Poulton knitters on a mission to save orphaned animals after Australia fires

St. Chad's Knit and Natter group knit and sew throughout the year for various community causes, but recently decided to help animals affected by the Australian bush fires.

The group formed three years ago and their creations have included 700 angels distributed within Poulton, 2.000 poppies for the 2019 Remembrance Sunday display in the churchyard, and 120 pairs of mittens to form a Christmas tree, which was donated to the Salvation Army afterwards.

Now the group have turned their efforts towards sewing and knitting joey pouches, 30 of which are needed for each individual animal, after members were concerned for the welfare of those in Australia affected by the bush fires.

Brenda Cross, of Vicarage Road, Poulton, said: "Our group is open to anyone in the community, and we wanted to do something to help these poor animals.

"We do lots of things for charity, the Salvation Army took the mittens we made and we raised £400 for the British Legion from the poppies we knitted.

"I found a group on Facebook who gives out patterns and information about customs, as there are specific requirements for the making of the pouches according to Australian customs rules."

Brenda found the Facebook group 'UK Crafters for Australia animal rescue effort' when she was searching for ways to help the injured animals, and followed the patterns they provided to create joey pouches.

The pouches are used to swaddle injured and orphaned baby animals including kangaroos, koalas, possums and wallabies affected by wildfires which have recently engulfed hundreds of thousands of hectares, and killed millions of animals.