The fabric of our community
Grand Woolly River Ride had them in stitches
CAMBRIDGE — Sue Sturdy, cool-headed under a hot September sun, was busy knit-picking.
“We’re trying to do a patchwork,” said the Galt fibre artist, conducting the jigsaw-puzzle assembly of a thousand mismatched woollen pieces into a massive Canadian flag in Dickson Park on Saturday afternoon.
“It’s like Canada. It’s a mosaic.”
And on the fully baked side of one of the city’s fastest toboggan hills, it came together, this multicoloured collage of stripe-riddled tube socks and gaudy Christmas cardigans at the fabricated climax of Saturday’s Grand Woolly River Ride.
How big was this tacked-together sesquicentennial art installation?
About the size of a typical outdoor skating rink, with a red-and-white “EH!” pretty much where centre ice would be.
The rest of the flag, beyond the Maple Leaf middle, was a kaleidoscopic collection of quilts and comforters.
About 50 volunteers trudged up and down the Dickson Hill slopes, setting up the improvised flag, reaping what a morning flotilla along the Grand had sewn.
Yes, water crafts, about 100 canoes and kayaks, had delivered these crafts.
That’s another unique hook for a crafty artist like Sturdy who, seven years ago, orchestrated the wrapping of the Main Street bridge’s concrete arches with cosy stitch work.
On Saturday, from Linear Park in Preston to River Bluffs in Galt, Sturdy’s artsy community-engagement armada rolled along the river with all quaint comforters and googlyeyed monster blankets they could carry zip-tied from bow-to-stern.
Once they landed in Galt, the knitting was removed by community helpers and lugged up the hill to be stretched out and dried under a relentless sun.
“It’s the second day of fall, right?” asked Devon Macey, a Conestoga College visual merchandizing student embracing
We have afghans from it that we can give to shelters or wherever they’re needed. SUE STURDY Fibre artist
Sturdy’s tactile approach to textile art.
“You could have fooled me. Feels like the second day of summer.”
And the river was calm and welcoming for Joni Gosselin, 63, and her daughter Brieanne, 30.
The mother-daughter paddlers, brought their woollens in separate kayaks on Saturday morning.
Past the fairways of Galt Country Club. Past the hospital. Past Galt Collegiate’s haunted towers. Between the piers of an old Canadian Pacific train bridge.
Sometimes, the water was too still — and shallow. Joni, hauling her red, purple and white needlework got stuck once. She called out to her daughter, who had pulled ahead.
“I kept saying, ‘I’m stuck! I’m stuck!” Joni recalled. “And somebody from behind said ‘No worries,’ and pushed me on my way.”
A little bumper-boat shove kept the Woolly River Ride from bogging down.
“Helping each other out,” said Brieanne from behind a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses. “Teamwork, you know?”
Helping others is the pull-itapart plan for patchwork flag, which also celebrates the 15th anniversary of the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, now that it’s put together.
It’ll stay intact on that Dickson Park hill until Oct. 4. Then, it’ll be cleaned before its many peculiar pieces go to those in need after a celebration at City Hall in November.
“Some of the knitting we’re going to take and repurpose into some pillows and some scarves,” Sturdy said. “We have afghans from it that we can give to shelters or wherever they’re needed.”
Until then, Saturday’s memorable stitches in time will keep the Woolly river riders seeing thread deep into autumn.
“Lots of laughing, lots of families,” Brieanne said. “Everyone coming together.”