National Knitting Week 2005

National Knitting Week 2005 proved itself to be the most successful event in the history of knitting!

Thank you to everyone who took part as an organiser, a participant, or both. You have helped to raise the profile of knitting and ensure its continued success as a popular craft as well as raising money for charities and other good causes.

We want to share with you some of the extraordinary events which took place.

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America

Iowa

 

England

Cornwall : The Celtic Challenge, Land's End v John O'Groats

National Knitting Week’s nominated charity is Help The Aged.  During the course of the day squares were knitted for a blanket to be donated to Help The Aged.  The lounge was buzzing with the sound of clicking knitting needles! A raffle was held, a proportion of the Land’s End car parking cost and craft stall charges was donated - all proceeds going to Help The Aged.Thanks go to Jaeger, Sirdar, Stylecraft and Groves + Banks for their donations and support for our day.

The challenge was to knit a jumper from a fleece in the quickest time. A fabulous effort was made from our Cornish team, many of whom hadn’t even met each other before this event!  The rules of the event meant that only 8 spinners and 8 knitters were allowed to be working at any one time so we were grateful for a big team which allowed most people to have a break! The Cornish spun and knitted a Cornish organic Romney fleece and the Scots did the same with a Scottish Cheviot. The Scottish were obviously well rehearsed and, not surprisingly, won this event – by about 3 hours! Well done to the Scottish Ladies!!. We’ve already challenged the Scots to a re-match next year!

The following schools attended Bolitho, Trythall, Sennen,St Leven and St Mary's Church of England School, Penzance. Julia gave the children a talk about the history of Cornish knitting and showed them a  whole Organic Fleece from Bosigran Farm, Zennor donated by Cornish Natural Yarns. The children were then shown the whole traditional process of turning a fleece into a garment and were then catapulted into the present day with modern technology – the satellite link with Scotland.Jo McIntosh, textile designer from St Ives, ran a hugely successful children’s workshop teaching the children to knit. Even the Headmaster, David Leek, from Trythall School tried his hand at knitting!!Jo’s class has proven so popular that she has been invited back to schools to carry on the classes.

The fashion show was organised by Angela Emery of Cornwall College, Camborne. Angela lectures in fashion, theatre make-up and media. The students modelled garments from Jaeger’s Cornish Collection, Sirdar, Debbie Bliss, Stylecraft, Seedpower etc.  Their hair, which was interwoven with wool, was done by level 2 and 3 from Cornwall College, Camborne Hair Dressing and Beauty Department.

Guinness World Record Attempt Knitting with the largest knitting needles in the world	A weaving loom called the 'Yarn Shifter' was a great hit with fellow craftspeople and the school children.

The Guinness World Record Attempt was successfully completed by Julia Hopson of Knit Wits wool shop (Penzance), Matt Hopson and James Morris-Marsham (both of Zennor Gig Club). We knitted with needles (oars) 3.9m long with a circumference of 20cm.  We knitted a piece 10 stitches wide by 10 rows long with 12mm rope. The attempt was officially witnessed by James Bladon from The Cornishman and Claire Crompton author of ‘The Knitter’s Bible’. All the evidence now has to be submitted to the Guinness Book of Records and we await official verification from them.

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East Sussex

About a dozen ladies came to the Kings Head pub in Battle. This was a first for us, both having a meeting and being part of a group that met in a pub !! Alan the barman made us very welcome and soon we were all drinking coffee and nattering while knitting. I took some of the new textured yarns and needles which were put to work as everyone tried knitting them and compared the results. It was ageed that we would meet again in a fortnights time, Saturday 29th October, 11am to 1pm.
Thank you for the encouragement to try something new

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Lancashire

Our event in Preston helped to raise funds for local charity Help a Local Child which is sponsored by radio station Rock FM. Preston Mayor Bhikhu Patel came along to show his support. Members of the public were invited to come and knit a few rows to a scarf in return for a £1 donation.  The scarf is still at the venue and we will continue the fundraising throughout the year and present the scarf and funds to the charity at National Knitting Week next year.

