Knitters create 7-foot wool King Charles III to celebrate coronation

By Douglas Whitbread via SWNS

A royally good team of knitters have created a 7-foot tall model of King Charles to celebrate his coronation - using more than 75 balls of wool over four painstaking months.

A team of 29 talented weavers created the incredible statue, which sits atop two red and green quilts and is on display on a village green.

The dazzling display also features a wheelbarrow full of pond life, spouting wellies and a regal watering can.

Anita Armitt, the founder of the Holmes Chapel Community Yarn Bombers in Cheshire, said the design was inspired by the King’s love of nature.

And she praised her members who worked tirelessly on crocheting different parts of the unique arrangement, which were fitted together to create the impressive work.

But Anita said the overall design was in fact kept secret from the knitters until the statue was finally unveiled to the general public last Sunday (April 23).

Anita said: “King Charles is into his ecology and his gardening.

“So we thought: ‘Let’s add a few garden things in, like butterflies, bees, a wheelbarrow, a spade with a robin on it, and bubble bees.

“But nobody knew what we were doing. They like that we keep it as an element of surprise.

“We’d say: ‘Do you want to knit a square or an insect or animal’ and then I’d privately message them giving them the pattern to go off and do it.

“We like to do things differently, and I don’t think there’s anybody else who has done a 7ft king.”

The retired full-time mum came up with the idea for the Yarn Bombers group during the pandemic when it was hard for residents in Knutsford, Cheshire, to go out.

And when the Queen’s jubilee came around in June last year, the knitters got together to create their first regal tribute to Elizabeth II.

Anita said: “I formed the Yarn Bombers during Covid because everybody was feeling a bit miserable and down because you couldn’t get out of the house.

“I thought, ‘Let's have something to focus on.' VE was coming up so I got them knitting for that.

"We were all knitting and crocheting from our own homes, which we still do."

Anita said following Elizabeth's passing, people in the village began to ask her if she was planning another piece to honor the new King Charles.

And after some discussion, she decided to center her new design around a 7ft lifelike manikin, before adding different touches to reflect his love of the natural world.

In the first week of January, she began the project with the help of co-director Nicola Swinnerton - and invited their members to begin knitting individual pieces for it.

She said: “I was buying the wool, and I put a list of what I wanted. Then I’d put the wool in a bag and leave it on my porch.

“They’d come and collect it and drop it off again. But nobody other than Nicola and myself knew what we were doing."

Anita said the response to the work, placed in the garden of St Luke’s Church, Holmes Chapel, had been very positive.

She added: “Everybody says the detail is magnificent, and they say it’s better than the queen. But I found that quite surprising.

“It’s in the church gardens. The vicar is thrilled to bits.”