Care home in Diss (Norfolk) donates knitted scarves to local school

I started the knitting club up as a social activity as well as having a goal to work towards…

The children of Roydon Primary School in Diss will be decked out in the finest scarves this autumn, thanks to the knitting club at De Lucy House care home.

During the COVID-19 lockdown periods, many people took up new hobbies to fill their newfound time, as did the residents of the Greensleeves Care home in Diss, by setting up a knitting club.

In normal times, the De Lucy House residents would usually be out and about with family and friends, on trips to local attractions, or entertaining guests and performers within the home; however, as the range of activities had to be scaled back, the residents and activities team came up with some new ideas to keep everybody busy and entertained.

Activities Co-ordinator at De Lucy House, Nikki Clark, described how the knitting club came about, saying:

“I started the knitting club up as a social activity as well as having a goal to work towards… Some of our ladies’ hands won’t allow them to knit, but I got them to come over for coffee and a chat, and sometimes they try a bit of basic stitching such as sewing name labels into clothes.”

“We had originally decided to knit for the school’s reading club children that use to come to De Lucy House once a week to practise reading to our residents, but the ladies got very productive, and we soon had over forty little scarves!”

One of the knitters, Elsie, hand-delivered the scarves to local Roydon Primary School, where the lovely Darcie and James of Year 1 were there to greet her and collect the scarves for their classmates. Darcie and James said they loved the choice of colours, which included every colour of the rainbow.

It may be too hot for scarves right now, but with the unpredictable British weather, who knows when the scarves might come in handy? In the meantime, the children have made use of the scarves by using them to count and measure colours.

The knitting club is changing the world stitch by stitch, as they have now voted on their next project, which is going to be the Cats Protection. They are already busy knitting blankets, as well as mice stuffed with catnip to give to all the cats that get rehomed through the charity.

To find out more about De Lucy House, visit: