Charity begins at home... on the sofa, in front of the TV, with a cuppa...

Recently I've been looking at a lot of charity knitting and I'm finding it's a great way to keep my fingers busy without ending up with a houseful of stuff I don't really need!
I've found a bunch of knitting projects, for all for very different causes -

Preemies UK - knitting clothes, blankets and all sorts of useful/comforting things for premature babies
Knitted Knockers - knitted prosthetics for mastectomy patients: sounds a little bizzare but they really do help and it's nice that the subject is being approached with humour
Battersea Dogs & Cats Home - knitting Catnip mice for homeless cats
Innocence Smoothie Big Knit - knitting wee hats for smoothies (you've most likely seen them in stores) to raise money for Age UK

I decided to start off small so as not to be too disheartened (making small things means I can churn out a lot of them too) and knit a bunch of Catnip mice for Battersea - I used 4 contrasting colours of wool and knit the ears in the same colours but switching them round so each mouse had contrasting ears. I brought some more wool back with me last time I visited home (I have a monster stash that I'm bringing down to London a bag at a time) so I think I'll be a little more adventurous with the next lot...

Last week and friend of mine tweeted about the Innocence Smoothie Big Knit. This year they're looking to collect 650,000 knitted hats (those who can't knit can send back last years hats - they count too!) and for each bottle of smoothie wearing a hat that is sold they'll donate 25p of it to Age UK.
I had set myself the goal of knitting 10 hats by the deadline of October 14th, but after knitting 4 this weekend I think I can probably set myself a higher goal, and so I'm going to aim for 40 hats - which would help them raise £10 (25p per hat)

So here are the first few - The pom-poms are pretty big, I know, but I'm using a plastic pom pom template I had, rather than cutting out a whole load of them from card, and this is the smallest it allows me to make them, but I still think they're kinda cute. I stuck with the intermediate pattern for now, but I think this week I'll give the advanced pattern a go (It involves ears flaps, but is still pretty basic)...

It's worth checking out the website, they have a hat of the week too - people do some pretty amazing stuff!

Once the deadline has passed for the Innocence Hats, and I've knitted a small army of Mice, I'm going to buy some baby wool to knit some pieces for Preemies UK - starting with hats then moving on to *drum roll* cardigans! - need to learn how to knit a buttonhole :s

In other news I finally finished sewing the bzillion ends into my jumper and knitted the neck!... and now I'm putting off sewing all the seams together and avoiding the inevitable - that it probably won't fit! ha!