A recurring theme in this blog is the celebration of people and/or organizations that have a positive impact on their communities. What they do is not easy, but it’s inspirational, and we don’t hear enough about them. So I’ve decided to commit to singing their praises at least once a month. I’ll be calling it Mid-Month Marvels. If you have any suggestions for the focus of this monthly spotlight, let me know in the comments below!
I absolutely love it when a solution to a problem is also fun, and in this case, cute as all get out.
Knits for Nature came about because the Penguin Foundation on Phillip Island in Australia was struggling to save area penguins from multiple oil spills. It seems the oil would coat their dense feathers, and the penguins would preen, ingest the oil, and die. Heartbreaking.
The foundation did its best to wash the oil from these poor creatures, but it’s a painstaking process, and a little penguin line would inevitably form. While they waited, they preened and… well, you get the picture. So someone got the idea that if they wore little penguin sweaters while they waited, they wouldn’t be able to get to their feathers, and they’d be kept warm to boot. Brilliant.
So now you can actually volunteer to knit a sweater for a penguin. These sweaters must be a specific design, and not have any adornment that a penguin could swallow. If you’re a knitter, you can download the sweater pattern here.
Needless to say, the Penguin Foundation receives a lot of sweaters that won’t fit or are potentially hazardous, so they came up with yet another brilliant idea. Why not put those sweaters on penguin plushies and sell them to raise money for the cause? So now they do that, too, and you can buy one, here, along with indulging in all your other penguin-loving needs.
It makes me wish I had the time and talent to knit these jumpers myself. It’s really heartwarming to go to the website and see a photo of a man who lived to be 110 years old who provided them with many a jumper. Good for him.
It’s sad that Knits for Nature is needed in this world, but having said that, how cute and fun is this project? I ask you, who doesn’t love a penguin in a sweater?
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The View from a Drawbridge 