UK Hand Knitting Home

Press Releases 2008

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The Great British PicKnit

With great pride and excitement the UK Hand Knitting Association are pleased to announce that the Great British PicKnit will be unveiled at International Craft & Hobby Fairs (ICHF) this autumn. The life-size knitted picnic was inspired by Shaun the Sheep and his friends – stars of a 40 part series from Aardman animations that was the first ever stand-alone animation commission from Children’s BBC.

Shaun is a loveable character with a big following, so this was a great opportunity to involve knitters in a bit of creative fun and at the same time to support the Wallace and Gromit Children’s Foundation.

This picnic, which features Shaun the sheep and his friends having fun and enjoying a barbeque and other tasty treats, was co-sponsored by the UK Hand Knitting Association, ICHF and Future Publishing’s Simply Knitting magazine. The credit for this unique work must go to the creativity of all of the knitters across the UK who contributed towards the project. There seems to be no end to their imagination and the scene is set with everything from a knitted tree, a field and a picnic hamper, to a kite and a barbecue!

The PicKnit follows the success of the World’s first ever life-sized knitted garden that was lovingly created by over 300 knitters and crocheters in 2006/2007.

The Great British PicKnit can be seen in all its splendour at:

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Hazel Tindall: New International Speed Knitting Champion 2008

"I am delighted to have won the 2008 competition and grateful for the sponsorship of UK Hand Knitting Association. After hearing about the competition some people have been inspired to pick up their needles again. The best way to learn about knitting is to meet more experienced knitters so I'm pleased to see so much useful information about knitting groups/clubs listed on www.ukhandknitting.com website where such help can be found.

I'd like to dedicate my success to all the speedy Shetland knitters whose work had to be top quality and quickly produced in order to keep their families from starvation."

Hazel's Report About The Event:

At the Mall of America on 16 February 2008 five knitters representing Canada, France, Netherlands, UK and USA took part in an International Fastest Knitter Competition. Knitters used size 5mm knitting needles and 100% wool supplied by the Craft Yarn Council of America, with 60 stitches on each row. Each knitted as many stitches as she could in three minutes, three times. The best score from their three trials was used to decide the winner.

Hazel Tindall, representing the UK and sponsored by UK Hand Knitting Association, was the winner. She knitted 241, 247 and 262 stitches in the three minute trials. The best score for the runner up, Miriam Tegels from the Netherlands, was 243.

The UKHKA Press Office Response:

The UKHKA are keen to promote the craft which is currently thriving. Young 20 somethings are joining the 100's of knitting groups around the UK (some in London have 700+ members!) They are all enthusiastic knitters who love the craft.
In London Lite magazine yesterday, in 'Quotes Today', Kate Nash said her ambition for this year was to learn to knit. This was just prior to the Brit Awards on TV where she won an award. We have lots of examples that we can provide, celebrity or otherwise, that helps illustrate and substantiate the fact that young people are really enthusiastic about picking up their pins and they are knitting and purling at the same time as socialising in pubs, clubs and cafes. When they are not together they keep in touch through blogs and newsletters and are having loads of fun, meeting new people and being creative!

"The UK Hand Knitting Association is dedicated to passing on knitting and crochet skills to the next generation."

Click here for more news about Hazel's achievements

Click here for more details about the other competitors

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Knit-Out & Fastest Knitter/Crocheter Schedule For 'Knit Out' Minneapolis 2008

Competition
The final competition for the Fastest Knitter & Crocheter is 4 p.m. on Saturday, February 16th 2008.

Location
The Mall of America is the largest retail mall in the United States. It is totally enclosed so that the temperature is always 72 degrees Fahrenheit and there are four levels of stores and restaurants. The competition will be held on a stage in the Rotunda area, which is located on the first floor of the Mall. The Rotunda is an atrium. Visitors gather on each of the higher floors, as well as around the stage.

The Mall averages 100,000 visitors a day so there are a great number of people and the noise level is high.

Rules
Because of the noise level and to help each competitor to acclimate to the surroundings, we will have three, three minute trials. Competitors can select the best score from their three trials.

