A national army of knitters is in desperate need of more volunteers to help them meet the growing demand for winter woollies.

Knit One Give One (KOGO) founder Ros Rogers said the organisation has already donated more than 55,000 items this year.

"The need has gone up, definitely," she said.

"This year we're having trouble keeping up with the demand for two reasons; we're becoming better known so people are asking for us, but the other thing is that there's just more demand.

"We're not even talking necessarily about the homeless, or people sleeping rough — we're talking about families who can't afford to run their heating."

Knitters benefit as much as recipients

The group, which started in 2004, has more than 5,000 knitters on their database, but some of those are knitting groups — meaning the number of individual knitters is estimated to be much higher.

Ms Rogers said they get feedback from volunteers and recipients who both benefit from the process.

"That's one of the things that I love about KOGO, it gives a lot of people a way to give back to the community, people who wouldn't otherwise, so the knitters get as much out of it," she said.

"We get a lot of feedback from the knitters saying 'thank you for giving me a purpose, thank you for giving me an outlet for my knitting because my kids don't need it anymore'.

"Occasionally we've had a letter from a homeless person.

"We got one email from a homeless lady which was very heart-wrenching, telling us how difficult her situation was and how a blanket from us was so heartwarming, not just the actual physical warmth, but the emotional warmth."

Beautiful buttons show the effort many volunteers go to. ( ABC News: Nicole Mills )

The group accepts all types of knitted or crocheted garments, including beanies, scarves, blankets and even toys.

They partner with about 300 community organisations who send them 'orders' — which are more like wish lists.

After packaging up orders, anything leftover at the Melbourne collection centre is donated to Foodbank which distributes about 25 per cent of all donated items.

Foodbank Victoria chief executive Dave McNamara said there was a great need in the community for warm clothes and blankets.

"While food makes up 99 per cent of what we distribute, household and personal products are also very much in demand by people struggling to make ends meet," he said.

"With heating and other costs of living hurting more Australians, we hope KOGO and its thousands of volunteer knitters keep up their wonderful work. [It's] appreciated by so many."

Volunteers knit all kinds of creative and colourful clothing, like these baby booties. ( ABC News: Nicole Mills )

Knitters can not keep up with demand

Yet despite the huge number of donations, they still can not satisfy the demand.

"Some people say it has been a colder winter — I actually don't think so," Ms Rogers said.

"I think it's been milder than what we've had, it's just the need that's so much greater unfortunately.

"Even if people have got heating, they can't afford to run it, so they need the warm clothes or the blankets."

Anyone wanting to volunteer can go to the KOGO website to find out where there closest drop off location is.

There are 60 sites across Victoria and Lincraft stores across Australia also collect donations.

Currently the greatest need is for items for older children and adults.