Phillip’s knitting aids worthy causes
The pastime he’s been doing for 53 years has primarily been to support worthy causes and over the past few months has been focussing on knitting red poppies to give students at a Traralgon primary school to display to mark Remembrance Day on November 11.
The “could knit blind folded” might be a throw-away line but it’s not far off the mark for vision impaired Phillip who has double vision.
He now lives at Moe but travels to Warragul one day a week for activity sessions at the Vision Australia centre.
Phillip said he learned to knit as an eight year-old living in a boys’ home and when he saw some of the female staff knitting he had the “cheek” to ask them to teach him. He’s barely put down the needles since. Phillip said he’d knitted some jumpers for himself over the years but most of what he’s made has been for charities.
“I’ve lost count of how many beanies I’ve knitted for the Samaritans’ Purse Shoe Box project – each box contains something to wear, play with, to be used at school, to love and for personal hygiene – that are distributed around the world to children living in poverty or affected by natural disasters”.
He has also knitted blankets for the homeless and even pouches for baby animals such as wombats and possums that have been left without a mother to protect them. “I enjoy it”. It’s good to know what I knit goes to a good case, Phillip said.