Project seeks crafty volunteers to pick up where beloved hands left off

Somewhere on Prince Edward Island right now, chances are good that a knitter or crocheter is putting the finishing touches on a family heirloom that was otherwise doomed to be thrown away.

There are about 20 “finishers” on the Island connected with a U.S.-based initiative called The Loose Ends Project, out of a total of 12,000 around the world. They are sent a quilt, a sweater, a blanket or another craft project that was left undone when its originator grew too ill to work on it, or passed away, and must try to read between the threads to guess how it was supposed to look when done.

“When you make something for someone … every stitch, you think of that person,” said Anna Farquhar of North Rustico, one of the Loose Ends finishers.

“The thought that somebody had started something and didn’t get a chance to finish it made me feel, ‘This needs to be done’ — maybe just to prolong who they are and their lives and bring the happiness that they were hoping to bring to whoever the recipient was.”

One of her most memorable missions was to fix a blanket so that its owner, whose grandmother had made it for her, could pass it on to a fifth generation.

“The dog got into it and she wanted to gift that blanket to her new grandson. So I got to repair it,” said Farquhar, a retired teacher.

Anna Farquhar is a retired teacher who says she has been knitting all her life. (Submitted by Anna Farquhar)

It took her four or five hours once she figured out how the piece had been put together in the first place, and unravelled the mangled yarn to start again where the blanket had been damaged.

“I don’t like things that are mundane and simple. So this was almost like a challenge to take on.”

More than 2,500 projects finished so far

Loose Ends was formed about 18 months ago by Jen Simonic and Masey Kaplan, who had been asked to help a friend clear out her mother’s stash of knitting needles and wool.

“We came across these two blankets that Patty’s mom was making for her brothers, and Masey had been kicking around the idea of seeing if we could get a collection of finishers together to do this type of thing,” Simonic told CBC P.E.I.’s Island Morning.

Loose Ends projects have called for volunteers skilled in knitting, crochet, rug hooking, embroidery, cross-stitch and quilting. (Winky Lewis/Loose Ends)

“And honestly, within a month we had 150 people in Seattle and in Maine saying, ‘[I] might do that, that would be something I would do.’ And the rest is history.”

The Loose Ends website says the non-profit has “facilitated the completion of more than 2,500 handwork projects to date,” with volunteers skilled in knitting, crochet, rug hooking, embroidery, cross-stitch and quilting.

The network tries to link people who volunteered with unfinished projects near them, though sometimes the garments or blankets are mailed along with the unused wool or fabric the original crafter had intended to use.

Masey Kaplan knits while Jennifer Simonic works on a crochet project. (Winky Lewis/Loose Ends)

“The more obscure a craft is, that usually determines how far the distance is,” said Simonic.

“People used to have quilting bees and they used to finish projects for people and their knitting circles,” she said. “A lot of people don’t always have a crafter in their life once that crafter has passed and they have these objects left over.”

Flyers and Facebook

As word spread online about what Loose Ends was doing, new finishers were asked to recruit others wherever crafters gather.

Farquhar saw a flyer.

Carla Di Giorgio of North Wiltshire, P.E.I., got into finishing through a post on Facebook.

People who can crochet or do other kinds of handwork, and want to be involved as a finisher, are asked to sign up at the Loose Ends website, looseendsproject.org. (Winky Lewis/Loose Ends)

“There’s a lot of love involved when you’re knitting anything for anybody,” said the lifelong knitter. “And so I kind of appreciated that if they weren’t able to finish these projects that it was kind of an unfinished, unclosed chapter for the children or their grandchildren.”

Some of the projects were being made without patterns, so Di Giorgio would have to puzzle out what the maker’s plan was.

“And then I would take the measurements of the person that it was intended for and try to make it fit them now, because sometimes it was for children who grew.”

Di Giorgio, an instructor at UPEI, said Loose Ends connected her with someone “who just coincidentally turned out to be down the street from me” and is now a close friend.

This cable-knit vest was one of the Loose Ends projects that Carla Di Giorgio finished. The organization makes sure that volunteers have the skills needed when an item calls for complex needlework. (Submitted by Carla Di Giorgio)

The woman’s mother in Vancouver had bought some wool in the Maritimes to make a sweater for her son-in-law in P.E.I., but her health declined before she could finish it.

“I was able to finish the sweater, and it fit … I was really happy about that because, you know, there was a whole story involved.”

‘What you want to leave behind’

Both Farquhar and Di Giorgio said they felt deep satisfaction at being able to complete something so special.

“I think the older you get, the more you appreciate what it’s like to be an older woman … [and] know what’s going through your mind and what you want to leave behind for your family,” said Di Giorgio.

Farquhar said it makes her sad to see plastic bags stuffed with unfinished craft projects in thrift store bins.

Some of Anna Farquhar’s own whimsical dolls, showing the level of skill she can bring to an unfinished craft project. (Submitted by Anna Farquhar)

“All those hours and all that attention to detail — and you know they were thinking of someone particular to make it for. Maybe it was just for themselves, but it wasn’t finished.

“And I think that’s what Loose Ends does. It takes these things that would be discarded because somebody’s cleaning out Grandma’s attic, or Mom’s.”

Speaking of the project she had mentioned earlier, Farquhar said: “You know, I was able to add to the history of this piece. So all of a sudden this blanket found a second life rather than ending up in a bin somewhere.

“A little child is going to enjoy it — and maybe their child may enjoy it too.”