Sue Bond has e-mailed to ask if we would tell you about the Donkey Sanctuary appeal for keen knitters to come forward to help create hand-knitted woolly donkeys to raise funds for the centre.

The knitted donkeys, which are individually made by supporters of the sanctuary, are sold in the visitors centre in Sidmouth and online at http://www.donkeyworld.org.uk. They’ve been selling them for about a year, but this is the first time they've promoted them outside of their newsletter. More knitters are needed just to keep up with the demand. For anyone wanting to test out their knitting skills, the sanctuary provides a knitting pattern, which originally came from a 1954 edition of Women's Weekly magazine, and additional instructions. For further information about the Donkey Sanctuary, visit http://www.thedonkeysanctuary.org. To receive a free copy of the knitting pattern, contact Ruth in the community fundraising department on 01395-578222. You could also ask if a machine knitted donkey would be acceptable and we published a pattern on page 48 of the August 2008 magazine (Issue 127).