Knitted figures, especially teddy bears, have always been popular, both as simple gifts and as craft projects. However, these days it’s not just Teddy who is knitted, but his entire picnic, friends, food, drink, and hammock to sleep it off in. (Jean Greenhowe’s Toy Collection).
A Knitted Nativity
In this area, a couple of years ago, there was much interest in a knitted nativity (or ‘Knitivity’) produced by a local churchgoer. For the weeks of Advent, this knitted display was passed from location to location, having a new ‘bed and breakfast‘ home within the parish every night and eventually being brought to the Crib Service at the church on Christmas Eve, where it took pride of place on the altar table. This year, St Albans Abbey has taken up the Knitivity baton, tweeting regular updates of their woollen family’s whereabouts as they tour the area. Our own Knitivity, meanwhile, is once again on the road and scheduled to be delivered to the churchgoer and her daughter on 10 December 2011.
Knitted Gifts are Sentimentally Valuable
I have in my own teddy bear den (lovingly assembled over 40 years of devoted arctophilia) two specimens of the same churchgoer’s creative talents, Terry and Barry, knitted for me when I arrived, somewhat lost and lonely, as a lodger in her daughter’s house several years ago. They, along with the blanket my mother knitted for me when I first moved out, are examples of carefully crafted, lovingly created personal items, whose sentimental value far outweighs their financial cost. In addition, most yarn carries notification if it is safe for babies and young children, therefore these personalised items make great birth or Christening gifts.
Knitted Dinosaurs
This year, Our Lady of the Flying Needles turned her attentions to dinosaurs and, prior to their adoption at the church Christmas Fair at the start of December, had recreated Jurassic Park in her daughter’s living room. The pterodactyls were particularly popular, she informed me, but there were also several Stegosauri, Brontosauri and T-Rexes.
More Regular Knitting is Ideal for Shoebox Santa
Other possible options for quick-to-produce patterns suitable for sale at Christmas craft fairs or inclusion in Shoebox Santa drives include the somewhat more prosaic and predictable scarves, hats, mittens, blankets made of knitted squares and what my mother calls ‘baby bovver boots’, a variation on the standard pastel shades of such items, similar to these featuring stripes, spots and highlights in bright shades of red, purple, black and vivid emerald green. For the more adventurous needlesmith, baby clothes patterns can be reworked to give a similar twist.
Pattern Amendment is the Norm
If you are lucky enough to know an expert knitter, you will know that the pattern as it appears on the page never stays like that for long. An imaginative project for primary schoolchildren would be to ask them to design simple patterns for knitted blankets using a certain number of squares. One of mine was the layout of a snooker table, which mum and her knitting friends produced for a sale at the local dogs‘ home. Rather like the quilts of the early American settlers, knitted blankets can free the imagination and the wool colours often suggest a theme: Autumn or rainbows, for instance.
Our Lady of the Flying Needles reports that the dinosaurs were fun to knit, but were not made in the colours or to the exact patterns originally specified, as she likes to experiment and produce unique work.
Knitting is once again popular, and need never be boring, with a little imagination. Several parishes across England have shown this, by knitting their own Christmas tree. So it is that churches in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire and Poole in Dorset are displaying trees which will be broken down and made into blankets for donation to charity.
Sources:
- Jean Greenhowe.com - Jean Greenhowe's Toys
- The trail of the knitted Nativity - BBC Cambridge, 15 December 2009
- Knitted Nativity spreads Christmas message in Cambridge - BBC Cambridge, 1 December 2011
- ABC Knitting Patterns - chunky baby booties
- Lancashire community knit Christmas tree - BBC Lancashire, 3 December 2011
- Poole's knitted 10 foot Christmas tree on display - BBC Dorset, 14 December 2011
All sites accessed during December 2011 throughout upload and updating process.
Paula Thomas - Paula is, among other things, an editor & proofreader. She also enjoys technology - retro or modern - travel, music, motorsport and ...
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