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Doctor Who fans knit scarf ‘longer than Clifton bridge’

Doctor Who fans knit scarf ‘longer than Clifton bridge’

Scarf in a trolley
The giant scarf was measured on the Grand Pier in Weston-super-Mare.

A giant scarf made by volunteers from across the South West now measures 267 metres (875 ft) long.

The scarf is longer than the span of Bristol’s Clifton Suspension Bridge that measures 214m (702 ft).

It was started last year as a celebration of the Doctor Who exhibition at Weston Museum that has now finished.

The team gathered earlier alongside volunteers and the council on the Grand Pier in Weston-super-Mare to measure the scarf’s final length.

Weston Museum learning officer Katherine Bell said it had become so long it had to be rolled up and carried in a trolley.

Two people laying the giant scarf down onto the pier
The scarf is 267 metres (875 ft) in length

“It’s been lovely to kind of see people giving a little bit of themselves,” she added.

“We had members of the public come in to help and people posted their knitted scarves from all over the country.”

Katherine Bell (right)
Katherine Bell (right) started the project in October last year

Ms Bell said it was lovely to see people learning how to knit so they could take part in the project and others using up their scrap yarn.

“People put little buttons or little random things on it, so it’s really nice how it kind of changes across the whole length of the scarf,” she said.

“I think knitting is something that’s kind of seen as the previous generation’s skill.

“But it’s had a bit of a revival.”

Because the scarf was too long to measure in the museum, Ms Bell said the team took it onto the pier to judge its final length.

The Doctor Who Scarf Project at Weston super Mare Museum

The Doctor Who Scarf Project at Weston super Mare Museum

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Help us make Weston-super-Mare a sea of colourful Doctor Who loveliness by learning to knit your own Doctor Who scarf and join us in knitting the longest ever community made Doctor Who scarf!

We’re so excited about our new exhibition – ‘ADVENTURES IN TIME AND SPACE – 60 YEARS OF DOCTOR WHO ART’, which runs from 21 October 2023 – 27 January 2024. We just want to wrap ourselves in Doctor Who fun, so we’ve decided to get knitting and you can join us too!

Grab one of our knitting starter packs from the museum shop (throughout the exhibition dates) and get going with your own scarf. You can even join us on one of our special knitting starter days (24/10/23 or 06/01/24), where there will be a team of knitting helpers ready to get you started and show you a basic stitch. There’s no charge to join this event and no need to book, you just need to purchase one of the starter packs and find an available helper in our Learning Space. Knitting is a great hobby for almost any age and you don’t need to know loads of complicated stitches; just one will enable you to make something to be proud of.

Ever wondered why the 4th Doctor (Tom Baker) had such a long striped scarf? – The story goes that the costume designer gave a knitter a big bag of wool and asked her to knit a scarf. He thought she would choose what she liked from the bag, but instead she used up the whole lot and an iconic piece of Doctor Who fashion was created! Some sources say that first scarf was 20 feet long and we want to beat that by knitting our own longest ever jointly made Doctor Who scarf. We’ve already started the scarf and we will be adding to it over the whole run of the exhibition (up until January 2024). Once we’ve had some fun wrapping up various things in our awesome scarf we plan to chop it down into standard lengths and finish these off to go towards our ‘Warm Bundles Project’. We’ve been working with other community organisations to gather bundles (scarves, gloves, hats etc) that are given to homeless people. This means that our long scarf will go to a good cause.

Have you got any spare wool or needles at home? If you’d like to donate them to our project to help out with making this amazing creation then we’d be very grateful for them. Just email the museum FAO Katherine Bell (Learning and Events Officer).

If you’d like to know more information or arrange dropping off some wool or needles, just email museum@wsm-tc.gov.uk