A WOMAN has put her hobby to good use, knitting thousands of blanket squares for charity.

Janet Smith, from Easingwold, has knitted 5,000 seven- inch squares in the past 18 months alone.

Yesterday, she was at the Oxfam shop in Thirsk Market Place with her latest batch.

Ms Smith is one of a number of people who knit the squares for Oxfam, which are stitched together to make blankets.

The blankets used to be put into storage until they were needed following an international crisis, but with storage costs soaring and stock building up, their destination has changed.

Now they are sold at music festivals such as Glastonbury and the Leeds Festival.

Shop manager Ellen Kershaw said: "It seems that many of the young people that go to the festivals are totally unprepared for the cold that they experience in the evenings.

"We found that if we set up a stall and sold them, they became a fashion accessory among the young and we can raise more money from them that way."