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London: Ealing

Our event was a great success.  We managed to promote knitting as well as raise some money for Barnardo's The event started off with 6 lads from Ealing Rugby Club joining us to help finish off a scarf in rugby club colours.  Although they were a bit nervous to begin with, they soon got into it (as you can see from the photos!).  Miriam Tegels was also there, helping the lads to knit as well as showing off here speedknitting skills. After the competition we invited shoppers to take part in our 'Learn to knit for Charity'. We were amazed at how many young people wanted to learn.

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Nottingham

Here we are at our in-house Adult Learn to Knit event at Dee's Patchwork Barn and The Wool Shop in Edwinstowe. We had great fun! The pins and yarns were donated by Sirdar

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Nottingham

As part of National Knitting week, Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham held an' Interknit Café' in the gallery. The idea of the event was a relaxed gathering with tea and cakes, for people to share patterns and ideas, and for beginners to learn to knit. Turn out exceeded all expectations, proving how popular knitting really is, with a complete mixture of people of all ages and levels of experience - from complete beginners, who had never picked up needles before, to those who had been knitting for years.

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York

Here in York, England, our LYS 'Sheepish' organised a knit cruise to celebrate National Knitting Week.  Dorothy, the owner decided to make this a charitable event for breast cancer charities.  All the ladies were asked to wear pink and when we arrived at the cruise boat at the side of the Ouse we discovered that the crew had also been kitted out in pink scarves, they looked pretty fetching on the burly tanned guys.  The boat too was decked with pink balloons, local radio and press photographers saw us off, and along the route we got lots of waves from other boat passengers (pun intended LOL) and people strolling beside the river.  It was a fantastic day, warm and sunny and we mostly sat on the top deck. We were invited to select two balls of knitting wool from the enormous pile that had been donated from the yarn spinners, cast on 20 stitches and knit a scarf.  These are to be sold at the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate to benefit breast cancer charities.  We had a really fun time, chatting and laughing and it was lovely seeing the different wools being transformed into lovely scarves.

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Scotland

Angus

During National Knitting Week, a group of 8 Occupational Therapists (including one brave male member of staff) at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, admitted that they either could not knit or had difficulty with knitting. Head Therapist, Lin Neilson, arranged 2 lunchtime sessions to teach the basics to those who couldn't and a refresher to those who could. Thanks to support from skilled helpers, Joy Aiton and Shona Crabb, the public should now have confidence in their Occupational Therapist and can be assured that they have now been brought up to speed in this ancient, but fully essential art.

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Caithness

The fleece being carded and spun	The jumper in progress	Hazel Tindell lending a hand	The finished item

The competiton took place at John O'Groats and Land's End with a two way video link set up by Caithness and Sutherland Enterprise to demonstrate Broadband just arriving in the John O'Groats area. The link was live all day so both teams could see each other on a screen. In Caithnesss the event took place in the Seaview hotel. The competiton involved knitting a jumper in the day starting with a fleece then carding and spining the wool and knitting the jumper. The race using the same size etc was won by the Highland team who had the jumper on the model first. During the day a raffle was held at the Caithness end with funds raised going to Caithness General Hopsital League of Friends and the Balmore animal Welfare Centre

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Wales

It was all ‘go’ at Colinette Yarns’ Banwy Workshops in mid-Wales during the National Knitting Week when their ‘Ready, Steady – Knit’ event got off to a flying start on Thursday, 13th October during the highly successful National Knitting Week. Under starter’s orders on the day were the two teams of ‘Knit’ and Purl’ each headed by a Colour or Style Doctor, and at the stroke of 10 o’clock, they were off! Knitting commenced in fine style, with the eager team members vying with each other to get going.  Ideas spilled over in an abundance of enthusiasm that was channelled into either individual or team efforts against the steady background ticking of the clock. For this was a race with a difference, with the end results being the goal, not the team to get first past the post with their completed effort. There was much good-natured banter between the teams as they raced through their lunch-hours, still knitting furiously - although one team member expressed herself creatively in crochet, despite the title of the event – and reached the home straight in good time to display their final endeavours, which were then judged by Colinette Sansbury, the winning team being declared the ‘Knit’ team, lead victoriously by Diane. The event was covered in some style by local newspapers and radio and BBC TV Wales even along sent along a camera crew. It is hoped that the finished items created by both teams will shortly be uploaded onto the Colinette website for everyone to view.