Yarn & Needles
We will be using a 100% merino wool yarn with a Super Wash finish. The yarn (Moda Dea Washable Wool) is classified as a “crepe” twist, which has a nice tight twist and the Super Wash finish makes it easy to handle.

All contestants must use the same yarn in the competition.

Contestants can use their own needles and hooks as long as they are the size noted in the rules, i.e., 5 mm knitting needle and 6 mm crochet hook.

No accessories, such a yarn belts, are allowed.

We will have samples of the yarn waiting for the competitors, so that they can practice in advance of the competition.

Knitting: Size 5 mm/8 needles
(size 8 circular needles are allowed)
Entrants will be required to begin with 60 stitches on one needle. Garter (knit) stitch is the required stitch. Official will verify the number of stitches prior to the time trial and mark the beginning row.

Crocheting: Crochet: Size 6 mm/J hook
Entrants will be required to begin with 20 stitches crocheted. (Foundation row must be 23 chains. 3 chain turn.) Double crochet is the required stitch. Official will verify the number of stitches prior to the time trial and mark the beginning row.

Time Trials
The clock will be set for 3 minutes and count down to zero. Buzzer will sound when time is up. Official will count the completed stitches made during this 3-minute period and record it on your official entry form. Entrant and official will sign the form.

Click here to read the latest news on Speed Knitting

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Hazel Tindall: UK's Fastest Knitter

Since becoming the UK's Speed Knitting Champion in 2004, I’ve continued doing what I always did – designing and knitting garments for myself, family and friends.  For a few years, through contacts in Orkney and the USA who organise knitting tours to Shetland, I’ve met several groups of knitters to show them my designs, demonstrate and answer questions.  Meeting those people made me realise that my knitting is precious and I now photograph most things I knit before I give them away.  After a photo of one of my designs appeared in a knitting book (the author had bought it from the charity shop I’d donated it to), I keep my old sweaters and now I’d never give one for a dog’s bed!

The day after the competition I was interviewed for BBC World Service – this was heard by Miriam Tegels in the Netherlands.  Miriam was inspired to organise a fast knitting challenge which attracted the attention of a journalist from the Wall Street Journal.  He phoned me a few times prior to publication of an article about fast knitting on the front page of his newspaper!

Immediately after the 2004 competition I was invited to appear on the Paul O’Grady Show which went out live – an interesting experience.  The researcher told me I’d have an hour to knit a hat but taking into account the time spent on opening and closing the programme I’m sure I had about 50 minutes to knit.  I did manage a hat but had forgot to ask for a needle so failed to join the seam in the time.  What most people here remember is that I sat next to Donnie Osmond – and I never got his autograph!  He did tell me he’d learned to knit when he was a teenager.

In Shetland I was invited to participate in a BBC Radio Shetland programme and talk about knitting.  Thanks to Hazel Hughson, Shetland’s Indigenous Crafts Officer, I was asked to start off Shetland’s Muckle Gravit – an attempt to knit the world’s longest scarf.  The Gravit, accompanied by it’s diary, has toured the length and breadth of Shetland and continues to grow; I saw it again at Shetland Craft Association’s pre-Christmas fair in December.

In April 2005, along with my husband, I visited the John C Campbell Folk School in North Carolina (USA) where I passed on my knowledge of lace knitting to a group of enthusiasts.  Being invited there had nothing to do with being the World’s Fastest Knitter as the whole ethos of the folk school is strictly non-competitive.  Winning the competition did make it possible to go there as the payment covered our expenses (I cannot get paid for instructing there but get a contribution towards my travel costs).  It was a very enjoyable week in one of the most relaxing and energising places I’ve visited.

In October 2005 I travelled to John o’ Groats where the spinners and knitters had accepted a challenge from their opposite numbers in Cornwall to spin and knit a sweater to a specified pattern as fast as possible.  I wasn’t part of the team but did a bit of demonstrating and a lot of chatting.

Prompted by an earlier feature, I wrote an article for Knitting magazine which was published in issue 20, January 2006.

In April 2006 we travelled to Orkney to enjoy a short holiday with friends who had travelled over from America.  One of them had earlier told me she’d love to have something I’d knitted so I gave her a short colourful bolero which I’d knitted with her in mind.  That led me to knit several more boleros, improving the design with each one.

