Look what arrived today; a glorious collection of yarn and unfinished knitting. I'm in Heaven, which is quite appropriate as this was all donated by a UK convent that was sadly closing down. The nuns contacted Loving Hands to ask whether we could make use of their craft materials. One of the Loving Hands members, Helen, made several trips to the convent and came away with literally thousands of pounds worth of yarn, material, threads, needles etc.
Helen mentioned that there was some unfinished knitting. I had enough wool at the time, but said that I could finish the knitting if it just needed buttons or sewing up. I have oodles of buttons and I quite like sewing up....I know....I'm strange like that.
Well that was months ago. Helen had a garage almost the size of an aircraft hangar and spent weeks with helpers sorting the materials and boxing it up for anyone who asked for it. Loving Hands members knit, sew and crochet for charity so the nuns were happy that their materials were going to a good home.
Well, my parcel arrived today. I piled everything up on my brown sofa which was a bad choice as there is a lot of black and brown wool that doesn't really show up in the photo. But you can get the gist of it. There are some lovely balls of wool, some pieces waiting to be sewn together to make a teddy, and some knitting still on its needles. Seeing the needles was quite poignant. It makes me wonder about the stories behind why the knitting wasn't finished.
The teddy pieces are complete except for the main body. I can knit one in a different colour and make it look like a romper suit. The unfinished knitting is a bit more unfinished than I had bargained for. It seems to comprise jumper parts but no patterns to give me a clue as to how to proceed. The quality of the knitting is amazing. Some of it is Fair Isle which I would not be able to continue even if I had the extra wool or patience. I've decided the simplest thing will be for me to unravel the knitting and to reuse the yarn for my favourite hats, blankets and scarves. Whatever I do, it will all eventually be put to a good use.
Thank you to the nuns and a big thank you to Helen for sorting all this out and even for paying the postage on dozens of large parcels.
Helen has now finished distributing everything. But if anyone is curious about Loving Hands, now would be a good time to look at their website and to join the free forums. There is a wealth of information, patterns and the occasional freebie available.
i'm now going to spend a happy few hours unraveling and sorting the yarn. My idea of bliss........
Treasure Una, how lovely and another challenge for you, to finish off the uncompleted items and bust that stash of wool. Have fun ! :)
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a great challenge! I hope you enjoy it! xx
ReplyDeleteGosh that is kind of sad. Did the nuns move on to other convents? But what a wonderful thing that the yarn and needles are getting a new home.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember the full story. I think the nuns became too old and too few in number to keep the convent open. I expect those remaining moved to other convents. I have managed to unravel and save some lovely yarn. It seems to be mainly real wool which will be perfect for my charity hats and scarves. The quality of the knitting was really good so it seemed a shame to unravel it, but there was no way I could complete the items without patterns. One sad thing was that a nun was using knitting needles as dpns which must have been really awkward especially as there were different sizes!
DeleteWonderful that the love is going around and around
ReplyDelete