Love 1 Knit 1

Last year the KnitRangers knitted garments for the Maternity Unit at Auckland Hospital, mostly for premature babies, but a few items for bigger babies as well.

This year we are still knitting for babies - but much bigger ones. I spoke with the Head Teacher, Janice of the Eden Campus, which is a Teen Parenting Unit in Auckland, affiliated with Auckland Girls Grammar school. The unit contains a childcare centre enabling teenage parents to continue their education while caring for their child.

more info available here and here.

Janice is thrilled at the idea of our group knitting hats and other garments for the children - 75% of whom are under 18 months of age, most of the parents are too young to qualify for Government benefits and rely on their parents for financial support. I feel that by providing even a small amount of assistance to these parents in the form of warm winter woolies is a positive investment.

I love the idea of helping these young people who are working very hard at helping themselves and their children to have a better life, these are the qualities that we should be applauding and supporting.

The details:

yarn: must be machine washable - (I have some nice yarn left over from other projects which I will bring to the next Knit Rangers meetup), colours are up to you, have fun!

size: anything from 3 months to 3 years

patterns: there are screeds of free baby and child patterns on Ravelry, Knitting pattern central and a number of free hat patterns on my website

Please have your items to me by our meeting on 10 May - then we will be in plenty of time for the worst of winter.

Out of town or overseas knitters who are kind enough to contribute please email me justineATjustjussiDOTcom and I will organise postage.