In the meantime (and to get your ‘knitting fix’) we thought we would let you know what our friends at the Yarn Corner are up to, to get you into the knitting groove for 2012!

On January 21^st – Melbourne’s City Square will be transformed into a woollen wonderland.  Yarn will be wrapped around all sorts of things  until the end of February and you can even get in on the action!

If you can already knit, you can help out with the actual installation on Saturday 21^st January from 9am through until 5pm.

If you want to know how to knit, you can take part in the workshops available on Sunday 22^nd January from 11am through until 2pm.  Bookings are required, so please email twilighttaggers@gmail.com to reserve your spot.

Otherwise, you can just head on down to the City Square before the end of February to see a prominent part of Melbourne covered in yarn!

For further information please visit facebook.com/twilighttaggers

Apologies to our bloggers that aren’t in Melbourne – but we’ll be happy to share pictures with you online afterwards!

To get you excited about yarn bombing, here are some other examples of this unique form of street art.

These cute little guys were knitted some toasty jumpers by the Twilight Taggers!

A stylish mini found at http://s10cil.com/archives/2718

A colourful walk in the park over at http://www.next-after-this.com/2011/11/trend-yarn-bombing.html

Who wouldn’t love doing their shopping with one of these! http://knitoneone.blogspot.com/2011/07/cool-yarn-bomb-in-brooklyn.html#!/2011/07/cool-yarn-bomb-in-brooklyn.html

Parcels of knitting arrive...

they are counted and folded...

they are vacuum packed and stacked...

they are into the truck and on their way.

We encourage all our wonderful knitters to put their squares and blankets in the post this week so that they don’t miss the shipment overseas. Any knitting received past the finish date will either be distributed through our Australia programs or sold in our retail stores.

Happy (and speedy!) knitting

Overnight, it was determined that the following schools were successful in receiving the prize-money and we would like to thank all schools involved for their participation and support of our Born to Knit campaign.  Everyone involved should be considered a winner as their knitting will help to keep a child warm in India, Cambodia or Laos when we distribute their blankets in October.

• First place of $10,000 goes to Good Samaritan Catholic Primary School, who will be spending the funds on employing an additional registered teacher, one day a week to work with English as a Second Language students.  70% of students at Good Samaritan Catholic Primary school are from an English as a Second Language background (meaning they speak a language other than English at home), so these funds will help create more powerful learning opportunities for their students.
• Second place of $6,000 goes to Elmore Primary School.  Elmore Primary School will be purchasing technological equipment designed to help deliver high quality learning experiences for their students that include interactive activities in literacy, numeracy and specific integrated topics.
• Third place of $4,000 goes to Merri Creek Primary School, who will use the funds to develop the schools sustainability and creative programs.   Their presentation on Friday helped the judges to visualise how the funds would be spent when they brought in a small sample of their vegetable garden that supports the Merri Creek Primary School cooking program.  With this, Merri Creek Primary School will also be investing in educational materials to teach students about sustainability and the global community.

Special thanks go to the other five finalists who took the time and effort to create their presentation for submission by Friday 9 September.

• Kangaroo Flat Primary School
• Wedge Park Primary School
• Newport Lakes Primary School
• St Catherine’s School
• Winters Flat Primary School

Your support of the campaign has helped us to provide and distribute more blankets to children in our health programs around the world.

Born to Knit Schools Competition Winners Good Samaritan Catholic Primary School.

This new element of Save the Children’s Born to Knit campaign brought with it such a rewarding experience.  What a wonderful way to educate students about the importance of helping other children around the world.  To everyone involved, thank you again, and we will keep in touch about our knitting campaign in 2012 and beyond!

Please remember that if you have any outstanding knitting, you can still send this into us.  The campaign close date is Friday 30 September, so please be sure to finish up those squares and blankets so we can send them overseas in October. Happy knitting!

Five of the eight finalists joined us at Save the Children’s office in Melbourne and presented what got them knitting and how they would spend the prize-money, whether it be $10,000 (1^st prize); $6,000 (2^nd prize) or $4,000 (3^rd prize) to the panel of judges.

Eight schools had 10 minutes to present in any way they like – whether it was a play, a video, via PowerPoint or over the phone. A great afternoon full of  laughter, passion, energy and wool. All schools were judged based on the set criteria of knowledge, effectiveness, creativity and teamwork. The presentations were amazing. Such inspiring children telling us their reasons for being part of Born to Knit.

We had three wonderful judges sitting on the panel, now left with the tough responsibility of deciding a winner. The judges were Bianca Collier, Save the Children’s Program Manager for Asia and Africa; Howard Ralley, Save the Children’s General Manager for Marketing and Communications; and Rob Milne, CEO of  Australian Country Spinners.

Winners will be announced very soon, so stay tuned!

The wonderful Save the Children Born to Knit School Competition Finalists.

We thought it might be nice to feature one particular blanket with you. From the picture it might not look like the most amazing creation we’ve ever seen but it is beautiful.  Lovely colours, perfect size and amazing feel (trust us, it is so nice and soft!).

Soft and pretty. Our favourite blanket of the day.

And that is what makes this blanket, the pick of the day.

