Woolly Christmas Trees

The Meldrum Church Christmas Tree Project runs throughout December and is now in its fourth year.  Our village church is decorated with trees contributed by local community groups, raising awareness, appealing for volunteers or just showing we exist! 

The first year my local knitting group, The Naughty Knitters, contributed a tree was 2022 - and it was made entirely from pompoms!  

My lovely late father-in-law made this tree, with its broom handle trunk and dowling branches, ages ago for me when I used to help out at Sunday School. 

 

After liberating it from the attic, and covering it in gold tinsel, I hung every pompom the knit group had made on it and added some fairy lights.  Voila - our very simple, but effective, first tree!

We'd more time to prepare for Christmas 2023 and the knit group started knitting these mini Santa hats well ahead of time.  They're designed to fit over a Fererro Rocher chocolate making cute, edible Christmas ornaments.  Small amounts of leftover wool in red, green and white were knitted up.  By the end of November we had collectively knitted over 100!  Some required a little finessing so I attached hanging loops, sewed on jingly bells and glued on tiny pompoms as required. 

Over the years I'd accumulated a lot of metal knitting needles, mostly unwanted craft supplies folks thought I could use or some, just one half of a pair.  The talented supportive spouse of one of our members (a retired engineer) fashioned them into a Christmas tree for our display.  Hanging up all our tiny knitted hats was very satisfying.

Ethmay helping to hang the hats!

We'd always intended to give the hats to Susan, our knit group member who fundraises tirelessly for the cancer unit at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.  

With Fererro Rocher generously donated by Oldmeldrum COOP, Susan was able to fill the hats and sell them at Meldrum Primary's Christmas Fair.  So far she's raised £67!

How to top that?  Well, during the latter half of 2024, the knit group decided to knit hats using any shade of green wool to decorate this year's tree.  Here's my contribution - three adult hats and two for kids.

As a group, we managed to use up a lot of  leftover green wool and knit a total of  64 hats and nine pairs of mittens.  We are not primarily charity knitters and fit this knitting in between our other personal knitting projects.  There's no obligation to take part - but everyone does!

This time the hats were attached to a traditional tree using clothes pegs I'd sprayed with silver paint.  Adding white lights enhanced the tree without detracting from the hats.  

It's our intention, after Christmas, to donate the adult hats to a charity for the homeless and the kid's hats and mittens to a local group which supports families in need.

Such is the enthusiasm of The Naughty Knitters, I've already received suggestions for next year's tree!

The 12 strong Oldmeldrum Naughty Knitters meet every Wednesday morning at Lochter.

 

Making A Difference (Part One)

I was intrigued by this photo of the Finnish snowboard coach, Antti Koskinen, knitting at the start of his event at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang last month.


 Social media reported that his team mates were also knitting - but what were they making?

Well, the team's knitted pieces were all stitched together to make a baby blanket.  Here it is being presented to the Finnish president whose wife had recently given birth to a baby boy.

This lovely gesture got me thinking about collaborative projects.  In general, the individual pieces are small and on their own they don't have much significance.  Put together, however, they have the Wow Factor.  A wonderful finished project   Altogether, they really make a difference!

So I decided this year I would make a difference too.  Each month I'd make something to contribute to a creative project comprising small pieces from lots of makers.  They'd each have a big impact when complete.

So in early January, I knitted a tiny jumper (from this charity pattern) as part of the celebratory bunting being created to mark the 100th episode of the Knit British podcast.  I love listening to Louise Scollay's regular podcasts as she enthuses the crafting community about the virtues of British yarn.  I know my wee jumper arrived safely as it featured on Louise's Instagram feed a few days after I posted it along with others she'd received.  Not only was the bunting displayed at the Knit British 100th episode party in Edinburgh in mid January, the bunting had another outing at Edinburgh Yarn Festival in February where it featured in the Podcaster's Lounge.  Photos below are by @knit_british and @mariette694

It had to be hearts for February!

I knitted five hearts and sent them off to be part of the Work of Heart Garden.  The pattern can be accessed through this website.

The Work of Heart Garden is the brainchild of Clare Young who is creating a full size knitted show garden installation in memory of her husband.  It will be on display at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival at the Three Counties Showground in Worcestershire from 10th to 13th May 2018.

The 4 metre square garden will include a hospice bedroom overgrown with knitted plants known for their healing properties.  As part of the installation Clare wants to include 10,000 'works of heart' - small knitted or crocheted hearts which will be made available to visitors to place on trees around the Work of Heart garden in return for a donation to the Sue Ryder Leckhampton Court Hospice which cared for her husband.  Clare hopes to raise £50,000. Let's hope my wee hearts help her on her way!

Pants??? 

No, my project for March was knitted squares.  (It just so happens that a mitred square starts off looking a bit like a pair of pants!)

Through Facebook, I learned that two enterprising ladies (known as Grans On The Make) were appealing for knitted squares to create a 13 foot commemorative poppy to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War.  When complete the poppy will be made up of 1568 squares, representing the number of days of the war.  The picture below shows the middle section of 992 squares.

As well as the giant poppy, they are also creating a panel on the reverse to commemorate the Votes for Women centenary.

When I contacted Pat, who's organising this mammoth project, she said they had enough red and green squares for the poppy but still required black and also squares in shades of purple, green and cream or white so that's what I made.  I recently learned the meaning of the British suffragette colours designed in 1908 - purple for loyalty, green for hope and white for purity.

