Clothes Mad Students Asked To Unite For Community

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12/11/2010 by mcmakarolyn

MC&MA Girls' year 10 student Quynh Hoang is learning how to knit

Keen Manchester Creative and Media Academy Girls’ designers have been requested to utilise their talents to help premature babies and pensioners keep warm this winter.

Students are learning how to knit in a workshop held on Enrichment Friday, and the aim of the sessions are to create beanies for babies at North Manchester General Hospital’s Special Care Baby Unit by the end of the year.

MC&MA knitters will also put together a cover for local senior citizens. It will be made from individually knitted squares.

However, it will only be possible for the items to be made if enough interest is shown in the workshops. Two have already taken place.

They are led by Head of Year 10 at MC&MA Girls, Mrs Cartner. She said it’s essential for a regular group to start attending: “Knitting’s very simple – once you’ve learnt. So you can’t keep teaching different girls for one and a half hours.

“You need the same group for a four-week period. Once they’re knitting, they’re away.”

‘Win, win situation’

Quynh Hoang from 10EGS liked the session, but found that improvement is a slow process: “It’s really hard, because I’m a slow learner so I can’t pick it up just like that.

She added making the hats and squares is going to help the community. “It’s a nice thing. We’re enjoying doing this, and people can enjoy wearing them so it’s a win – win situation.”

Mrs Cartner added: “It’s a lovely thing to do, and I think every girl – and boy – should learn to knit. It’s a dying skill.

“It’s coming back now because knitwear is back in fashion. The only way these girls are going to learn how to knit now if someone else teaches them.”

She added: “I’ve got 10 girls from the last group who want to come back, and I’ve got some from our current group who want to come back.  Hopefully we’ll have a group that can already knit.”

Fingers crossed the knitting workshops will gain momentum, and MC&MA Girls can deliver some extra snug items to people who really need it.

Enrichment, where students are given the chance to enjoy extra-curricular activities outside of a lesson structure, takes place every two weeks at the academy. The boys’ academy also has enrichment on the same day.