The Rainbow Knitters of Haida Gwaii
June 28, 2019
The Rainbow Yarnbombing Project
The Haida Gwaii Knitting Club meets every Wednesday evening in the Port Clements branch of the Vancouver Island Regional Library. They welcome everyone — from beginners to experts, long-time residents to people who have just moved here. Members of the Haida Gwaii Knitting Club started working on the Rainbow Yarnbombing Project about a year ago. This yarnbombing grew out of two previous events organized by Knitting Club member, Anne Logan. In 2017, Anne organized a red/white afghan yarnbombing in Port Clements to celebrate Canada 150. Over 30 blankets were contributed. A couple of years before that, she organized a yarnbombing of the Pesuta shipwreck in Tlell. For the 2019 yarnbombing, the bombers really wanted to work with lots of colours. They had a vision of displaying multi-coloured blankets in a public location in Port Clements.
The Knitting Club applied to a local granting organization, the Gwaii Trust Society, and received a grant that enabled them to purchase yarn for the project. Through the fall and winter, they distributed packages of yarn to volunteer knitters and crocheters from all over Haida Gwaii.
As the blankets were completed, they were collected in the Port Clements library in piles on top of the bookshelves where everyone could see the progress of the project. At last count, they had more than 50 afghans!
After the yarnbombing, all the blankets will be donated to the local Transition House, the hospital, local palliative care patients, new babies, etc. The group hopes that their surprise Rainbow Yarnbombing (scheduled for June 29) will bring joy to the community and support the values of inclusion and respect for diversity.
The group would like to thanks Vancouver Island Regional Library, the Gwaii Trust and to all the knitters/crocheters who contributed to this project!
Anne Logan, Cindy Lowrie, Karen Christen, Ronda Bell, Joan Hein, Ruth Bellamy, Linda Leitch, Reine Pineault, Marg Fennell, Amber Fleming, Ruby Decock, Pat Parish, Delores Davis, Carolynn Lavoie, Selena Adams, Kelly Green, Jean Denham, Cyndi Bird, Bunny Decembrini, Linda Louis, Tina Ooishi, Jeannette Corry, Barbara Sanford, Diane Starr, Carol-Anne Stephens, Nikki Gamble, Trish
Jones, Kirby Jones, Natalie Smith, Penny Richardson, Su-san Brown, Leah Sankey, Carmene Charlton, Lisa Waring, Elaine Nyeholt, Alexandra Rinfret.
