Knitters Unite!

Can you resist these? They make you smile, and every one that's made and sold brings benefits all round. Check out the website and find them in Fair Trade stores - there are masses of different soft toy animals in wool and cotton as well as great sheepy teacosies and accessories

Kenana Knitters started in Njoro, Kenya 1998, to help rural women find some much needed form of income using their spinning and knitting skills.

They're a self-supporting knitting co-operative, they pay themselves a fair wage and the sales fund a range of welfare projects in Kenya.

Knitting is ideal. It requires minimal equipment, can be done in snatches when time permits. When the rains come and the family crops and vegetables need tending, not much knitting gets done, but in times of drought and crop failure, when the family garden is bare of supplementary vegetables, money can now be earned to purchase the necessities of life.

The group generates two forms of income; buying the wool locally then creating more work by turning the wool into marketable products such as toys, bed-covers, scarves, hats and other accessories.