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Help The Penguins….

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So apparently there was an oil spill somewhere around New Zealand. I apologize that I do not spend time watching or reading the news. As a matter of fact, really, the only tv I watch is when my Red Wings play their own unique brand of hockey.  But never mind about that.

The penguins of the New Zealand area got all covered in oil. One of the penguins very favorite thing to do is preen and by doing this they would ingest a whole bunch of poisonous oil, so, not only do the sweaters keep them warm but they keep them from getting oil all over their insides.

Skeinz, a natural yarn store in New Zealand is sponsoring The Worldwide Campaign To Knit Sweaters For Penguins to help keep these little guys safe while getting cleaned up. And, you can help. Click on over to HERE to find out how!

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Comments

  1. A friend contacted them and was told they don’t need anymore. They were inundated with donations and have too many.

  4. The oil spill is coming from a giant cargo ship called “Rena”. The pilots of the ship ended up steering her onto a known reef. The problem comes from the ship literally breaking into two pieces, right along where the oil is stored. While over 750 (whatevers) worth of oil has already been spilt, there is another 1,500 (whatevers) on board the ship. Thankfully no new oil has spilled in the last two days, and they’re trying their hardest to get the remaining oil off, but horrible seas etc – plus a ship on a 45o angle make the job understandably hard. They’re also not helped by the fact that the hose they’re using to pump out the oil is actually no larger than the ones at the car petrol pumps – about the size of your thumb and finger in a circle according to one reporter.
    Do help out – how cool is it to say you have knitted a penguin tuxedo!
    For pics of this disaster check out: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/image.cfm?c_id=1&gal_cid=1&gallery_id=122111#8154898 (images from over the last week)
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/image.cfm?c_id=1&gal_cid=1&gallery_id=122188#8166407 (the ship)
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/image.cfm?c_id=1&gal_cid=1&gallery_id=122169#8163338 (The wildlife)

  5. Hi Terrye, I emailed the yarn store, Skeinz, that was sponsoring the penguin project, I received this reply on October 16, 2011
    Hi Gail,
    Thank you for your kind offer – at this stage the response has been overwhelming & we have enough pledges to cover the required number of birds needing jumpers – keep in touch with updates via our blog at http://theyarnkitchen.blogspot.com if we require more we will post here.
    Cheers Maree

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!