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Knitting for Dogs, Cats, and Yarnbombing

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yarn bomb canadaJacksonville, Fla., resident Jane Cottrel has been busy knitting scarves for unlikely customers: pugs. She sells wee warmers for pups at $25 a pop and donates the money to pug rescue organizations. She’s made $1,00 so far and has orders that will bring in $1,000 more.

Meanwhile, knitters at a Scottish senior center have been knitting for cats. The home has a weekly knitting class and so far a dozen blankets have been donated to a feline welfare charity.

Knit graffiti has popped up in a local park in Vaudreuil-Dorion (that’s in Quebec). The yarnbombing was developed by members of the local Cercles des fermières, a women’s organization celebrating its 100th year. Members said they are trying to raise awareness of the group among younger women, and they covered about 75 trees in knitting and crochet. About 25 of the Cercles des fermières groups are planning yarnbombing projects this year.

A group of churches in Norfolk, UK, are planning a celebration of knitting to take place this summer, and part of the scene will include a knit wedding, complete with a knit bishop based on the real-life bishop in the area. The fiber Bishop Graham was stitched up in about 50 days using 16 balls of wool. When meeting his knit double the real bishop said perhaps there should be more knitted bishops so that way he could “keep an eye on everyone.” How’s that for a great stash-busting project!

[Photo via Montreal Gazette.]

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Comments

  1. Would love to see a pic and a pattern…would start making for Italian greyhound and whippet group

Have you read?

Knit a Linen Stitch Hot Pad

Linen stitch is one of my favorite knitting stitch patterns that, every time I use it in a project, I think about how I don’t use it often enough. 

It’s an easy stitch to make, with slip stitches done with the yarn held to the front of the work on the right/front side and to the back on the wrong/back side, which makes the strand of yarn a visible part of the pattern. 

It also makes a fabric that is thick and looks kind of like a woven fabric.

I recently used linen stitch to make a double-thick pot holder, which I worked in a kind of interesting way. I didn’t want to have to do any sewing on the project, so I started it from a crochet cast on and picked up stitches from the side of the cast on to make the hot pad all in one piece in the round with the edge sealed. 

This requires working on two circular needles, which is another technique I don’t use that often and am always reminded how much I like it when I do. 

The combination of double thickness and the stitch pattern makes for a hot pad that’s already pretty thick, but I also added a bit of old towel to the inside before I closed up the end to make it super thick and extra protective for your surfaces. 

I found the engineering challenge of this construction method to be a lot of fun, but you could also just knit it as a tube (casting on twice as many stitches as I did) and sew up the ends by hand when the knitting is done. Either way you’ve got a useful and pretty addition to your kitchen, whether you work it in a solid color, stripes or as a stash busting project will all your cotton odd balls. 

You can grab the pattern over at Our Daily Craft, or check it out on Ravelry. 

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