Help the Kids of Kenya with Knit Goodies

Do you all know about Craft Hope? It’s a really amazing group of crafters that band together periodically to make things that are donated to others. It started with 29 pillowcase dresses for children in an orphanage in Mexico and has grown such that through the years Craft Hopers have donated more than 150,000 handcrafted pieces to make the world a little brighter for kids and others around the world.

The latest project benefits We Are Kenya, and they are looking for knit (or crocheted, or sewn) hats, scarves, gloves and stuffed animals to donate to about 200 kids ages 4 to 15.

We Are Kenya is a nonprofit that works to educate children in the slum of Soweto, the second largest slum in the country. They feed the children — sometimes the only meal they get each day — and the children are taught by university-trained instructors.

These crafted items will help keep the kids warm through the winter and give them comfort they almost certainly wouldn’t have otherwise. How great is that?

The deadline for sending items is November 1. Please go to the Craft Hope website for more information and to chime in with what you’ll be making. I hope you’ll consider this project if it touches you and you have some knitting time in the next month.

[Photo from We Are Kenya via Craft Hope.]

Next Pattern:

It’s well known (among knitters, anyway) that knitters seem to love chickens as a motif and a subject of our knitting projects. The Emotional Support Chicken and all the other chicken knitting patterns are just the beginning of our devotion to farmyard friends.

For example, there’s Farmer Dennis’ Chicken Hat. This free pattern from Stacy Black is a simple worsted weight beanie sized for adults and decorate with a couple of little rounds of colorwork fences and a flock of chickens strutting around the body of the hat.

You don’t need a lot of any of the colors for the chickens, their facial features or the fences, so this is a great project for using little leftover bits from other projects. The main color for the body of the hat is less than a skein using the yarn suggested, so you might just have everything you need in your house to start stitching up this hat right away.

The colorwork is presented as a chart, with a 16 stitch section that repeats around the body of the hat. All the color changes are shown on the chart but I think it would be easier to knit the whole chicken in the chicken color and add the eye, beak and other features using duplicate stitch when the knitting is done. That way you don’t have to carry those yarns around the whole hat for just a few stitches.

As the name suggests, the original hat was given to a farmer who shared their eggs, but anyone who raises chickens or just has a thing for the fowl is sure to love this cute hat. It wouldn’t be too difficult for someone new to stranded knitting or reading charts to make, either, so if that’s you, give it a try.

The pattern is available for free on Ravelry.

[Photo: Stacy Black]

Knitting Patterns for Little Chicks

Tiny Hens to Knit

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