World Wide Knit in Public Day, Žilina (source: Courtesy of nadobrejvlne.sk)
The fundaments of this event have been laid in 2005 by American Danielle Landes; thus, in 2015 the already tenth year of the feat taking place second Saturday in June was organised.
On the World Wide Knit in Public Day women from the USA, France, Far East to Australia will focus on their favourite activity – knitting. After some of them started doing it in public, and after the successful France Championship in Speed Knitting and the Knitting Needles Holiday exhibition, one of the female handicrafts, knitting regained new popularity – in France, and also in Australia, the USA, Canada, the UK, or Belgium. Women in these countries, as wel la sin Slovakia, have re-claimed public spaces, especially the green ones, to enjoy together their passion and to share their joy in talks.
The French website sees June 10, 2006 as the first event of public knitting, the TASR newswire wrote: in March 2006, the Knitting Needles Holiday exhibition gave the impetus for organising the France Championship in Knitting in which 230 women (and men) participated. Exhibition’s organisers joined forces with English-speaking knitters, and the first World Wide Knit in Public Day was arranged.
The English version, www.wwkipday.com, states the year 2005 as the first, crediting Danielle Landes for this idea. In 2005, it allegedly took place for the first time, in 25 places worldwide. Whatever the truth may be, it can be said that from 25, it grew to 70 sites in 2006, to 200 in 2007; to 800 in 2008. This year, in 882 places of 56 countries, women took their needles outside – including three Slovak cities (www.podnikanie-zenyzilina.sk, http://nadobrejvlne.sk).
