NORWAY – Knitters at the Irish Ewe yarn shop are applying their craft to help those displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Store co-owner Dagny Lilley started “Knit for Katrina” to supply handmade hats and mittens for hurricane victims who have been relocated to Maine and New Hampshire.
The idea came from Lilley’s online support group for parents of autistic children. A member of the group decided against evacuating when the storm approached her Louisiana home, because the family feared the move would be harder for their autistic son than anything they might endure if they stayed home. When the storm passed, both parents and their two sons had drowned.
The family’s two teenage girls alone survived the hurricane. Another member of the online group offered them a place in her home in New York City, where the girls will soon experience their first real winter.
“The entire family is wiped out, doing what they thought was the right thing,” said Lilley, also the mother of an autistic son. “I looked at my kids and thought of them losing their homes, their families, going to a different state and not even having a hat.”
Lilley put her corps of dedicated knitters to work. She changed the shop’s Wednesday evening and Saturday afternoon knitting groups to Knit for Katrina groups, supplying patterns, acrylic yarn, and instruction for those who had never made a hat or mitten before.
Lilley said that 500 people have been relocated to shelters in New Hampshire and 300 to 400 more are arriving at Otis Air Force Base in Cape Cod, destined for Maine and Massachusetts. Most of these newcomers to New England will be completely unprepared for winter.
Lilley is making patterns and yarn available to anyone who wants to knit for Katrina victims. She is also accepting donations of yarn and knit items from nonsmoking homes. All hats, mittens and sweaters will be donated to the Red Cross for distribution to New England shelters. Lilley said that when and if the Red Cross no longer needs the donations, she will deliver the items to local elementary schools.
The project is a natural outgrowth of the Mitten Fence, one of the shop’s many programs. “It’s hard enough growing up poor,” the shop’s Web site states. “No one should have to grow up cold.” Any knitter who donates a pair of mittens or hat to hang on the mitten fence will receive a free pattern. When the fence is full, the items will be donated to local schools.
Lilley and her mother, Deb Wooley, enticed yarn enthusiasts to the shop through their Web log before the store had opened. The blog detailed the mother and daughter’s trials and tribulations in the days before the store’s May opening.
While Lilley got the store on Norway’s Main Street ready, Wooley was traveling across Ireland, buying yarn and arranging to import the products of Irish crafters. In her travels, she encountered Kerry Woolen Mills, in Ireland’s County Kerry. Wooley worked her magic, and the Irish Ewe is now the exclusive importer of the mill’s yarn, all made from the wool of organically raised sheep.
Information on programs and the shop’s full schedule of classes is available at www.theirishewe.com.
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