Texas knitting club sends 'a little love up north' with hundreds of hats

A group from a small town in Texas wanted to give a warm welcome to Syrian refugees arriving in Newfoundland and Labrador — so they held an event and made several hundred wool hats.

After hearing about #25000 tuques, the knitting club at the Bee Cave Public Library got busy in January with their knitting needles and crochet hooks. 

Bee Cave is located about 20 kilometres west of Austin, approximately 2,100 kilometres from the province.

Cate Sweeney, one of the organizers of the project and the library's public services manager, told CBC Radio's St. John's Morning Show that her group really wanted to be a part of the initiative.

"I wrote up a little blurb and the local paper picked it up, and it really snowballed from there," said Sweeney.

"We had a big knitting event. It was two hours, and we had about 40 people come to that. And then [we] collected hats for the rest of the month." 

Sweeney said collectively, the crafters made about 500 hats.

"We sent a couple of boxes up to Montreal, and then we sent a two-to-one ratio of children's to adult's hats to Newfoundland," Sweeney said.

"There was a post on the Newfoundland page that requested specifically, children's hats ... so we ended up accumulating a lot of small hats."

'Escaped' Texas heat in Gros Morne

Sweeney is already familiar with the province, as she and her husband visited Gros Morne in 2015 to escape the oppressive summer heat in Texas.

"We did a lot of hiking, did Western Brook Pond, back country ... and listened to The Shipping News on audiobooks, so we kind of connected to the place," she said.

"So it was fun when I saw a way that I could specifically send the hats up to Newfoundland, and send a little love up north to a place I felt connected to."

Sweeney said the hats are as varied as the people who made them.

She said the knitting club has about a dozen members, but once the word spread about the venture, people from all over the greater Austin area came forth to lend a hand.

She said many people delivered their knitted wares to the Bee Cave Library, with local churches becoming involved as well.

"So it was really cool, because we had kind of a small knitting group that was welcoming in more people from different areas. There were probably, estimating, about a hundred people that contributed to the project," she said.

Sweeney said while she hasn't heard back yet from Montreal — she did get a response from Newfoundland and Labrador.

"Immediately. I did hear back from Ken Walsh of the Association of New Canadians. It was such a delight," she said.