Monday 18 / November / 2024
Muscat: More than 2,000 women used crochet hooks to join together blankets and break a world record, while at the same time creating a patchwork that will keep thousands of people warm in their beds.
Mother India’s Crochet Queens (MICQ), a Facebook group based in Chennai, gave a call to women to contribute to the effort, with the promise that the finished blanket would be broken up and given to the needy after the record was broken.
In just six months, 2,472 women and girls from India, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and other countries, crocheted sections and shipped them for the world record attempt. Out of this, 57 were Oman women including five girls, who took part in this record breaking event.
When all the pieces were finally assembled on January 31, representatives from the Guinness Book of World Records declared it the biggest in the world.
“We had seen the poster of MICQ on Facebook and it was really fascinating to do something of our interest, which will finally go for charity,” Abeda Narmawala, a participant from Oman told the Times of Oman.
“To get a participant certificate from the Guinness World Records was also a factor in getting enrolled for this effort,” she added.
At 11,148 square metres, the blanket is more than three times the size of the previous world record holder from South Africa, and would cover the size of one-and-a-half football fields.
According to Narmawala, Oman’s team crocheted 236 baby blankets of size 40”×40”, with 4 ply yarn and a 5 mm hook as it was the basic rule set by Guinness World Records.
“We met at the Qurum Rose Garden to crochet our work and we send it to India,” Narmawala said.
Team Oman made the signature blanket, comprising of 49 baby blankets, with the design of the Taj Mahal of India.
“It was our Oman coordinator Nithya’s idea to make a signature blanket from Oman and one of our team members Diya came up with Taj Mahal in night ambience,” Narmawala said.
Mauli, Kiran, Varsha and Miruna were the sub-coordinators, who completed this signature blanket, along with Diya, Nithya and Abeda.
“With all our hard work, the Taj Blanket was all set by December,” she added.
Narmawala also said that when they started this mission, there were only five Oman women involved and now there are 57, including one senior citizen and five children.
“There were women, who did not know crochet; they learned it especially for this mission and contributed their best to the mission,” Narmawala said.
“Seeing their mothers working on this blanket, some of their children also developed an interest in it and learned it and contributed one blanket each,” she added.
Sana Shakil, Sumiksha, Kaushika, Yagnapriya, Mohitha are the five children from Oman to contribute to the recording breaking event held in Chennai. Meena Madhavan, a senior citizen of 66 also contributed with a blanket to break the record of South Africa.
“Now we (Oman team) are looking forward to donating our crochet items here in Muscat and MICQ is also making caps for cancer patients that will be donated for charity,” Narmawala said.
Narmawala also confirmed that the blankets had been distributed to disadvantaged children, nursing homes, and handed out to other poor people in what should be some kind of record act of kindness.
Chennai-based Subashri Natarajan was the project initiator.
