Freitag, 21. Oktober 2011

Strickzeit ....Knitting time

Photo credit: Toby Zerna/Newspix/Rex USA

Although it looks very much alike, it's not a fashion show!
Back in 2005 in Australia, tiny fairy penguins Toby and Percina modeled sweaters that were being sent for the rehabilitation of penguins involved in oil spills.
It was not for the first time that sweaters for penguins were needed, and not for the last time. Just recently lots of knitting activities were seen around the globe..

Photo credit:Getty Images file
found here

A little blue penguin from Papamoa Beach was covered in oil after a Liberian cargo ship hit a reef on Oct. 7 in Tauranga, New Zealand. According to the Associated Press, the oil spill, which began after a cargo ship containing 1,700 tonnes of heavy fuel oil and 200 tonnes of marine diesel oil ran aground on October 5, has already left 1,300 birds dead and already cost New Zealand $3.2 million for cleanup.


Adorable Penguins Need Sweaters, Too

"Awww. Apparently folks in New Zealand have been knitting sweaters for the penguins swimming in toxic waters in the wake of the Taurunga oil spill. The sweaters prevent the little guys from preening oil off their feathers (and then ingesting it, which can be fatal) until workers can clean them off. So if your knitting skills are advanced enough to bind off stitches for flipper holes, now would be the time to put them to use."(source)


Creation by lela nargi


How to knit the sweaters

Note:
It is recommended to use 100 percent wool yarn

Materials:
1 pair 3.25mm, 1 pair of 3.75mm needles 1 set of 3.25mm dpn's or circular

Method
:
1. Cast on 36 stitches using 3.25 needles.K1, P1 to end of row.

2. Repeat this row 7 times.
3. Change to 3.75mm needles and K2, P2 rib.

4. Work 4 rows increasing at each end of every row.
(44 sts) Continue until work measures 15 cms.

5. Decrease 1 st at each end of every row until 28 sts remain.
Decrease 1 st. in middle of next row (27 sts.) Leave on needle. Make second side the same.

6. Transfer the 54 sts from both pieces to 3 of the set of 4 3.25mm needles.
(18 sts on each.) and work a round neck in K1 P1 rib for 10 rows. Cast off.

7. Stitch up sides to decreasing to 27sts (opening for flipper).
8 . Add elastic to the top and bottom to prevent the penguins getting out of them.
Top: 15cm of elastic; bottom 17 cm (knots allowed). Flat elastic okay.


For more information, visit the Skeinz website.
Sweaters can be sent to:
PO Box 3123, Onekawa, Napier

found here

The sweaters serve a dual purpose of keeping the penguins warm until rescuers clean them and preventing the birds from cleaning themselves while they are coated with poisonous oil.

Auch in Schweden wird gestrickt...

Swedish grannies in bid to save freezing penguins

A gaggle of needle-wielding Swedish pensioners and other residents in the village of Österbymo have heeded a call for knitted sweaters to help keep penguins warm following a recent oil spill in New Zealand. “I bet there are about 40 people working on the sweaters,” Anna-Karin Gustafsson, one of the organizers of the initiative, told The Local.

Gustafsson is the treasurer of a Kreativitetshuset Lyan, a local community centre located in Österbymo in central Sweden which decided to take action to help New Zealand's freezing penguins.Hundreds of the country's native blue penguins found themselves caught up in an oil spill caused by the grounding of a cargo ship in early October.

When penguin feathers come in contact with oil, it opens up channels in the birds' densely packed feathers, allowing water to penetrate through to their skin, making it hard for them to keep warm.


Last week, Gustafsson and her colleagues learned of an initiative launched by a New Zealand yarn store calling on fleet-fingered knitters around the world to produce penguin-sized jumpers to help the birds stay warm until they are well enough to be properly washed and to prevent them from ingesting the oil stuck to their feathers.


“It seemed obvious that we should do a little something that could make a difference between life and death for these little penguins,” said Gustafsson, a self-proclaimed “animal nut”.
An appeal put out on Facebook earlier in the week prompted an overwhelming response from the local community and also caught the attention of the national media.

