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06
Apr 2022
Meet the women behind Ripon's royal miles of jubilee bunting
A team of dedicated knitters are creating Ripon's royal miles of bunting to wrap around the city in celebration of the Queen's platinum jubilee.
The all-woman Knit and Natter Club has combined needlecraft and design skills to make masses of red, white and blue bunting emblazoned with golden crowns and the initials E:R.
With less than two months to go until the extended June bank holiday jubilee weekend, organiser Hazel Barker told the Stray Ferret:
Collectively, thousands of hours of unrelenting effort has gone into this proud production line.
Mrs Barker, who was made a Freeman of the City of Ripon, for services to the community, said:
The knitters meet weekly at Hazel House, in the grounds of Community House
The weekly meetings are at Hazel House - a building in the grounds of Community House, named in honour of Mrs Barker for her work with the Girlguiding Association.
In addition to this, other knitters work from home, with regular supplies of wool provided for them.
The team, totalling 30, is also responsible for the countless hours of behind-the-scenes work that creates Ripon's Remembrance displays.
They are part of the Ripon Community Poppy Project, founded by Mrs Barker and Councillor Stuart Martin, to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War in 2018.
Funding for the project
The community project is funded by donations from members of the public and businesses and supported by organisations such as the North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service and an army of volunteers who put up the displays.
For the platinum jubilee display, £2,500 of the sum used to buy the wool, netting and other materials was raised from the sale of decorative covid masks with Christmas designs on them.
And it comes as no surprise to discover that those whose painstaking work will be seen on the city streets in June, are the women behind the masks as well.
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