The Project 

 

The Knit to Live Project was set up with the intention of raising awareness of the significant benefits of knitting on mental illness and getting people picking up their needles. Knitting has the potential to help people struggling with mental illness to cope with their problems, reduce the stress, tension and anxiety they are feeling, and to reduce the symptoms of depression.

 

The problem with this is that many people struggling with depression are often lethargic and listless, and have a hard time enjoying anything. This can make starting a project seem like a herculean task, especially if there are lots of fancy stitches to learn and difficult skills to master. The Knit to Live Project has come up with a knitting pattern that is designed to be so simple that anyone can do it! To begin you only need to know a minimum of two incredibly basic stitches which you can learn here, and you practice as you go along. Once you have finished you will have a beautiful handcrafted jumper that you made entirely yourself. Now I think that is something to be pretty proud of! 

 

Raising Awareness

 

Even if you are not a sufferer yourself, with 1 in 4 people experiencing mental health issues in any given year, the likelihood is you know someone who is struggling (even if you don't know that they are!) By getting involved with the project and making people aware of it you could potentially change someone's life! Now how amazing is that? 

 

As a side note, it's not only sufferers of mental illness who can benefit from taking up knitting; knitting can help keep your stress levels low, your confidence high, and because it uses both hemispheres of the brain, it could also have the potential to delay or even prevent Dementia or Alzheimer's disease! So why not pick up a pair of needles and get knitting? Who knows how it might change your life!