“The hardest thing was actually getting a hold of enough of the right kind of yarn,” Gustafsson explained.
By Wednesday, the community centre had distributed “tonnes” of patterns to members young and old, who, by the end of the week, were all busy knitting as fast as their fingers allowed, according to Gustafsson.

“My mother-in-law has already finished three sweaters,” she said, adding that the group has set a goal of producing 100 penguin jumpers to send to New Zealand by the end of next week.
“We'll meet again on Monday to start collecting the sweaters. I'm guessing we'll get a big box full.” Once the sweaters are collected, Gustafsson and her colleagues plan to ship them to the yarn store in New Zealand that started the campaign, which will then see to it that they end up on the backs of the oil-damaged penguins.

She said the entire project has been an uplifting experience for her.
“It's great for the penguins. And it shows that when everyone pitches in, anything is possible,” she said. When asked whether any plans are afoot for members of the Lyan community centre to travel from Sweden to New Zealand for a first hand look at the penguin sweaters in action, Gustafsson said that nothing has been organized yet. “But it's not impossible. We'll see where things go. It would be fun to see the penguins dressed up in the sweaters we made,” she said.

found here incl. some additional infos about previous knitting activities

Photo credit: Anna Zieminski / AFP - Getty Images file
Found here

In 2000, a group of penguins were rescued off the coast of South Africa after getting caught in an oil spill from a sunken carrier ship. Sweaters helped them stay warm while they recovered.


There was also a very informative comment in connection with the Swedish article sharing the experience of penguin cleaning in South Africa. Oiling is the biggest single threat also to African penguins. Oiled penguins lose the water-proofing on their feathers and swallow the oil as they try to clean themselves. Ships use seawater to clean out their tanks at sea which causes more pollution than an oil spillage. Oil spill disasters create instant crises. In 2000 the cargo ship The Treasure sank off Cape Town leaving 20,000 African penguins covered in oil.There is a South African charity called SANCCOB. Each year, 1000 oiled penguins are brought to their rehabilitation centre near Cape Town. Volunteers at SANCCOB help to de-oil, clean them, and nurse them back to health.Volunteers are taught how to catch, hold, feed and tube feed the penguins until they can be released into the wild which takes up to 6 weeks. Other daily tasks involve the preparation of fish, cleaning the pens, pools and mats, sterilizing syringes and more. "But be warned, as cute as they are, penguins will bite given the opportunity. "

After an oil spill near Philip Island in Tasmania in 2000, a penguin was clad in a knitted sweater in an attempt to prevent it from ingesting oil.
Read more about it here


And here a video



Sources:
-
Adorable penguins need sweater/ NYmag com October 2011
-
Sweaters for the penguins/ Phoenix Newtimes 20.10.2011
-
Knit a Sweater, Help a Penguin in Need/etsy com 18.10.2011 or here
-A good yarn: Knitters make sweaters for penguins after oil spill/MSN 20.10.2011
-Swedish grannies in bid to save freezing penguins/10.11.2011
-
New Zealand oil spill: grounded ship threatens environmental disaster/Guardian 09.10.2011

Related:
- Rennen gegen die Zeit. Oil spill threatens 20 000 rare Rockhopper penguins/20.03.2011

More:
- The great penguin rescue/Talk by Dyan Napoli
-
US schoolgirl helps to raise $100,000 for oil spill charities/Guardian 15.06.2010

2 Kommentare:

Anonym hat gesagt…

Liebe Birgit,

solche Stulpen sind zurzeit für Hände und Waden groß in Mode. Die "Ganzkörpers-Stulpenträger" sind allerliebst - sogar mit Strickanleitung. Der Anlass dazu ist zwar ernsthafter Natur und deshalb ist zu hoffen, dass sie wohlbehalten wieder in die Freiheit entlassen werden können.

Liebe Grüße
Britta-Gudrun

Simba hat gesagt…

Mir hat das minzgrüne Ensemble besonders gut gefallen..))