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Gripping yarns: Discover knitting's weird and wonderful side

9 May 2019

It may bring to mind itchy jumpers made by your granny, but a new generation is taking knitting into amazingly creative directions. Here are some weird and wonderful examples - and if they've inspired you, the Get Creative Festival 2019 features all sorts of events where you can give it a go.

A woolly Andy Murray and one of Liverpool's Easter postbox toppers | Images © Ruth Bailey and Jackie Holt; Iain Watts/Mercury Press
Part of Great Yarmouth as created by 89-year-old Margaret Seaman

Knit the town!

An 89-year-old woman has recreated Great Yarmouth's Golden Mile in wool.

The four metre-long (14ft) knitted display captures Great Yarmouth in its 1970s heyday, when entertainers such as Sir Bruce Forsyth and Ronnie Corbett used to perform there.

Elsewhere, Oldland Common in South Gloucestershire has seen its bollards being covered in knitted versions of famous characters from film and TV – everything from Daleks, to Minions, to Springfield residents Marge and ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖr Simpson.

Knitted versions of Yoda, ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖr Simpson, Gnasher, Fred Flintstone, Marge Simpson, and Batman | Images © Oldland Knitted Bollards
'Counterknit' is a knitted £10 note created by Kate Talbot | Image © Kate Talbot

(Cannon)ball of wool

On The Leisure Society with Gemma Cairney, Kelley Deal from The Breeders talks about how knitting helped her while recovering from addiction.

Kay Coombes from Knitted Knockers UK with a pair of woollen prosthetic breasts

Knitted Knockers

The art of knitting is not just about making woolly toys or chunky sweaters – it can provide valuable help to people recovering from illness.

is a group of around 650 volunteers who make artificial breasts for women who have had mastectomies.

They won the People’s Choice Epic Award for making and supplying more than 2,000 prostheses a year to over 800 women, all free of charge.

Woollen Woods was launched in 2013 by Eden Arts, but can now be seen in installations throughout the UK.

Break-knit speed

Follow the 'how to' guides and you may, in time, be as skilled as Hazel Tindall – the Scot who was once crowned the world's fastest knitter! (Via ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ News Scotland)

More woolly stories

More information on Get Creative Festival