Paint Purley Purple - It Takes Much Longer to Put Up Than Take Down

Evening,

Well that sure was some rain that we had last night and this morning. We have our very own lake at the bottom of the garden.

For most of the last eight years I have been helping my friend Davina with the task of 'Painting Purley Purple'. 

It is a Tree Bombing/Guerilla Knitting campaign that runs for the month of October to help raise awareness of the Cancer Center in Purley.

It is a huge task, which has grown over the years from wrapping 5 trees with Purple knitting, to this years phenomenal 56 trees and 14 benches!!!

At the heart of the whole project, and the driving force behind it all is Davina, who organizes and coordinates the whole thing, and even sews the knitting to the trees along with the few other volunteers.

Each of the tree covers starts life as a pile of knitted panels.

Davina's conservatory floor spends most of July and August covered in purple knitting as she tries hard to coordinate them into the correct sized panels to fit every tree.

And then begins the task of sewing them all into place.

As well as all of the trees, 

there are also 14 benches to be covered.

Of course, over the years the trees have all grown, although this was a new sapling that we added to our tally this year.

No-one really realizes just how much hard work goes into a project of this kind, until you are part of it and see the hours of work that are put in.

From the people who knit the panels, to the volunteers who give up their time in September to actually sew the things into place.

And of course none of it would be possible at all without the hours and hours of hard work put in by Davina herself, who coordinates everything and sews all the panels together before they make their way to the trees.

This year alone it took over 200 man hours to get the display in place, and that's just sewing the panels to the trees and benches, and thankfully only 20 to take it all down. I think we were all grateful for that given how wet it has been this week.

We are also very fortunate that a local Dry Cleaning firm is washing and drying it all before it is stored ready for next year. Nine large and very heavy bin bags of soggy wet knitting along with several assorted carrier bags full were probably not what they wanted to see, but they took it all in without a word of complaint.

So that is how I spent my morning, helping a friend, and a very worthy cause.

So a huge Thank you, Davina, for all the hard work that you have put into this, I hope that it is all appreciated. And here's to next year when I will be able to help much more now that I am a retired lady.

Thanks for stopping by,

Love and Crafty Hugs

Kimx