Project Facts and Statistics

• The Knitting Room was an initiative of Strathcare (now Uniting Aged Care Southern Tasmania), based at Strathaven nursing home.
• The project ran continuous for 4 years – 2003 to 2007.
• The final work was exhibited as a walk-through installation that covered an area of about 18 metres x 7 metres.
• A majority of participants contributed their creative skills through knitting, crochet, weaving and in stitching in a creative fashion. Others helped in a variety of ways no les important to the success of the project; coordinating local groups, assisting residents to fully participate, preparing support material, transporting participants, constructing the internal structures for displays, cooking cakes to fund the project, promoting the project etc.

Participants

Artists working on The Knitting Room:

• 2003 – Dawn Csutoros (Coordinator), Robyn Carney
• 2004 – 07 Robyn Carney (Coordinator and artist)
• 2004 – 07 Shirley Johnson
• 2005 – 07 Gwen Egg, Anita Fluckiger

Over 350 people were known to have participated in the project. Quite a number of casual contributors were not captured on record sheets.

• The youngest known participant was 7 and the oldest was 97.
• Five nursing homes and two schools regularly participated in the project
• About one third of participants were living in a residential care home.
• The remaining two thirds of participants were resident’s family, friends, nursing home staff, volunteers and community members including CWA members at Collinsvale and people from around the state.
• About 95% of participants had previous experience with knitting, crochet or weaving
• Over 80% of participants had no previous experience with any type of community art project
• On average, more than half (60%) of the participants initially felt they couldn’t contribute much to the project. Later surveys indicated all participants felt they had been involved and made a contribution to the project.
• Over 60% participants learned new skills (very likely many new skills were unrecognised).
• Over 60% participants shared their skills with others.
• 65% were pleasantly surprised by their achievements.
• 99% of participants enjoyed being part of The Knitting Room project and indicated they would be happy to join in other community-based projects.