Our vision is of a place where local people of all ages can come together, feel part of our community, learn from each other and celebrate our remarkable heritage.
We want to give the Caerphilly Miners back to the community!
Craft Wall
Our craft groups have shared some of their creations as inspiration. Please get n touch to find out more about our craft class, and things you can do from home until our doors open again.
Craft Wall
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The Knitting Project
-2020-
We started our Knitting Project during lockdown to support our local community with a therapeutic task of knitting rectangles to make blankets for the vulnerable in refuges and sheltered housing in Caerphilly.
Here is our first Facebook post recruiting volunteers on 10th June 2020 and we were overwhelmed with the response:-
INSTRUCTIONS FOR RECTANGLES ARE BELOW, 👇
Cast on 40 stitches using double knit wool and 4mm needles (old size 8). Working in garter stitch (every row knit) work until your rectangle measures 10 1/2 inches (approx. 110 rows) x 8 inches. Cast off. You can knit as many or few as you like in any colour.
Wool can be purchased from Poundland, Home Bargains, B&M, Discount shop (Pentrebane St), C n K Haberdashery (Indoor market) and Poundstretchers in town. Thanks.
LOOKING FOR KNITTERS FOR OUR COMMUNITY PROJECT❤️🌈
- COULD YOU HELP TO KNIT RECTANGLES or PUT BLANKETS TOGETHER? -
We're looking for volunteers to help knit rectangles to create attractive, colourful blankets for the Caerphilly Benefice for needy families in our community, sheltered residential homes and refuges. We're also looking for volunteers to help put blankets together. It's a great project to be involved with as not only is knitting therapeutic but you also have the added satisfaction that you're helping to support your community. We'll be so grateful to receive all of your knitted rectangles at our Centre when we're allowed to open again. THANKS😍
Knitting Project Update - November 2020
Wow look at all of the blankets that came flooding in! What an amazing community effort! We're stunned by the response to this project and by the standard of quality put into making these beautiful blankets. Caerphilly is full of talented knitters.
We'd like to say a big, big 'Thank You' to everyone that's been involved in this project and to let you know that without your support we wouldn't be able to help many of the vulnerable and elderly people in our local community.
Thank you
Diolch
Beautiful, small, knitted blankets
These beautiful, colourful, vibrant, small, knitted knee blankets will shortly be distributed to sheltered and residential homes in the Caerphilly borough.
Beautiful, large, knitted blankets
These beautiful, colourful, vibrant, large, knitted knee blankets will shortly be distributed to refuges in the Caerphilly borough.
Knitting Project Update - 27th October 2020
The lockdown has shown how important it is to have something constructive to do and when we relaunched our annual knitting project in June our Facebook post reached 23,059 people and engaged 2,485 people (the most ever!). Over 30 knitters contacted us from across the county and between them have created over 450 10.5” x 8” rectangles. We sorted these into colourful bundles of 25 and during the lockdown appealed through Facebook for help to crochet them together and for more rectangles! This again reached over 11,000 people. Just before the National Fire Break we distributed 17 bundles of rectangles for crocheting into knee and full-sized blankets.
Many of the knitters, aged between 18 and 87 years, have taken part in Zoom meetings to decide where the finished blankets should go. The project has inspired people to think beyond their own four walls and have the satisfaction of doing something for our community. In previous years Caerphilly Miners has contributed its 12 blankets to the local Benefice; this year, we are working with the sheltered housing schemes in Caerphilly to distribute them more widely across the county in time for Christmas.
By popular demand, we’re carrying on with this project beyond November and are planning to collect the blankets again in the spring. In the meantime, we’ll continue to Zoom every 6-8 weeks as the social part of this project is just as important as the blankets! If you would like to take part, contact Katherine
Instructions:
Cast on 40 stitches using double knit wool and 4mm needles (old size 8). Working in garter stitch (every row knit) work until your rectangle measures 10 ½ inches (approx. 110 rows). Cast off.
Knitting Project Update - 13/10/20
We’ve had over 300 rectangles delivered to our centre and have sorted them by size and colour into 12 bundles each with 25 rectangles. They are lovely, thank you!
If you’d like to be part of this, please would you:
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Continue to knit the rectangles (8 x 10.5 inches) if you’d like to
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Bring in any completed knitted rectangles (if you can crochet and want to make up the blankets (5 x 5) please do so)
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Let us know if you will crochet the rectangles together (we’ll contact those of you who have offered in the next few days)
Our plan is to get the completed blankets & knee blankets to sheltered and residential homes and refuges by the end of November.
And the donations start pouring in!
A beautiful blanket crocheted together
Your donations being colour sorted
Caerphilly Miners Centre for the Community
Notes of meeting: Knitting project held on Zoom on Wednesday 7 October 2020
Present: Sheila Hopkins, Katherine Hughes, Ruth Starr, Marion Watts.
Apologies: Susan Jones, Anwen Hill, Jenny Church, Diane Britt, Lynda Hawkins, Sally Keene, Carol Boyes, Jenni Jones-Annetts, Dawn Cole, Susan Masters, Karen Masters, Victoria Roper.
It was reported that Kate was no longer able to coordinate this and we would need to complete it ourselves. The key challenges are:
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to reach everyone to get them to bring in their rectangles
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everyone to get them to bring in their rectangles
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to get a team who can crochet them together
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to distribute them.
We have received around 200 rectangles to date. These are of differing sizes.
