The fall of over 2,200 handmade poppies over the red brick exterior of the Kings County Museum in the days leading up to November 11 will be a stunning community symbol of remembrance.
The Four Seasons Fibre knitters behind the Kentville museum’s 2022 exhibit, “Wartime Knitting: Remembrance and Recognition,” have been working steadily on this 2023 installation.
“Poppies are a common symbol of peace and sacrifice,” project spear header Marie Meldrum says. “War and its effects are a shared responsibility that affects us all. This cascade wall of poppies will help us all – as a visual, shared opportunity to remember. This is a visual pledge for all of us: never again.”
The Four Seasons knitters set to knitting last December, and reached out to numerous community groups and individuals to join in. The Crochet Crowd in New Minas put yarn to needle, and Meldrum’s 86-year-old mother knitted alongside a 100-year-old neighbor in her seniors’ home.
“They each knit 50 poppies – and they had lots of time to share stories while they did it,” Meldrum says. Her family’s wartime service and sacrifice was likely top of mind: Meldrum’s mother’s uncle, Robert, was an 18-year-old stretcher bearer when he was killed in Italy in 1944. Her mother had knit a poppy to place on his grave on an overseas visit Meldrum and her husband made several years ago; in fact, they placed 211 knitted poppies on all the Canadian service members’ headstones.
“Knitted poppies – this is going on all over Canada and Europe, and it’s a wonderful way to remember our service members. I think it’s very popular because we are visual creatures.”
October 23, knitters and helpers arrived at the museum to start creating two 25-foot mesh walls. The plan was to hang both from the museum’s second-story centre window, theatre curtain-style down the exterior facade to the Cornwallis Street sidewalk below. Much math went into just how many approximately four-inch poppies would be needed to cover the mesh: six to eight poppies were tied on each square foot of mesh.
“We knew we needed 1,000 poppies per 25-foot wall,” Meldrum says. “All these people came together to make over 2,200 poppies.”
Berwick Girl Guides came October 25 to help tie on poppies, and a group of retired nurses from Halifax came up October 26 on a day-trip to pitch in.
Meanwhile, students at Kings County Academy in Kentville spent their day October 27 making 300 foam poppies, some with black button centres and others with foam and felt. Their contributions will be fastened to a section on fencing at the museum’s front entrance and garden.
“They’ll all be cut unevenly – nothing’s going to be perfect,” says volunteer Margaret Benjamin, who liaised with the school on the project.
“It’s going to be beautiful.”
The poppy walls were destined for installation November 1, and they’ll be on display through to November 11. The creators and the museum are “hoping people will be respectful,” says Benjamin, as the leave the project to the elements and passersby during its public display.
A similar knitted poppy project at the Macdonald Museum in Middleton over the summer has the two museum’s and the volunteer handcrafters all talking: what if there was an even larger, more visual “Valley memorial poppy” route as another year’s project?
The Four Seasons Fibre knitters’ initial project with the Kings County Museum, “Wartime Knitting: Remembrance and Recognition,” prepared in 2022 to showcase dozens of articles knitted on the home front for loved ones and service members, and worn as uniform or for comfort during the Second World War years; has, over the past year, gathered much attention.
The Greenwood Military Aviation Museum hosted the knitting display, with additional items from its own collection and new espionage stitched pieces added by the knitting group. The exhibit then travelled to the Memory Lane Heritage Village Museum in Lake Charlotte; after a summer show at the Barrington Museum Complex, the community is planning its own wartime quilting hands-on workshop for the winter.
The Wartime Knitting exhibit will open in the Shearwater Aviation Museum in November, and then travel to the New Brunswick Military History Museum in Gagetown for the winter.
