How to help refugees if you are a knitter |

Doesn’t it happen to you that you buy a high quality yarn, you knit whatever you have in mind, and then you keep for ages that extra yarn without giving it a proper use? It’s time for you to knit something really useful with that extra yarn: beanies to help refugees keep warm during this cold winter.

Some days you find instagram profiles that light you up, and past December I found another one. I’m talking about Knit Aid, “a social enterprise helping knitters to help others in need”. You have different options to collaborate with them, but the most interesting for knitters is to send them knitted donations. On their website you’ll find plenty of different free patterns and all the instructions necessary regarding what what items to knit and how to do it.

As the yarn I had was The Petite Wool from We are knitters, I’ve addapted one of the free patterns on Knit Aid’s website to this yarn’s specifications. Here we go!

Helping Hat Knitting Pattern adapted to The Petite Wool yarn

(Original pattern belongs to Shahnaz Ahmed from Knit Aid)

Materials

Less than 1 skein of The Petite Wool (or another one with the same gauge)

8mm knitting needles

Sewing needle

Adult size

CO 54 st

Row 1-28: Knit all even rows and purl all odd rows

Row 29: (k5, k2tog) until the end of the row

Row 30: Purl

Row 31: (k4, k2tog) until the end of the row

Row 32: purl

Row 33: (k3, k2tog) until the end of the row

Row 34: purl

Row 35: (k2, k2tog) until the end of the row

Row 36: (p2tog) until the end of the row

Ending: *directly extracted from the original pattern*

“Thread the yarn onto the sewing needle and feed it through the stitches on the knitting needle. Remove the stitches from the knitting needle and pull tight to create the top of the hat.

With the remaining tail, sew the sides together, working on the wrong side. Weave in the ends.”

Toddler size

CO 36 st

Row 1-16: Knit all even rows and purl all odd rows

Row 17: (k2, k2tog) until the end of the row

Row 18: (p2, p2tog) until the end of the row

Row 19: (k2tog) until the end of the row

Ending: repeat the ending shown above.