Knitting in the News: Squares for Sam and Sheep to Sweater

I came across a cute story about a school in Bakersfield, Calif., where kids are knitting for charity. This is a school with lots of at-risk kids, and clerk Lynne Eid decided to teach one fifth grader to knit who seemed in danger of dropping out of school. Eid now has a group of 60 knitters, some of whom get together at lunch daily to knit. They started out making a blanket for a teacher's grandchild who has cancer, and have since knit other blankets and charity projects.

The team with the Canadian record for the fastest time in the International Back-to-Back Wool Challenge completed their try at the competition and managed to beat their own record for taking wool from the sheep and turning it into a sweater in the same day. The team, known as the Toronto Spiders, includes one of the fastest knitters in the world. Cutting out breaks and having helpers to feed and massage the knitters slimmed their time from six hours, 18 seconds to five hours, 55 minutes and 50 seconds. The competition is ongoing around the world, so the winner won't be known until later this month.