Crocheting and knitting for Europe

Short Description

The idea is to crochet and knit a woollen ribbon that symbolizes a certain course or route – in our case it was the river Danube. The idea behind was to foster a common feeling of being part of the Danube community.

The creation of the croched woollen Danube carpet followed these steps: The groups in the various Danube countries croched small parts that were put together to a big piece at the end of the project. At first, people croched a simple ribbon made from the donated wool. The ribbon was the starting point for the river carpets (50 x 50 cm). There were information and instructions in the respective languages on why and how to croche and to knit the river carpets .

In all participating countries, there were coordination units responsible for PR, educational actions, and logistics.

Approaches of the urban knitting initiatives were combined with methods of the activating pedagogy and outreaching methods as well as with approaches of oral history.

Pedagogical Information

This method can be applied to other regions. Since the method is low-threshold, it can be interesting for a rather big target group. What keeps people motivated and interested in the project, is the feeling of being part of something bigger, and the competition between the different parties regarding the question: Who has delivered the biggest part? This spirit was being promoted via the website, which was updated on a daily basis.

European Dimension

There is almost no language barrier, which makes it perfect for a low-threshold and transnational use Only the coordinators need to speak a foreign language.

Applied in projects

The Wanted Danube

As many people as possible from all Danube countries were invited to crochet a woolen carpet that symbolizes the river Danube. The challenge: To make the so called “river carpet” as long as possible and to integrate people regardless of their age, social background, education and language skills. The aim was to demonstrate the solidarity amongst the Danube countries. The big finale was a cultural performance in which all the small parts of the big carpet were exhibited on the Cathedral square in front of the Ulm Cathedral during the international Danube Festival in 2014.
Once the project was finished, the so called “Danube-Rivercarpet” was divided into small pieces. These pieces were given away for donation.