In April 2007 our elder son married so I was kept busy in the preceding weeks knitting wraps for the bride, two bridesmaids and flowergirl – it was a cold day so they appreciated the extra warmth between the photos.  The wraps were all different styles (to minimise boredom) and knitted in everyday yarn so that they could wash and wear for years to come.  Also for the big day I designed and knitted myself a jacket and crocheted a beaded necklace (finished the night before!). 

Early in the year, and again after the wedding I spent many hours editing my mother’s record of her early life, which we hope will be published this year, so I did no knitting at all for many weeks. 

In June and July I got my knitting and crochet out again, producing a few garments for the local show in August and the Shetland Guild of Spinners, Dyers, Weavers and Knitters’ annual competition/display in October.

In August 2007 a colleague brought me some yarn and asked me to design and knit her a short sleeved jacket for a wedding.  I do have photos.

In October 2007 I again visited John C Campbell Folk School where I shared Fair Isle knitting expertise.  To my surprise, the Folk School’s blacksmith made me two pairs of beautiful knitting needles (the first pair are too heavy) which are 5mm, the size required in Minneapolis.  They are a little heavy but I think I’d like to use them.  While in the USA I was asked to give a demonstration in a knitting shop and was humbled when between 30 and 40 interested knitters came to watch, question and chat.

In November 2007 a neighbour told me that she was setting up a website to market products designed in Shetland and asked if I had anything I’d like to sell.  The two items she chose can be seen on www.designedinshetland.co.uk.

The knitting instructor at the school where I work has had her pupils involved in The Children's Society’s 'Biggest Christmas Stocking Challenge'so I helped knit for that at two schools in December 2007.  She was also given yarn and needles by UKHKA's which she used to knit squares for blankets.  I helped knit on several of these squares and this week a blanket will be presented to the Aith branch of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution – the village where I live is home to the most northerly of the RNLI’s lifeboats.

At the end of 2007 I, along with other members of Shetland Guild of Spinners, Dyers, Weavers and Knitters, was invited to experiment with one ply Shetland yarn to produce a scarf or other small item which could be considered for sale in the Shetland Museum shop.  I much prefer Fair Isle knitting but am experimenting but with displeasing results so far!

In January 2008 I was invited to Glasgow to take part in Britain’s Got Talent but travelling at short notice is not easy.  I work in a school and my contract says my holidays should be taken only when the school is closed to pupils – as I am taking time off in February, seeking more time in January might be pushing the limits too far!  Also my sister and I are main carers for our mother and aunt so travel away from Shetland has to be planned.

Winning the competition in 2004 has not changed anything – apart from raising a few eyebrows and smiles here and there!!   I see myself as representing the many knitters in Shetland who could match, if not beat, my knitting speed – though I do regret that their average age will be quite high.

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Extreme Knitting: East Meets West For Charity Event

Julia Hopson (owner of Knit Wits wool shop in Penzance and Cornish Organic Wool Ltd) and her Guinness World Record Needles were invited to Hong Kong for a charity knitting event just before Christmas. 

Julia says, “we received an email from Betake Marketing in Hong Kong inviting me out for a charity event, all expenses paid. They initially invited me on my own but they didn’t appreciate quite how big my needles are (3.5m long, 65cm diameter) so I explained that I’d need to bring my husband, Matt, to carry them and change the needles round at the end of each row when I was knitting.”

The next problem Julia and Matt faced was simply getting the needles out there.  Some carriers are reluctant to carry odd shaped cargo (notably British Airways will no longer carry surf boards) so their travel agent rose to the challenge and Air New Zealand stepped into the breach (obviously with all those sheep they’re used to bizarre woolly related items!).  “The next challenge,” says Julia “was to get the needles to Heathrow from Penzance – they’re not exactly your average luggage on British Rail”.  Amazingly, the Chinese agreed to pay for a car to carry Julia, Matt and the giant needles to Heathrow and back again and they found a taxi company with a people carrier which, with seats removed, just fitted the needles.