The finished project will be revealed at The Creative Craft Show in Birmingham in November 2018.

I've had fun knitting all these meaningful makes.   Now I need to head off and see what I'm going to create in April to make a difference!

Woolly Hat Week

It's just been Woolly Hat Week here in the UK.  

 

The Sailor's Society asked everyone to 'Be A Hat Hero' and to wear a woolly hat to raise money to help seafarers in need.

The Society helps those who brave cold and dangerous seas to make world trade possible.  It's an international Christian charity which works in ports around the world and helps seafarers in practical ways.  Enabling contact with home which is so important for those away at sea for many months.  They also help with access to medical treatment and, in less developed countries, they build homes and schools and provide grants to bring hope and security to seafaring communities.

So, in support of The Sailor's Society, here's me and Geoff in our woolly hats!


You may know that my husband, Geoff, works in data management on board a hydrographic survey vessel on a four week work rotation (meaning he spends four weeks at sea followed by four weeks at home),  a job he has done since 1992.  You my not know that I also worked on a hydrographic survey vessel as a data processor over a three year period in the mid 1980's.

Here I am in July 1986 on board the MV Seaway Labrador with the DSV Seaway Harrier in the background at Ekofisk (probably contravening all health and safety rules nowadays!)

Though the vessels we've both worked on were mainly crewed by Norwegian sailors, as we've both worked mainly for Norwegian companies, it would be usual for some crew to hail from far more distant places such as the Cape Verde islands off Senegal or The Philippines or India.  Docking in ports such as Aberdeen and Peterhead, or Stavanger and Bergen could be a very chilly experience for those whose home ports were considerably warmer.  No wonder The Sailor's Society has an army of knitters making more than 10,000 woolly hats a year to give out to seafarers.

So I've decided to knit some hats for them.  Simple styles and serviceable colours - here's a couple I've made so far:

The Sailor's Society says "not only do the hats help keep seafarers warm, but it's a great feeling to know someone they have never met has spent time making them."

Well, that's giving me a warm glow - even when I'm not wearing my favourite handknit woolly hat!

Purpose

It's my first post of 2017 and my word of the year for 2017 is 'purpose'.

I chose a word for 2016 and that was 'kindness' - you can read about my word choice here. 

As I wrote when I chose my word last year, New Year resolutions are often broken a few days into January but a word is just a word.  I'm not making a promise to anyone or saying I'll do anything spectacular.  I'm just creating a focus for the things I choose to make and, who knows, perhaps for my life in a wider sense.

So, what about my word for 2016?  How did I incorporate kindness into my crafting and what happened as a result?

I contributed two crocheted squares to this Kindness Blanket Project I saw on Instagram.  The predominantly blue blanket was being created by Sarah-Louise Roberts to raffle in aid of Mind, the mental health charity, and her colour choice reflected the charity's logo.  Sarah-Louise received enough squares following her Instagram appeal to make two blankets, one of which is pictured above, and the raffle raised an excellent £604 for Mind when it was drawn in May.

I knitted a few hats to give away to different causes.  Two premature baby hats went to the Special Care Baby Unit at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness following an appeal by Louise on her Caithness Craft Collective Podcast and which I handed in at Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March.  The pink hat went into my Christmas gift shoebox for Romania, an initiative undertaken every year by my local church.  I made a couple of hats for fishermen, the black and maroon ones pictured above, to send to The Mission to Seafarers but will wait til I've made a few more before I send them off.

I crocheted a sheep for the Yarndale Wooly Sheep Project after reading about it on Lucy's Attic24 blog. Yarndale is an annual fibre festival held in Yorkshire each September.  This creative community project in 2016 saw all 700 of the donated knitted and crocheted sheep from 32 countries being sold in aid of Martin House Children's Hospice and raising over £3100.  Each sheep received was documented and recorded on a set of Pinterest boards here and I was able to find my wee sheep amongst them in the top row of this board.  Hope someone is loving owning her!

I donated these knitted mice to Battersea Dogs and Cats Home as toys for cats awaiting rehoming and received a lovely letter of thanks from Joe at Supporter Services.

My final make for charity in 2016 was a hot water bottle cover for Knitaid following an appeal by Helen of the Curious Handmade podcast.  She released a free pattern so that covers and bottles could be sent to Knitaid as part of their consignment of warm knitted goods to help refugees in Greece.

I'm also counting gifts I made for others as part of my 2016 personal kindness project.  I made and gifted these three crocheted shawls.  I wrote about the Thousand Kisses Shawl (pictured left) here and the Fortune's Shawlette in the middle, here.

And here's a round-up of all the other knitted items I made and gave as gifts this year.  A few of the hats and neck cosies appeared here in my previous blog post as I knitted them for Christmas.

The big picture shows a hat I knitted for my friend Vicki and she's wearing it in the wee black and white photo.  Her hat is made from Wool/silk from the Dye Ninja that I purchased at Edinburgh Yarn Festival and is gloriously soft.  I also love the pattern Koru by Truly Myrtle who, like Vicki, is from New Zealand.  Designer Libby (aka Truly Myrtle) says 'The lace and cable panel is reminiscent of New Zealand’s baby ferns, delicate and gently uncurling.' 

Finally, I made a wee hedgehog for my brother-in-law... because... he likes hedgehogs.

And if that isn't a kind thing to do, then what is?