Charity Knitting

I often think about charity knitting but nothing has ever struck me enough to actually knit seriously for a project. When I was in a quilt guild I used to donate 4 quilts a year for our charity. I knitted a preemie hat for one of my local knitting groups to give to a local hospital. With another local group I contributed a teddy bear sweater for the local police, who take stuffed animals on their domestic violence calls to give to the displaced kids. All good causes. And I do plan to knit another bear sweater for our next donation!

This weekend I was an usher at the Performing Art Center uptown (the YMCA dance recital...an absolute hoot!) and talking knitting with another usher. I asked her what she knitted and she said she was now knitting children's sweaters for KnitforKids,sponsored by Guideposts. She commented that you could just knit so much for yourself or for gifts!

Last night I googled this charitable project and liked the looks of it. The pattern is very simple and it is a way to use up the bright colored acrylics in my stash that I bought to knit purses before I discovered the joy of using cotton instead.

They have three patterns, each a little bit more difficult. As well as written instructions, they also give you the finished dimensions of each size (2-10). Of course I did NOT do a gauge square and just jumped right into making a size 2 based on the written number of stitches to cast on. I am knitting a purple and lavendar stripe, since I don't have any one color with enough yardage for an entire sweater.

I kept looking at this sweater body as I knit and thought, "my goodness, I did not know 2 year olds were so big!". So I measured the width of the front and compared it to the pattern diagram, and I am knitting a size 10. Guess my yarn is bulkier than the model. The instructions say to adjust needle size as needed, but I don't want to go smaller than a size 7 needle, so will just have to adjust the stitch numbers. Simple math. Calculators help!

So if any of you out there are interested in doing some charity knitting without group deadline pressure and have some bright acrylics languishing in your stash, take a look at the web site.

I'll publish a photo of the sweater when I finish. I'm thinking of a goal of knitting one sweater a month and mailing a package when I get six. I am stating this on my blog so hopefully there won't be one half-finished striped sweater sitting on the floor of the closet at the end of the summer!!!