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Margaret Dell is 100 years old, and her eyes get tired. But the Bethesda resident, who’s been knitting since she was six, says, “I can knit with my eyes closed.”

And with an open heart: Dell is one of more than 200 volunteers who knit and crochet baby blankets for the Christ Child Society’s layette program, which provides blankets for at-risk newborns.

All over the region, people are knitting for a cause.

At National Museum of the Marine Corps’ “knit-ins,” volunteers make helmet liners for soldiers in Iraq. The Orphan Foundation of America collects red scarves for care packages sent to college kids who have no family. Project Linus accepts blankets for children in hospitals and shelters. Afghans for Afghans sends blankets to children in that war-torn country.

“Five or six years ago, knitting became cool again,” says Holly Daymude of Knit Happens, a yarn shop in Alexandria. “A lot of people learned to do basic things like scarves, but there are only so many scarves one person can have. People started coming up with ideas on how to give back.”

It’s not just grandmothers with needles: “Knitting’s in vogue with teenagers,” says Christ Child’s Robin Kramer. Among their knitters is a group of girls at Connelly School of the Holy Child in Potomac.

Don’t know how to knit? Many organizations offer free lessons.

>>Want more ways to do good? Check out our full charity package.