Thursday, 20 October 2011

Sweaters for Penguins!

I have The Plague. For certain. I know this must be true because I am sneezing, there is goo running from my nose, and I have swellings on the front of my chest.

Oh, OK then, I have a lurgy....but it's horrid, and it jolly well hurts. My appendages feel leaden, and I am all wibbly-wobbly...not in a fun timey-wimey kind of way but in a, "Oh dear gods, I cannot stand up for more than five minutes" kind of way. On the plus side, I'm 4lbs lighter than I was at the beginning of the week; however, I suspect that it won't last once I'm eating properly again. I may have blown apart the 'starvation mode' theory I hear so much about on MFP! Ha ha!

So what has this got to do with penguin sweaters? Well, I could sit and watch Waking the Dead DVDs, or I could play on Pinterest. I could read, or I could get all sweaty with my LoveSprite (heheh!). In fact, I've done all these things (except play Assassin's Creed - my head hurts too much for that) and now I'm bored with it all. I must therefore be very ill because I never get bored! So I'm now going to watch Mad Men DVDs and be productive at the same time! Since an important part of my mind is somewhere in a field in Hampshire (10 points if you can tell me which song that's from), I don't want anything which is going to be too taxing...and I want something which will knit up quickly because I fully intend to be better by tomorrow. So, Sweaters for Penguins it shall be!

Source: www.grist.org


There's a bit of a drive on for people to knit jumpers for penguins affected by the 350-ton New Zealand oil spill, which has already claimed the lives of over 1000 sea birds. Lots of Little Blue pingus are currently shivering their little flippers off, so the jumpers will help to keep them warm until their feathers grow back. If anyone is interested in doing their bit, here is the pattern, with an address to send the finished jumpers to.

Here's a link to yarn conversions, by the way; Australian/NZ 8-ply is DK in the UK or Light Worsted in the US.

If you do make any, please email me (blog AT nicolelestrange DOT com) with pics or links, and I'll do an update post featuring your work!

Source: www.skeinz.com


4 comments:

susanne said...

Amazing! We haven't even heard of this spill in the USA. We are so darn self-centered! I love the sweaters and that you are knitting them.

Unknown said...

Aww, don't feel bad about it, the spill happened a few months ago but the effects are ongoing. TBH if I hadn't been a knitter, I don't think I'd have heard of it either!

Evie said...

The spill happened after the Rena ran aground on 5th October...only 19days ago, not months.
This link suggests ample Penguin Jumpers have been received
http://www.3news.co.nz/Woolly-jumpers-for-oil-covered-penguins/tabid/1160/articleID/229974/Default.aspx

The pollution has and will be very damaging for a beautiful area of New Zealand.

Unknown said...

Thanks for that Evie.

The article I came across, via Ravelry (I think) said that it was several months ago, so maybe the journalist made an error. I'l see if I can find it again, to check. :-)