Knitting for the Red Thread Project

May 12, 2006 == MEDIA ADVISORY
 
Calvin senior Stephanie Richards is throwing a knitting party to benefit the
Red Thread Project, a local effort to knit hats for cancer patients.

Knitters of every skill level are welcome at the party, which will be held
from 7 to 10 pm on May 17 at 221 Calkins Ave.

"It's a good cause that brings together art, knitting and community," she says
of the Red Thread Project, which has multiple sponsors, including the Urban
Institute for Contemporary Art.

The knitted hats, due to be completed by June 1, 2006, will be donated to
local nonprofit organizations for distribution to local children and adults who
have cancer.

Prior to donation, the knitted hats will be used in a performance piece.

Volunteers will attach the hats to a red thread a quarter-mile long and the
resulting string of hats will be modeled in a parade slated for the end of
June.

"They're hoping to have a thousand people attached to a red string parading
around downtown," Richards says.

The project, the creation of Chicago fiber artist Lindsay Obermeyer, was
inspired by a Chinese proverb: "An invisible red thread connects those who are
destined to meet regardless of time, place and circumstance. The thread may
stretch or tangle, but it will never break."

Richards, a social work major who has been knitting since her freshman year at
Calvin, says the Red Thread Project is a good reason to rally her friends.

"I live with several girls in an intentional community," says Richards, who
participated in a knitting class at Calvin this January. "Knitting is one of
the things that brings us together besides our weekly house dinners."

For the full story see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2005_06/red_thread.htm

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Received on Fri May 12 01:00:11 2006