Fish and chip jumpers - April-July 2013 ('Catch-up' 3)

In April last year, one of my knitting colleagues was passed this leaflet by a friend, knowing that it would be something that members of our group would be only to pleased to participate in. The start of the leaflet read as follows....

'Newborn babies, many suffering form Aids, are being called 'Fish and chip babies' because many are being sent home from hospital wrapped in newspaper for warmth. THEY NEED YOUR HELP.

In order to assist these tiny babies we are asking you to knit a small jumper which will be sent to Africa to keep the tiny children warm. Average knitters can complete a  jumper in an evening. It's a quick and easy pattern.'

Requirements were double knitting wool (bright colours and stripes, nothing pastel shade) and 4.5/5mm needles depending on how you knit.

So, with a deadline of July, four of us (Kim, Wendy, Mary and myself) set about making these tiny little jumpers. Relatives and friends were also brought in to add to the effort and a message was posted on the work's intranet system so that our knitting colleagues nationally could participate if they wished.

Since I am not an 'average knitter', I only managed to create two jumpers and each one certainly took longer than an evening. Longer than several evenings!

The jumpers were actually worked as one piece - 18 rows of ribbing, 30 rows of stocking stitch, then cast on 12 either side and rib for a further 22 rows.

Cast off 26 in the middle of following row (for the neck), cast 26 back on in the row after that and then work 30 rows of stocking stitch and and 18 rows of ribbing. 

Each little jumper then only needed to be stitched together up each side and under each tiny arm.

Gradually, little jumpers started arriving from far and wide across the country. Every other day throughout June, Kim was the recipient of squishy woolly parcels arriving in the office and they were fascinating to open. Every single jumper was a different colour and size - such an amazing variety.

By the completion date I think we had managed to knit and collect approx 150 jumpers, all of which went on a journey to Uganda and are hopefully replacing the 'fish and chip' newspaper that is mentioned in the original leaflet.