As some of you may know, I am currently getting ready to embark on the trip of a lifetime to Australia and New Zealand (!!!!!!!!). Unfortunately though, the farmers of rural Australia are experiencing a severe drought this winter (remember, it’s winter in the southern hemisphere right now). This means that they don’t have the usual amount of food to feed their animals, and are struggling to get by.

More specifically, many of the mother sheep are rejecting their newborn lambs so that they can focus on their own survival. Consequently, the lambs started dying from the cold.

Australian knitters did not accept this tragedy, and instead rallied around their craft. A Facebook group was started, and soon knitters from all over Australia were mailing in hand-knitted lamb sweaters. The organizers were then distributing them to farmers in need. The Facebook page is now full of happy pictures and posts from farmers about how thankful they are and what a difference the sweaters have made for their lambs.

Since I had just finished up a sweater for myself, and I was getting ready to head down under, I decided to get involved! My plan is to finish up the sweater here, bring it with me to Australia, and then put it in the local mail once I get there.

Sheep give us the gift of wool (and hence yarn), so I think it’s pretty cool that all these knitters rallied together to give that gift back to sheep in their time of need.

If you’d like to get involved, check out this article in The Canberra Times or the Lamb Jumpers “Helping Our Farmers” Facebook group.