In the book of Ecclesiastes 3:1 it says ‘there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the sun’ and I can appreciate those words as I step down from running Wool ‘n’ Chat and as the group closes after ten years of meeting together (hopefully someone else will hear the call to start another St John’s Knitting Group).
The group began when chatting with my friend Rita about starting a knitting group in the church. We met with the vicar at the time, Richard Jones and so it began… We have had some wonderful meetings – full of chat, laughter, discussion and creating from wool and needlework. On one occasion, the then curate, Ian Jones paid us a visit and was shown how to knit, and when he left to be a vicar, one of our ladies made a knitted vicar doll for him.
In those early days we knitted our own projects, but as we became aware of many charities wanting knitted garments, we set to and provided knitted puppets, hats and gloves for Samaritans Purse, Teddies for Tragedies for children in third world or war torn countries, mother and baby squares for premature babies, and many other charities.
We have done smaller projects such as knitted angels which we put in shops for people to take and put on their Christmas tree, and we knitted Nativity characters for Tracey to put in Burscough shop windows during Advent, as part of our SJB Nativity Trail.
Some highlights over the years have be trips to Black Sheep Wools (Culceth) in 2016, Abakhan (North Wales) in 2017 and Coldspring Mill (Yorkshire). All of them a knitters heaven and the lurches were good as well. At Black Sheep Wools we were shown how to do arm knitting, but none of us have attempted it since.
We have also knitted for important events. In 2017 we started knitting poppies in preparation for the centenary of the end of the First World War and we invited and knitters in and around the village to participate. I visited local primary schools to ask for some pictures/paintings to go round the two main displays in Tesco and Booths. We were fortunate to have the help of Richard Houghton, founder and secretary of Burscough Military heritage Society who sourced two full sized metal horses from Pangea in Ormskirk and the school displays were put around the stands.
The second event was to celebrate the Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022. Burscough Town Council provided us with the funds to knit bunting – knitted chains and triangles in red, white and blue. We were also able to top the postbox outside the Post Office with objects linked to the Queen made by our most talented knitter and decorate some of the shop areas in the Wharf.
It has been a great ten years, I am so grateful to all those faithful knitters and I have some wonderful memories. In no particular order, I thank Sandra McCall for partnering me when Rita could no longer attend, Pat M, Olwen, Anne, Pat T, Christine, Pauline F and Pauline R, and all those who were there at the beginning – we were so young but time has crept up on us and mobility has become a problem. I thank Ruth Elliott for her expertise and wisdom and lovely Mary who came with her pusher. I thank all the knitters of Burscough who joined in with our village projects and Burscough Town Council for their support. I thank Lora for joining us in the final couple of months and young Emma (Tracey’s daughter) who is now an expert on crochet thanks to Ruth. I also thank St John the Baptist church for providing us with a warm space to knit and I thank God for making us creative human beings with a sense of humour and skill to produce such a variety of knitted, sewing and crocheted things.
“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” 2 Corinthians 13:14
Sue Hodgkins