We love a hugely over-sized scarf here at Stitch and Bitch London, so we are big fans of the Big Draw Scarf in New York.
New York’s The Drawing Center and River to River Festival are attempting to knit a scarf that is 40,000 rows long to represent the 40,000 employees at the World Financial Center companies.
The idea is to grab your leftover yarn and half finished knits you know deep down you will never return to, stick them all togther, bring them along to a one of their Big Knit Ins, graft them onto their scarf and hey presto your knitting is part of this attempt at the world’s longest line, The Big Draw Scarf. Hurrah.
When we put out a call to all worldly knitters to help us with our London Lion Scarf project we did not expect the generous and overwhelming response we received from all corners of the globe. But perhaps the most enthusiastic and plentiful replies to our call came from S&B Johannesburg.
In a wonderful exchange of knitting group experience, group leader Gail e-mailed us to tell us a bit more about how their group started and has grown since its conception.
“Our S’nB group was at long last started in May last year. An ex-pat, called Miriam, from the Netherlands, and I had both been separately trying for a year to get a group started. I’d escaped Corporate Life and wanted to find others to share my hobby. We finally found each other via the International S’nB site in April ’06. Miriam had been involved in starting two S’nB groups before moving to SA. Miriam also found another interested person through the Internet and so we started with three of us.
We now have about 60 people on our database. Our S’nB get-togethers vary from 8 to 20 people at our Wednesday meetings, which we hold at the coffee shop in our LYS, Arthur Bales, in one of Johannesburg’s suburbs. (It’s a family business that’s been going since 1906. They have been fabulously supportive of our efforts to get knitters “out of the closet”). We do have a large yarn manufacturer in South Africa – Saprotex – which produces yarns under the “Elle” brand. Their biggest market is the Northern Hemisphere and so it’s hard to get them focused on promoting knitting on home turf.
Our sessions have ended up being a little complicated because we have people who only want to knit during the week in the morning. Others work, but are only available on certain nights (seldom on the SAME night). We try to do an evening session twice a month and then we do a Saturday morning once a month. The evening sessions are held at Seattle in Exclusive Books – our equivalent of Starbucks in a Borders Bookshop – at an up-market Mall in another suburb, which has movie theatres and several restaurants in it. On Saturdays we head back to our LYS which incidentally holds the agency for importing both Rowan Yarns and fabrics in to the country.
Part of the problem in arranging sessions is that we don’t have a convenient system of public transport. Several people travel ±40km to come to the sessions. One person, who, like you, is in remission, drives 150 km to come to a monthly knit. Georgia then spends the night at her daughter’s before heading home again. We look forward to the time when other groups start up so that people don’t travel so far.“
We wrote straight back to compare the similarities and differences between our two groups. It truly was an enlightening experience to know that people so far away were also meeting up for their regular dose of knitting solidarity – in this way we all shared a common bond.
When we received a huge package through the door baring the post markings of a South African delivery we instantly knew that Gail had fulfilled her promise to contribute to the scarf as much as S&B Johannesburg possibly could.
When we broke into the booty we found beautifully knitted sections including ones emblazened with the South African flag and colours, one fluffy pom-pom creation and the most amazing beaded piece.
These made our scarf a lot longer and colourful – so a huge thank you to Gail and S&B Johannesburg for all your hard work and help.
It was due to a lot of hard work by a lot of lovely people that all this took place. We were very sorry that some of the Lion Ladies (Grace and Emmy) could not make it for the big day. For the rest of them we take our knitted hats off. We couldn’t have warmed those beasts without you, and you should be as happy as a giant lion with an enormous scarf wrapped around your neck of what you have achieved.
(clockwise from the far left) Sarah, Danny, Mickey, Laura D, Joelle, Laura P, Frances, Sophie, Brigitte, Lauren, Natali, Candice and Margaret
Sophie, Lauren, Brigitte, Laura, Candice and Margaret (top)
Joelle and Frances (bottom)
Michael, Brett and Peter
Couldn’t have done it without you. And quite possibly wouldn’t have wanted to anyway as you’re all fabulous to warm lions with.
One of my favourite parts of Lion Bescarfing Day was meeting the lovely Beate and her sister and mum. Although I didn’t have very long to catch up with them all in the chaos.
Once one lion was warmed we swiftly moved onto the rest of them. The vision was to join all four lions in a liony extravaganza of loveliness…
And it was all going rather well.
Lion One done.
Lion Two done.
Lion three…
What was that? They want us to what?! Oooooh…
So the press descended upon our peaceful lion uniting plans and turned them into something which wasn’t quite the vision I had been seeing in my sleep for the past six months but was still pretty marvellous to behold.
They wanted as much scarf as we could get around one chilly beast (seemed unfair on the rest of them, but that is the press for you) for a photo opportunity.
So with our giant knitting needles, a couple of promotional-raising-money-for-Cancer-Research smiles and feet swinging in the wind we climbed between the paws of the favoured beast and got bescarfing.
