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https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/entire-northern-ireland-village-knitted-wool-crochet-cloughmills-county-antrim>
"The Main Street of Cloughmills, Northern Ireland, is lined with neat,
two-story houses that flank a cluster of commerce—a local store, a butcher, a
post office, even an Indian takeaway. This quiet village of just a couple
thousand people, and five (five!) churches, has recently put itself on the map.
But not just any old map. These establishments, and many of the town’s other
buildings, have been enshrined in wool by the village’s ladies’ crochet group,
and publicly displayed in the town’s Memorial Orange Hall.
Local resident May Aitcheson started the club six years ago. Now, it has 30-odd
members, most of whom are retired. “I didn’t realize it would keep going the
way it’s done,” she told the
BBC. In May of last year the members got
together to begin work on the mammoth model of their village. They headed out
first with cameras, and then began to craft the houses and other buildings,
with six women in particular doing much of the work. They even created a few
sites that no longer exist, including the old shirt factory where many of the
members once worked. They finished the project in September.
Aitcheson had been inspired by a small model village she saw in Cushendall, a
similarly sized place some 15 miles away, “but ours snowballed,” she said. It’s
now too large to fit out of the doors of the hall, and will remain on display
for as long as there are visitors to come and see it. In the meantime, Jim
Witten from Cloughmills Community Action Team says, the project has brought the
village a lot of attention, with community groups from across the country
inspired by this marvel in wool, which has helped raise money for Macmillan
Nurses’ cancer support.
The group continues to get together weekly to “get the latest gossip,” member
Margaret Murphy said, though they’re still waiting on their next big idea.
“Maybe a model of Belfast, but we’d need lots of helpers for that one.”
Atlas
Obscura has images of their needlework."
Via Esther Schindler.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
