Niagara Falls Museum, arena about to be draped with knit and crocheted poppies
Published October 29, 2021 at 3:34 pm
The Niagara Falls Museum is ready to paint the town red. That is, red with knit and crocheted poppies.
What started a few years back as local tribute to Canadian soldiers call The Poppy Project turned into a world-wide event last year.
The Poppy Project was a collaborative community art project to commemorate the men and women who protected our freedoms by the Niagara Falls History Museum and Stick ‘N Needles, a Niagara Falls stitching guild. When the poppies come in, they are attached to mesh netting and when the netting is full, it is draped over parts of the building.
The first year they did it, they got about 700 poppies. In 2020, they reached out via social media, knowing most of the world was trapped indoors during the pandemic, asking anyone interested to contribute.
“The response was overwhelming, with over 11,000 poppy donations coming from every province in Canada, 25 different states in the United States, as well as Denmark and New Zealand,” reported the museum.
“Heartfelt letters accompanied many poppies, dedicating words of love and thanks to family members who fought and died in the numerous wars that have affected our world.”
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Because knit poppies don’t wilt and die, it won’t be just the historic 1874 stone museum adorned with them but also Niagara Falls’ Gale Centre Arena.
The museum asks for the poppies to be four to five inches wide with black knit centres. The poppy displays will run from November 1 to 11, Remembrance Day, at the museum (5810 Ferry Street) and the arena (5152 Thorold Stone Rd).
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