The story so far ....

As part of its community outreach programme, each of the libraries in the Hornsby Shire started a “Wrap with Love” knitting group to provide a meeting place during the winter months for people wanting to knit for this charity.

Our group at Epping Library first met in May 2008 with 6 women.  By the end of August 2008 when the groups participated in the handover of wraps at the ABC Knit-In at Hornsby Library, we had 14 -18 participants, and had completed 28 wraps.  Instead of going into recess over the summer months we decided to continue meeting weekly, with only a short break over Christmas/New Year, as everyone enjoyed themselves so much. When the 2009 Knit-In was  held in August this year, we were be able to hand over 70 completed wraps to Wrap With Love.

Since August 2008, our numbers have grown – the Library has provided a larger space for us, and on any week there will be anywhere from 12 to 26 people in attendance. We have 40 members with a core group of people who attend each week, a number who knit at home and attend when their family commitments allow and some, from overseas, who will attend for a period of 3 or 4 months while they are in Australia visiting their families.

What started as a charity knitting group has become a focus for women from many of the nations represented in the Hornsby Shire, to come together for friendship, the sharing of skills and knowledge, and language practice.  The places of birth represented in our group include Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Germany, Sri Lanka, India, Italy, England, Argentina, Singapore, Turkey and China.

Isolation can be a major problem for non-English speaking members of the community, particularly older women and women at home with small children.  For these women, the group provides language practice and an opportunity to mix with native English speaker. We are able to provide information on English language classes at TAFE, community colleges and the TAFE Home Tutor Scheme to those who wish to expand their language skills. We often have women with little or no English looking at what we are doing. We approach these women and ask  – by a mixture of sign language and the help of others in the group who speak the same language, if they would like to join us. A number have, both older and younger women. Many cannot knit or crochet but are helped by other group members to learn.

In 2008 and again this year, we had an end of year celebration where everyone brought dishes from their homeland to share. The group enjoyed this and there was much discussion and sharing of recipes.

Winter Warm

As the group’s knitting skills have grown, we have added the “Winter Warm” project to our charity knitting. This gives our members the opportunity to increase their knitting skills from those required for simple squares to the more complex skills required to knit warm items of clothing for the many babies, and homeless children in Afghanistan who have to survive winters where the temperatures fall to -15C in the winter.

In the 2009 collection, the group gave the Winter Warm Project  49 items of clothing for babies and young children.