“Throw the scarf over ‘is ‘ead!” They shouted from below. We tried our very best but the wind wasn’t having it. And to be quite frank it was a scarf, not a hat! Honestly!
Hard as we tried it wasn’t going to work. So in the end the press has to do with the scarf just being round his neck. Which I suspect the lion was quite pleased about too.
Once they had calmed down it was time for some serious photo taking. Look over here, smile, don’t smile, cheer, now look over here, climb up the side, pretend to arrange the scarf, climb down here, hold this banner, smile, don’t smile, hold this other banner, hold these needles, Laura here, Lauren here, Laura there, Lauren there, all with a giant Lion purring in our ears too.
ITV news appeared and did an interview with me. I can’t remember much of it except that my voice sounded incredibly posh and the lady interviewing me kept nodding encouragingly like I was at school.
All in all it was absolute media madness. Which was sort of the point.
At an ungodly hour over 550-foot of Lion Scarf came out of the underground and arrived where it belonged. Smack bang in the middle of London’s Trafalgar Square. You could practically hear he purring of the four giant beasts as they spied the enormous lengths of knitting appearing from the tube entrance.
Well you could have heard them if my heart had not been beating so loudly. Here we were, after all this time. And I have to admit I felt sick, sick, sick.
Five months of so much hard work: knitting, sewing, promoting, talking to press, organising meetings, apologising to the overworked postman, measuring lions, designing leaflets, learning to make a website from scratch, blogging (as you can see) as many stories as I could, photographing, pain-stakingly cataloguing where every part came from, how long it was and who knit it, printing t-shirts, chasing up logo designers, staying up till 4 am to make sure every knitting site on the Internet knew about it, knitting and reknitting my own Lion Scarf patch until it was perfect…
And it was all coming together around the necks of four giant lions smack bang in the middle of one of the biggest cities on the planet.
Sooooo I took a deep breath, the Lion Scarf Team grabbed some coffees (it had been a long night) and we waited for the chaos to begin. Laura and I climbed on a bench and did some kind of rousing pep talk which I cannot recall a bit of (and it is likely none of the people who I was meant to be pepping up do either). But it felt like the thing to do…
At exactly 11am it all began with Laura and I looking at each other in fear and what-shall-we-do now panic. But fear was not about to unhinge either of us. After allowing ourselves a moment of silent screaming we took charge.
Michael and Brett donned their Lion Scarf jackets (ooo shiny and yet safe) and with the help of the ladders they climbed each side of the beast.
Before this moment we hadn’t really had a chance to practice the whole bescarfing so I sort of played it by ear. One Lion Lad on one side, one on the other, and a few helpful Lion Ladies rushing about from side to side with the huge rolls of scarf. It began to work pretty well.
To our surprise there was Lion Number one all warm and bescarfed! Hurrah!
The night had been long, measuring 550ft of scarf, sewing in loose ends, and going through the logistics of placing scarves around giant Lion statues. We’d gone to bed far too late and woken up early to prepare for the madness ahead of us. It was a morning of nervous excitement at the task ahead as after months of planning we were nearing completion of what we had set out to do.
The scarves were rolled up into 4 giant spirals and put in clear sturdy IKEA bags. From the outside they looked like beautiful multicoloured snail shells. Slowly the team assembled, each hoisting a scarf on to their shoulder and so we were ready for the voyage into London.
Up the road we bounded lugging the cumbersome bags as best we could. All the while feeling not too sure about what was to face us. The weather was cold, windy and a little bit wet, but the troupe was bubbling with anticipation and energy.
Once at the station we waited for the train, praying that it wouldn’t be too packed. We managed to squeeze ourselves onto one carriage and keep the scarves out of harms way for the journey into waterloo. There were a few odd looks as we blurted out our feelings and thoughts on what was about to happen to a camcorder. But we were so full of butterflies we didn’t care.
At waterloo we squeezed through the barriers with the bags, got down to the tube in good time and were well and truly on our way.
Once at Charing Cross station we walked up the steps into the square and all felt a twang of fear as we faced the beasts we had set out to clothe all those months ago. The scarves had arrived, so had we; all that was left was to get them up there.
Our website
Once one lion was warmed we swiftly moved onto the rest of them. The vision was to join all four lions in a liony extravaganza of loveliness…
“Throw the scarf over ‘is ‘ead!” They shouted from below. We tried our very best but the wind wasn’t having it. And to be quite frank it was a scarf, not a hat! Honestly!
Sooooo I took a deep breath, the Lion Scarf Team grabbed some coffees (it had been a long night) and we waited for the chaos to begin. Laura and I climbed on a bench and did some kind of rousing pep talk which I cannot recall a bit of (and it is likely none of the people who I was meant to be pepping up do either). But it felt like the thing to do…
Michael and Brett donned their Lion Scarf jackets (ooo shiny and yet safe) and with the help of the ladders they climbed each side of the beast.