Keep on sending those blankets in – you have until the end of this month (Friday 30 September) to ensure that your blanket makes it offshore to children in our health programs in India, Cambodia and Laos.

One day of deliveries at Born to Knit. 42 beautiful hand-knitted blankets.

All you have to do is pop over to our online registration form, fill it out, and keep knitting until the end of August. Your blankets for the competition must be at our office in Melbourne by Friday 2^nd September.

You can find all the details about the competition over here.

All you other lovely knitters, the end date for the general Born to Knit campaign is the 30^th September. As much as we would all love to keep on knitting for months to come, we need to send the blankets across to India, Cambodia and Laos where they will be distributed to children and families in our health programs. So there is good reason to have an end date. All the love that has gone into the knitted blankets needs to reach its destination. Find out more about where your blanket is going to go over here.

So five more weeks of Born to Knit!

With the lovely contributions from people sending squares in, the volunteers were able to work together to turn our piles of squares into beautiful blankets!

Lots of concentration and focus...

And yes... contrary to public opinion men having fantastic sewing skills!

It is exciting to see the blankets take shape – only 13,827 to go!

We would love to hear our volunteer room fill up with laughter again, so please let us know if you can lend a hand or two so we can make a difference. Thanks for your support and help Ernst & Young, we think you are fantastic!

To find out more about volunteering with Born to Knit email: borntoknit@savethechildren.org.au or call Cath on 03 8417 1400 . Thanks

We have had quite a few swing tags come in with the lovely parcels of knitted squares and blankets that were started on the day and are now complete – woohoo!

Some of the thoughts and comments are oh so sweet that we wanted to share them with you.

I wanted to knit this square because:

“I want to be part of something bigger and help the children” – Petra

“I am able and children are important” – Lexie

“I enjoy knitting and I like to be useful – nice purpose” – Inge

“Keeping children warm and cared for” – Kath

“I hope it gives warmth to someone and it was knitted with love” – Judy

“I was born to knit and I love to give” – Lois

“There are many who can benefit from my time and talent” – Sarah

“All children deserve to feel warmth and comfort” – Linda

“I wanted to make a difference” – Kathy

“I wanted to contribute in some small way in helping other families” – Linda

“I thought it would help keep you warm and it was made with lots of love” – Jenny

“I love to knit and wanted to meet other knitters and to help someone to be warm” – Chris

“Families make societies – you change your world” – Jacqueline

“To make the world a warmer place” – Ed

“To give warmth and comfort to less fortunate. Share the love” – Susanne

So much knitting and so much love. Thanks for being part of Born to Knit.

We are also very excited about our Born to Knit schools competition. The entries are flooding in, the prize pool is big, and best of all the kids are learning to knit. Part of the competition registration process is giving us some insight into what the prize money will go towards. From computers, to knitting classes (true!), to play grounds, to donations back to Save the Children we have received some lovely responses. The next generation of knitters are an inspirational lot indeed!

If you are a teacher or a student or someone who knows a cool little school who would love to knit us some blankets (and win $10,000 thanks to our lovely friends over at Patons) please spread the word about our Born to Knit Schools Competition.

Or if you are a knitter just knitting because you were Born to Knit. We think you are fabulous. THANK YOU

Born to Knit boxes full of wonderful knitted squares.

Chai. Our lovely Born to Knit volunteer.

We had a great chat to Chai while she was in the office lending her knitting skills to our campaign and wanted to share some of it with you.

So Chai, how did you hear about our Born to Knit campaign? I discovered the campaign when reading the Sunday Age. I visited the World Wide Knit in Public day held at Federation square. I went with my children and all of their girlfriends. It was a lovely day.

How long have you been knitting for? Oh many, many years. I have been knitting on and off since grade two.

Wow. That is many years of knitting! In all that time what is your favourite thing that you have ever knitted? It would have to be the first thing that I ever knitted, which was a wooly for my mother. I needed some assistance in knitting the piece, but because it was for my mother it was the most rewarding piece I have ever knitted.

And what do you think are the best three things about knitting? It Allows me to have something to focus on, it keeps the fingers busy and allows them to exercise, and…. most importantly, I like knitting because it makes people happy.

We love it that you are helping us. But what made you choose to volunteer with Save the Children? Because Save the Children is an international charity. Back home in Malaysia, I heard about Save the Children’s child protection programs as well as how they help to find missing children. When coming to Australia, I made the connection between Save the Children Australia and Save the Children Malaysia.

And would you recommend other people to come in and help out with our Born to Knit campaign? (*we promise we didn’t bribe her here…) Of course, but time is a big factor. I am lucky, because while I am visiting my children in Australia, I have the time to come in and knit the large amount of squares you receive into blankets.

Thanks Chai.

So far we have received 160 blankets and 1922 squares to our office for the Born to Knit campaign. Very exciting. But it means we now need to sew those 1922 squares into blankets. If knitting makes you happy, just like Chai, and you could spare an hour or two, we would love to hear from you.

Send us an email  at borntoknit@savethechildren.org.au or call us on 03 8417 1400. Say hello, make us happy and let us know you can help us out. We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks.