Residents knit 200m scarf to wrap around Horncastle care home

Residents have knitted a scarf long enough to wrap around their care home.

The idea for the 200m (656ft) long scarf came about after one of the residents at the Tanglewood Care Home in Horncastle, Lincolnshire said she wanted to learn to knit as she had been unable to sleep during hot spells in the summer.

Activities coordinator Caroline Hughes, 61, said it went from blankets and pom poms to the idea of a gigantic scarf.

The creative challenge, which took residents and the local community the whole of November to finish, aimed to create a scarf long enough to wrap around the entire building in support of Dementia UK.

Ms Hughes said she had been confident they would achieve their goal thanks to the fantastic response they had received.

“We’ve all been delighted we’ve had such a big take-up on it – the community has really come together,” she said.

She added: “It was a mammoth challenge, and I think we started realising in the middle of November quite how important it was for us to be able to achieve this.

“But it seemed to flow and knitting was coming in every day for us.”

Ms Hughes said she was unable to put a figure on the number of balls of wool used, but described the finished scarf as “really heavy”.

Resident Elise Jempson, 93, was one of those who took part in the challenge, although she said she laughed when it was first suggested.

“Who puts a scarf around a house?” she asked.

Ms Jempson, who has been knitting for more than 80 years, said she started out making scarfs for the troops when she was a teenager.

“We were kids, and were very proud of our knitting even if there were some dropped stiches,” she added.