A poppy waterfall made up of thousands of hand-made poppies has been unveiled at St Monica Trust’s John Wills House care home.
Residents, staff and family members crocheted 3,730 poppies to create the poppy cascade to mark Remembrance Sunday.
Each individual poppy was hand-sewn on to a goal net, which was then suspended from the first-floor window of the care home.
The poppy waterfall took five months to make and is approximately sixteen feet high by seven feet wide.
John Wills House business deputy manager, Sue Robinson, said: “We originally set a target of 1,000 poppies which was quickly reached, so a new target of 2,000 poppies was set. There was a competition between the different teams at the care home as to who could crochet the most to create some friendly rivalry and the volume of poppies carried on from there.”
“The next challenge was to sew all the poppies on to the goal net, which was kindly donated by a colleague’s sister. The downstairs lounge was transformed into a temporary sewing club. It was wonderful to see how everyone embraced the idea and the sewing room became a real social hub.
“We had colleagues who’d arrived early for their shift sewing, colleagues sewing after they’d finished their shift, the admin team sewing in their lunch hours and coming in at weekends, plus relatives and friends who were visiting their loved-ones at the care home, the families of members of staff, and we’ve also had residents from the retirement village and ex-members of staff drop in to help out.”
Sue and her admin team wanted to start a series of arts and crafts sessions for residents to create a project for Remembrance Day, which residents of all abilities at the care home could contribute to.
Residents who were unable to crochet made paper poppies, which were displayed across the home. Knitted poppies were also sold in the care home to raise money for Help for Heroes and Royal British Legion.