Time Taken Making Poppies in the Park

Poppies in the Park - Rowntree Park, York

It'll soon be time to take the Poppies in the Park installation down (Thursday 16 July 2015) and send them on their way to the York Branch of the British Legion (red poppies) and to the Friargate Quaker Meeting (white poppies).  It's been fun working with lots of different people to make them and we've had such a lot of positive comments.  

I thought it would be interesting to work out how long they took to make.  So with some actual info and some estimated, here's a rough idea ...

Gigantic Poppies - 190 cm in diameter

Gigantic Poppies - 1570 hours 

Making the individual handmade poppies  - 750 hours from the local community
Sorting and counting all the handmade poppies - 1.5 hours
Working out the size of the base petal shapes needed, cutting them out, making the knitted outline and stitching it in place - 9 hours
Attaching the poppies to the base - 18 hours
Making the finger knitted poppy centres - 5 hours
Finishing off - 1.5 hours

Total per poppy - 785 hours - that's 1570 hours for both poppies!

Giant Poppies - 1m in diameter

Giant Poppies (Extreme Kntting) - 32 hours

Dyeing and preparing the yarn - 6 hours
Knitting the poppy & stitching up - 5 hours
Finger knitting the centre - 3 hours
Attaching to the backing - 2 hours 

Total per poppy - 16 hours - that's 32 hours for both!

Big Poppies - Approx 60-70 cm diameter

Big Poppies (Big Knitting) - 24 hours

Preparing the yarn - 3 hours
Knitting the petals - 6 hours
Finger knitting the centre and stitching in place - 2 hours
Attaching to the backing - 1 hour

Total per poppy - 12 hours - that's 24 hours for both!

Total time making all the poppies - 1626 hours

That doesn't include all the planning, design, publicity, liaison, sponsorship, putting it up, taking it down etc.

So all in all if only one person did it all that's about a whole year's work (allowing for weekends and holidays).  Just as well lots of people joined in and made it all happen.  Thank you everyone - you know who you are!

Just some of the poppy makers!

Extreme Knitting Continues with a Giant White Poppy

Extreme knitting in progress - and now I have proper end stoppers on my needles thanks to Andy!

You may know that extreme knitting is a hobby of mine.  And you may also know that I've already knitted a giant red poppy.  Well - now I've also knitted a giant white poppy.  It's 1m in diameter and it took 1.36 kg of yarn made from cut up white sheets (which took a very long time to cut up!!). 

890g ball & 470g ball of extreme yarn - it took both balls!

More facts - the black centre is aproximately 27cm across and was finger knitted using 45m of super chunky, 45m of chunky and 90m of double knitting.  The finished finger knitting was then coiled in a spiral, stitched together and stitched onto the centre of the poppy.  My poppy also has 8 pompoms surrounding the centre for a bit of extra excitement!

Even more facts - if you're wondering about the needles they are 1.9m long and 50mm wide.  They are quite impressive even if I say so myself!  After knitting my giant red poppy I had some proper end stoppers put on as all the stitches kept falling off the ends.  Thanks, Andy!

Giant white poppy

 
"What is this poppy for?" I hear you ask.  It's going to be part of the Poppies in the Park Yarnstorming Installation of course.  There's one more workshop left if you want to come along:

Tuesday 2 June 2015 – Rowntree Park Café  Rowntree Park, Richardson Street, York, YO23 1JU 
14:00 – 16:00

It's a drop in workshop and all materials are provided

The Poppies in the Park installation goes up in Rowntree Park on Thursday 11 June (by the tennis courts, near the cafe) and will be on display until after the Rowntree Park Birthday Party on Sunday 12 July 2015. Keep looking - it'll be there soon!

Yarnstormed Giant Poppy in York for Remembrance Day

Giant Poppy - Lest we forget

You may have seen my post about extreme knitting and my giant poppy - well of course now is the right to time to put the giant poppy on display.  It is Remembrance Sunday today - a special day to remember the contribution of all those service men and women in the First and Second World Wars and later conflicts.

Giant Poppy in York

Poppies -  a symbol of remembrance and hope - were first sold in 1921 when the British Legion formed.  Poppies were the only thing that grew in the fields of northern France & Belgium after the devastating conflict of the First World War.  They inspired John MacCrae, a Canadian Serviceman to write the poem "In Flanders Fields" which in turn inspired the choice of a poppy as the symbol of remembrance. You can read about the story of the poppy here.  Funds raised from the poppy appeal are used to support the past and present Armed Forces community and their families.

Giant Poppy

If you would like to donate to the Poppy Appeal you can do so here.

This giant poppy will be in place in York until Armistice Day - 11 November.  Armistice Day - 11 November 1918 was the "stilling of arms" that marked the end of the First World War.

A Giant Poppy - More Extreme Knitting

Giant Poppy - detail

It's that time of year when we begin to think about poppies, symbols of remembrance and hope, especially as this year is the 100th anniversary of Britain entering into World War 1.  

I have been knitting a giant poppy on my extreme needles (1.9m long and 50mm in diameter).  As always with the extreme needles I find out something new every time I use them!  I used Lynn's Easy Ribbed Knit Pattern for the petals which I found on the web.  (This pattern is one suggested as part of Australia's 5000 Poppies project - a community tribute of respect and remembrance commemorating the Anzac Gallipoli landing.  Follow the link if you want to join in with that project)

Improvised end stopper

Back to the mechanics of it all - first challenge with such whopping needles, is finding some suitable yarn.  I used an old double duvet cover and pillowcases which I dyed red in the washing machine and then cut up into 6.5cm wide strips (2.5 inches) which I knotted together to form a ball of yarn.  Next,  I cast on my stitches - 60 in this case.  I haven't had so many stitches on my extreme needles before - and they stretched across the whole needle - and promptly fell off the other end!  So I improvised some end stoppers by wrapping some of my big yarn left over from other projects (e.g. the big jerseys in the Knit a Bike Installation in Rowntree Park earlier this year) on the bottom of both needles.  That worked a treat!

Yarn just about to run out!

It was rather tricky to guess whether I would have enough yarn from my duvet cover and pillowcases to finish my poppy.  And yes  - you guessed it - I ran out.  Fortunately I had a sheet waiting in the wings which I dyed and cut up to finish the job.  All in all my giant poppy used up about 175 metres of yarn. Next, I sewed up the poppy with my extra large sewing needle which is almost 20 cm (8 inches) long ...

So here we are - poppy petals complete.  They are about 90cm in diameter (3 feet) ...

Giant poppy petals complete!

Now it was time to create the centre.  I decided on finger knittng for this with some black super chunky, 2 lots of eyelash yarn and some double knitting yarn.  2.7 metres later with all the super chunky used up (200g) and about half the eyelash yarn (50g - 2 x 25g) and a fair bit of DK yarn, it was ready.  Once coiled up and stitched together, the slightly fluffy centre was approx. 30cm (12 inches) in diameter.

2.7 metres of finger knitting

Finger knitting coiled up to make the poppy centre

Now it was just a case of stitching the centre in place on the poppy. Et voilà ...

Giant knitted poppy in the garden

I'm hoping to use my poppy in a project next year - watch this space .....