Fay, Heather and Eve with one of the latest blankets they will take to VincentCare in Shepparton. Eve knitted the squares, while Heather and Fay crocheted them together into one piece.
Photo by
Owen Sinclair
Sometimes the path out of dark times is as simple as keeping your hands busy.
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That’s what Eve Hartshorne found when she began knitting squares one day while at Cobram Regional Care recovering from a mental health-related crisis.
Months and hundreds of knitted squares later, she’s now working with her friends and neighbours, Heather Hosie and Fay Green, to create blankets for women and people escaping domestic violence.
When Eve decided to start knitting again while staying at Cobram Regional Care for her mental health, little did she foresee where her decision to pick up her needles and yarn would take her.
“I was doing the craft sessions they had,” Eve said.
“They were doing colouring in, and I said I didn’t want to do colouring in, thanks. So the lady, who was a volunteer, asked me if I wanted to do some knitting and pulled out a rug she had knitted herself.”
It was all Eve needed to feel inspired.
One of the many rugs that Heather has created herself, out of her own time and expense.
Photo by
Owen Sinclair
“Across the last week, I probably did 20 [squares] or something like that,” she said.
“I thought, ‘Well, I can do this, but what can I do with them? I’m not prepared to sew them. I’d been there, done that’.”
She started by first donating her knitted squares to Cobram Regional Care.
But soon Eve discovered that her neighbour at Oasis Village, Heather, donated handmade blankets to the VincentCare Marian Community in Shepparton.
VincentCare’s Marian Community is a 24/7 family violence centre, providing a range of services including crisis and refuge accommodation for those escaping abusive partners.
“I found out that Heather took them to the refuge centre, so I rang her. I said, ‘I’ll keep on doing it, do you really want them?’” Eve said.
“And she said, ‘Well, unfortunately, there’s always going to be domestic violence’.”
Heather had already been donating blankets and dignity bags to the centre for five years by the time she started accepting Eve’s knitted squares.
All these years later, she continues to do it out of gratitude and the goodness of her heart.
“One of my family members had to use [the refuge], and I thought, ‘They were excellent for her, and I thought they had a need for it’,” the vice-president and life member of the Cobram and District Spinners and Weavers said.
“So five years ago, I decided that’s where my blankets would go.”
And she hasn’t looked back. With another friend, Fay, and now Eve on board, Heather has donated at least 300 blankets to the shelter since then.
The blankets, always sized for a single bed, are made from dozens of squares, hand-knitted by Eve using yarn and wool.
Heather and Fay then meticulously crochet the squares together until a blanket emerges.
Once Heather has enough finished blankets and other items, like dignity bags, to justify a return trip there and back, she packs the goods into her car and takes the load down to Shepparton.
She finds herself making the trip at least once a month, on her own time and expense.
“I’m just happy to know they’re going to someone who has a bigger need than I have,” Heather said.
“I know that they will go to good homes.”
For Eve, in turn, the knitting campaign has been a ‘lifeline’.
Knowing that her work is going to a worthwhile cause, she’s managed to find a path out of those dark times.
“It’s been brilliant for me,” she said.
If this article has raised any concerns with you, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or VincentCare Marian Community on 1800 015 188 (after-hours).
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