Knitter’s world
Alison White came up with the idea to transform her local church into a stunning ‘flower tower’ – we talked to her about the project that warmed the hearts of an entire community
Find out why Alison White wanted to cover her local bell tower in yarn flowers
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Alison, a textile artist and teacher, lives in the village of Barley, North Hertfordshire about 12 miles south of Cambridge, with her husband, Ian. “I first started knitting as a child – my grandma taught me to knit and my mother was an accomplished knitter,” she tells us. “In the early 1980s, I designed knitting patterns for the yarn company French Wools Ltd, which were featured in a number of magazines. I’ve always loved the physicality of the variety of textures of yarn as it runs through your fingers and how it is so endlessly versatile.”
Earlier this year, there seemed no end to the lockdown in sight. “We could not see friends or family and everyone was getting despondent – we needed a project that we could focus on, working individually yet together with a common aim,” says Alison. Inspired by the ceramic poppies spilling from the window at the Tower of London some years ago, Alison had a wonderful idea – to decorate the outside of the bell tower of the church in the centre of the village. The process began with a Zoom presentation for the parochial church council in early March. As soon as they agreed to the idea, Alison then put posters up around the village asking if people would like to get involved, as well as on the village and church Facebook pages. “We had a marvellous response,” smiles Alison. “The Village School, the Beaver Scouts and the local care home all got involved along with families and individuals. It then extended to friends and family further afield which resulted in parcels of woolly flowers arriving from all over, including a knitted duck from Australia from a lady who used to live in the village over 30 years ago and wanted to get involved as well as 50 crocheted Californian poppies from Bakersfield in the USA!”
Then came the task of planning a colour scheme, which was a challenge as the colours submitted were mainly from people’s leftover stashes of yarns and fabrics. Alison started with all the red flowers running vertically up the centre of the net, “but not in a straight line, more of a wavy line, then to the left, oranges, yellows and whites – and to the right, purples, pinks and blues,” describes Alison. Once the first two metres of the five-metre-wide net was completed, the scale of the project was becoming quite overwhelming. Luckily by this time it was mid-April and some of the lockdown restrictions were being lifted. Alison moved the nets and the bags of flowers that had now accumulated to the church. Six tables were borrowed from the village hall and were placed together to form one big table, which by luck was the exact width of the net. “Up to six people were now allowed to meet up inside so the sewing could be worked on as a team. Over the following weeks we worked two sessions a day sometimes.”
The display went up on 22 June 2021 with the assistance of the Royston Fire Service. Along with the Tower of London poppy display, inspiration came from the Barley Knitting Group who in pre-Covid times met twice a month to knit and natter in the pub, and often created community projects to make the locals smile. “I felt very proud to be part of such an amazing team on a project that involved such a lot of people,” says Alison. “I felt so relieved when the nets were hoisted into place – and it looked even better than I had hoped. Seeing so many people enjoying visiting the bell tower of the church makes me feel happy that they are happy.”
Find out more about the project here: www.facebook.com/barleyflowertower See Alison White’s textile art here: www.sheepythings.com
Written by Colette Earley