Heart On My Sleeve: 70,000 people protected

Only 7 days left!

This is the LAST WEEK to contribute to this fund-raiser and get the limited-edition Heart On My Sleeve ebook! February 28 2018 is the last day the Heart On My Sleeve ebook will be on sale, after which this fund-raiser will be complete. With 8 designs by some of your favourite designers, this is an excellent deal for a very special collection, with all proceeds to a great cause. So get your copy right now! Or send a copy as a gift to a knitter you love!

70,000 people protected!

A couple years ago, I was pregnant with my second child, Neve (who’s now nearly 2), and had an idea. The thought was to bring our knit design friends together to create a collaborative fund-raising project. Heart On My Sleeve was born, 8 beautiful yoke sweaters for your knitting pleasure! As Alexa and I sought a charity that would do a lot of good for every dollar, I learned some of the heartbreaking statistics about malaria. While being cheaply preventable, malaria still kills 1-3 million people each year, and 70% of these people are kids under 5. It’s also the world’s biggest killer of pregnant women. Hauling one toddler and my pregnant self around Edinburgh, I was shaken as I reflected on the safety and healthcare I often took for granted, and the devastating thought of my little ones being in danger.

Since Feb 14 2017, the project has donated $79,327 USD – this buys 38,961 nets to protect 70,130 people (this is the entire population of 140 villages!). Check the fund-raising progress here.

Emily’s Tenderheart

For the KAL we’ve been running, Alexa made a Crazyheart sweater for Jones, and I’ve just finished a Tenderheart sweater for me!

This Crazyheart is made from Rainbow Heirloom Sweater in ‘wicked pacific’ with various teals, a grey and a vivid acid yellow! I love the colour combination Alexa used.

My version of Tenderheart used a warm, soft palette. For the main colour I chose a soft taupe, a delicious merino/cashmere blend called Sutak from Polo & Co. For the contrast colours I chose a pink and a pinky red, and a couple other tones of brown, using yarns from my stash. Alexa’s Tenderheart design samples were somewhat simpler; the child size in stark black and white, and the adult size in a single main colour with two tones of red for contrast.

I wanted to explore further variation in the yoke patterning through the use of more colours. Initially, I’d thought to use more than one foreground and background colour pair in each motif, using Fair Isle shading techniques. But as I knit, I found my attempts to change colours within the patterns detracted from the simple elegance of the design. So I reeled back my ambitions, and simply used two different combinations of MC and CC, alternating the red and the pink upon the darkest and medium brown. In the end, my completed yoke was not so far off Alexa’s initial colour concept.

I’m very happy with how it turned out! I was worried it might be too tight, but then I blocked it and I am 100% satisfied with the fit and think this makes another glorious addition to my sweater wardrobe! Wondering how we block our sweaters?  We’ve got a tutorial here. In the case of this sweater, I used blocking wires, and stretched it a little bit to fit.

Are you Knitting Along?

There’s still a week to knit your way through a baby size sweater if you’d like to participate! Be sure to list your FO in the Ravelry thread here in order to qualify for our LOVELY prizes from Biches & Buches, Rainbow Heirloom, Sunshine Yarns, Magpie Fibers, and Tin Can Knits too! More prize and KAL details in this post.

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More TCK yokes for your knitting pleasure: