Primrose Grannies knit for newborns

WASILLA — They call themselves the Primrose Grannies. More formally, they are the Arts and Crafts Club at the Primrose Retirement Community in Wasilla.

Either way, their name belies the good they do in the community.

For the past year or so, the group of five to seven regular club members has met twice weekly to share conversation and a love of crafty handiwork.

But what to do with the hundreds of hats the women have knitted isn’t a problem, said Barbara Rice, unofficial head of the group’s “Operation Warm Up” project.

In addition to knitting hats for dozens of Mat-Su Valley elementary school students, she said the Primrose Grannies also knit baby hats year-round for babies born at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center.

The group donated 48 hats to the hospital last week, Rice said. They also make and donate burp rags and receiving blankets.

“Some mothers don’t have a blanket to take the baby home in,” she said.

When the new hospital opened, Rice said she took a dozen hats over as a welcome gift. Back then, someone else was knitting hats for the hospital, she said.

But when that volunteer passed away, Rice said the Primrose Grannies decided to pick up where she’d left off.

First, she had to teach the others to knit, she said. Rice said she wasn’t sure she could teach the group how to knit hats using knitting needles. But then she found knitting looms for sale at Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts.

“I knew I could teach ‘em with that,” Rice said of the looms.

So far, Nancy Van Loon has created 103 baby hats and another 36 for school children using her knitting loom.

She said she prefers crocheting, but the knitting project makes her feel like she is doing something good.

“The babies wouldn’t have hats if we weren’t doing it,” Van Loon said. “I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time.”

Using her fancier knitting machine, it takes Charlotte Palmer about 30 minutes to make a child-sized hat.

She and her husband came to Alaska in 1952 and raised 10 children on their homesteaded near Hollywood and Vine.

Palmer has loved to knit, crochet, tat and sew for years.

“I don’t know how many sewing machines I wore out,” she said.

She said she saw the knitting machine in a magazine and ordered one. She gave that one to a friend and bought a second.

She said she plans to make 20 hats to sell at a Primrose Retirement Community Christmas bazaar from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Dec. 4. She’ll make another 50 or so hats as Christmas hats for her children, grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

Marcie Jenkins is the youngest member of the arts and crafts club and its leader. She’s the life enrichment coordinator for Primrose Retirement Community.

Her crafty mentors have taught her to knit and crochet. So far, she’s crocheted three potholders for the bazaar, and has one more to go.

“And they let me press things with the iron,” Jenkins said.

She plans a host of activities for residents such as water aerobics, butterfly club, Bible study, gospel singing and Friday nights they have happy hour in the pub at the community center.

Ruby Williams said residents are always busy. “She keeps finding something for us to do,” she teased.

Williams is embroidering a set of pillowcases for the bazaar with roses and a heart. She made a second set with hand-painted pansies.

“It feels good to be able to give something back,” Williams said.

Velma Maddison makes anything and everything crafty. “I love to quilt, crochet and knit. I just like crafts.”

Though she prefers quilting and proudly shows off a quilt friends helped her finish for a lucky loved one who will receive it as a Christmas gift.

“I don’t get as much done as I want to,” Maddison said.

Sometimes Mabel Fennimore gets ideas for her creations from her daughter, like the half circle cloth dinner napkins she’ll sell at the December bazaar. Her daughter saw the half-circle napkin design at a bazaar.

“And I’ve been making them ever since,” Fennimore said.

She said she’s also making a few sets of cloth coasters to sell at the bazaar, too.

Jenkins said proceeds from the bazaar will be used to buy more yarn to make baby hats and to finish their quilted wall hanging. The group is nearly finished with a quilt wall hanging they are making with every Primrose residents’ picture on it.

Yvonne Moss has painted flowers, landscapes and abstract watercolor art for years. Once she had plans to be a commercial artist, she said. These days, she’s still painting scenes, just on smaller canvases.

And one of these days, she might do a painting of the Primrose Grannies, she said.

For more information, about call 373-5500.

Contact Heather A. Resz at heather.resz@frontiersman.com or 352-2268.