“We did wait with some trepidation in Hong Kong airport to see if the needles appeared”, says Julia, “obviously they wouldn’t fit on the usual luggage carousel – but, lo and behold, they appeared on a special trolley being wheeled by a curious Chinese porter!”.

Julia and Matt spent 3 days in Hong Kong and were amazed by how much it’s changed since they were last there in 1991.  The biggest changes were the number of new tower blocks (even the harbour is now being reclaimed for more building land) and, sadly, the amount of pollution - with smog over the city most of the time.  Julia says, “we hear about the pollution from China and the effect it’s having on the environment all the time, but to see it first hand was quite alarming, however we weren’t there to make political statements  - we were there to knit and, to be honest, if I’d paid for someone to travel that far I’d have made them work far harder than we did!”.  After an initial photo shoot on day one they had a day free for shopping, “perfect just before Christmas and with two boys at home” and then the big event was on the third day. 

Julia explains, “it turns out that our tickets had been sponsored by The Sunshine City Plaza shopping mall in the New Territories.  Apparently, it’s very common to hold ‘events’ in shopping malls in the run up to Christmas to attract shoppers.  For some unknown reason someone decided to have a knitting theme – hence our appearance.  I had to knit as many stitches as possible and for each stitch that I knitted the owners of the mall were going to give 10 presents to the St James Settlement Charity for the poor and elderly of Hong Kong.  We were a little surprised to find posters with my face on them all over the Mall – a little disconcerting especially as all the writing around was Chinese so we had no idea what it said!  Then someone turned up with a copy of that day’s local paper and there was a whole page with photos of me and the giant needles at Tregenna Castle in St Ives when I did the record knit – it was all rather bizarre, but it was going to get a whole lot more bizarre before the event was over!”

One of the problems had been the question of what to knit with – something the Chinese hosts, not being knitters themselves, hadn’t thought about.  In the past Julia has knitted with nylon rope but she and Matt decided, this time, they would use their very own Cornish Organic Wool.  Julia says, “we had experimented with 50 strands of our wool at the same time and the result was very attractive so, having just been certified for dyed organic wool, Matt dyed up 9 colours which, with the cream, allowed us to knit with 5 strands of each colour to make 50 strands.  The result is a very thick, textured wall hanging or rug!”. 

“For the event itself I had to sit on a stage wearing a voluminous t-shirt I had been supplied with, with the name of the shopping mall on it in Chinese, and knit with my 50 strands of wool.  A well-known Hong Kong TV personality, Tavia Yeung, was in front of me being interviewed by a Hong Kong DJ and she then came and had a go at knitting (even though she confessed to me she’s never knitted before in her life – I’m hoping I converted her!) and then she went to the front of the stage to sing.  The TV cameras were in front of us and Tavia’s ardent fans were singing along, word for word, in the front row.  It really was the most surreal experience I have ever had”, says Julia.  “I have to confess that, at one point, I thought I was going to get the giggles but I managed to keep control.”  In the end Julia knitted 80 stitches so the mall was able to give away 800 presents – they were delighted and so was Julia although she did say she offered to knit for longer but they said it wasn’t necessary!

“We left the spare wool behind so the ardent knitters of Hong Kong can now knit up their own items in Cornish Organic Wool”, says Julia, who also managed to find time to pop into the wool shop to be greeted with, “Ah, here’s Julia!”.  “The only wool shop in the world where I walk in and they know who I am and it just so happens to be in Hong Kong”, she says, “I managed to pick up some Noro which was far cheaper than the UK so I can now knit myself a jacket which will always remind me of the wonderful time we had and the fantastic hospitality of our hosts and the Chinese people”.

The final footnote to the weekend was the huge fuss made of Julia and Matt when they arrived at Hong Kong airport (at 5.30am!) with the Air New Zealand check-in staff, and other travellers, taking photographs of Julia and her extraordinary needles.  “Matt said, a couple of times during the flight, ‘I hope the needles are on board’”, says Julia, “I kept saying, of course they are – especially after all the fuss they made of us”.  But they weren’t!  “We stood by the carousel and waited and waited and eventually a porter asked us what the problem was and they checked the plane and there were no needles”.  They were finally delivered to us at home in Penzance at 9.15pm on Christmas Eve – now that’s what you call service!