{"id":135594,"date":"2025-10-21T08:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T08:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/135594\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T08:00:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T08:00:15","slug":"it-probably-saved-my-life-during-covid-inside-irelands-thriving-knitting-sewing-and-crochet-circles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/135594\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It probably saved my life during Covid\u2019: Inside Ireland\u2019s thriving knitting, sewing and crochet circles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Knitting and crocheting are cosy pastimes that also bring a sense of accomplishment, friendship and community to those who practise the crafts\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Aoife Rooney (centre) with members of a knitting group in Walkinstown Library, Co Dublin. Photo: Mark Condren\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Knitting feature 011.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Aoife Rooney (centre) with members of a knitting group in Walkinstown Library, Co Dublin. Photo: Mark Condren<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Shaun the Sheep is celebrating a milestone birthday this year. The lovable stop-motion character from Wallace and Gromit has donned a chevron patterned woollen jumper to mark the occasion as part of the \u2018Can Ewe Knit It?\u2019 campaign. They are encouraging crafters to weave, knit or crochet a blanket square inspired by the sheep of the moment, and each square will be joined together to create blankets for unhoused people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Ireland has had a long and rich history with the craft of knitting, dating back as far as medieval Ireland, with the famous Aran jumper with cable knit being developed on the islands of the same name in the early 1900s. Knitting has seen a recent popularisation in culture of late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Knitting and crocheting are cosy pastimes that also bring a sense of accomplishment, friendship and community to those&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[23203,18,19,17,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-135594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-aoife-rooney","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}