it off they have to use detergent and it removes the natural oil that coats their feathers keeping them water-proof and cold repellant. Joeys pouches (all marsupial animals grow in a pouch) are needed by all kinds of rescue groups in Australia

Have you read?

Make Your Knitting Machine Scarves Better

I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve shared any patterns for our circular knitting machine users. I know these devices aren’t for everyone but even though I much prefer knitting by hand, it is kind of fun to crank things out on these machines.

One of the most common early projects for a circular knitting machine is a scarf. Which makes sense, because it’s just one long tube and you can make it as long as you like.

One problem that comes from knitting scarves on the circular knitting machine, though, is that it can be hard to know how to finish the ends of the tube so that it looks like a finished scarf and not a tube of knitting.

If you’re not a knitter or crocheter, the most basic way to finish a circular knitting machine scarf is just by cinching up the ends and maybe adding a pompom to each end to cover up any hole that might still be visible at the end.

But if you have a little knitting or crochet skill or are willing to learn, there are a lot of different options for closing up the ends of a scarf. And this would also be true if you hand knit a tube scarf!

I recently wrote a post over at Our Daily Craft that includes five different ways to close up the ends of a tube scarf:

  • the simple cinching method mentioned above
  • sewing the stitches together
  • three needle bind off
  • grafting
  • crochet bind off

Grafting is my favorite because I feel like it gives the cleanest, closest to a seamless look. If you’re a knitter you may already know how to do it but even if you don’t it’s not that hard to learn.

Do you knit tube scarves by hand or machine? I’d love to know how you like to finish them!