Knitter inspired to create 3D cathedral

Margaret Williamson has handcrafted a 3D re-construction of the Christ Church Cathedral.

She said it was a healing journey inspired by memories from her youth when she lived in Cathedral Square.

Using fleece from sheep raised in her yards, Margaret has intricately combined felt, knit and crochet.

The work, set on a small floor plan, took her three years to make - one year to research and two years to build.

‘‘It is built to scale, based on the golden triangle method of constructing cathedrals,’’ Margaret said.

She lived in Cathedral Square in a rooftop flat in the 1950s and remembers the scenes around the iconic church.

She was sad when it was badly damaged in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

‘‘My memories relate to looking over the garden wall and seeing people jumping on to buses and trams, going into the church for worship, waiting for the call to prayer on Sundays and, more importantly, listening to the bell ringers practice during the week.’’

They rang out during practices on Wednesdays, and more frequently on Sundays, she said.

When the cathedral was damaged in the earthquakes, Margaret, a member of Ashburton Creative Fibre and Mid Canterbury Black and Coloured Sheep Breeders Association, turned to craft as a way to mourn its loss.

‘‘My positive memories are far greater than the negativity of the destroyed cathedral,’’ she said.

The work - inspired by Woolly Spires’ knitted churches of Lincolnshire, England - was made between 2014 and 2017.

Margaret researched the cathedral and its floor plan using photographic material and researched the golden triangle architectural method.

She said it was a cathartic process.

She believed craft was a great healer, and one day would like to exhibit her creations.

‘‘I do everything rustic,’’ she said of her works, which also included a temperature blanket done last year.

The multi-coloured piece is a visual display of the temperatures in 2024.

She used 16 colours ranging from light blue for temperatures of 3-4 deg C, two shades of orange for temperatures from 21 to 24, and red violet for temperatures 33 deg C and higher.

Each day around 3pm Margaret would record the temperature, and knit a layer of colour to correspond with the temperature chart she created.

She is now working on a felted rose window creation, which has taken 11 months.