It seems that Oxfam (see profile) has managed to capture knitters’ imagination with its recent campaign against maternal mortality.  Back in March, Oxfam asked volunteers to help create a giant blanket as “a sort of 'patchwork against poverty’ petition”. And by all accounts, it’s really taken off.

In Manchester, a flashmob pledged to knit 1,400 squares for the blanket, while in Leeds, volunteers have been purling with politicians.  A group of Girl Guides even promised to knit squares while tall ship sailing.  It really seems like everyone’s been getting their knitting needles out.

Oxfam hopes its knitters will produce 250,000 nine inch squares to be sewn into a massive 375 square foot blanket.  This will be presented to the British government sometime this month, with each square representing a woman who did not survive pregnancy or childbirth because of lack of medical care.

And, rather brilliantly, once this unconventional petition has been presented to government, it’ll be dismantled into smaller blankets to be sold in Oxfam’s charity shops.

This is not the first time that knitting has proved an effective tool for charities.  Innocent Smoothies have been asking the public to knit little woolly hats for their smoothies since 2003 as part of their Big Knit appeal (see our blog).  For every dressed-up smoothie sold, Innocent donates a remarkably generous 50p to Age Concern’s Fight the Freeze campaign (see profile). 

The Big Knit too has proved extremely successful. From its relatively modest aim to raise £10,000 from 20,000 hats in 2003, last year Innocent received over 400,000 woolly numbers, donating £200,000 to Age Concern. 

So what is it about knitting that makes these schemes such a success?!
 

 

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