A small group of residents of Holmwood Lifecare in Rangiora have banded together to form a knitters social group and as one said, it gives them the spark of life.
Sue Davy helped start the conversation group about 18 months ago, along with Dorothy De Maine and four others.
“We met up to knit or crochet, and socialise, as we found it is a great way for new residents to get to know the lovely community we have here at Rangiora Lifecare’s Holmwood rest home and hospital.
“Arriving at a new place is always daunting and we wanted to help others settle in and get to know us all.
Jean Reed arrived at Holmwood one day with a bag full of knitted toys.

"So we started making them from patterns she bought with her.

"We found out one of the carers here has a daughter working as a registered nurse in the Orthopaedic Outpatients, at the Christchurch Hospital and so we thought it would be a good idea to donate the toys we make to them, to help the children in the emergency department there.”
So far, the group has sent two bags full of 30 toys to the hospital.
Some of these toys have gone to the children's medical and surgical wards, while one bag has already gone to Children’s Emergency.
They are all knitted with child safety in mind, no buttons are attached, just knitted eyes so the children can’t chew on them.
This follows on from the group contributing to a national Peggy squares appeal and making rugs for another charity.
Jean says she started knitting the toys during a Covid lockdown at the rest home.
“I thought I would go crazy without something to occupy my time with and so I took up knitting.”
The group has either knitted or crocheted a variety of toys including, dolls, ducks, rabbits, police cars and ambulances, rescue helicopters and an assortment of farm animals.
“It’s given us the spark of life because we know we are helping others with our work,” said Jean.
“It is a wonderful group to be involved with, and it allows us to talk about anything we want to during our knitting sessions, much of which can’t be printed,” she said with a smile.

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Social and friendly . . .The knitters conversation group at Holmwood Lifecare in Rangiora are (from left) Lorna Kitto, Dorothy De Maine, Shona Lamplugh, Sue Davy and Jean Reed. Photo: John Cosgrove