Time Taken Making Poppies in the Park

Poppies in the Park - Rowntree Park, York

It'll soon be time to take the Poppies in the Park installation down (Thursday 16 July 2015) and send them on their way to the York Branch of the British Legion (red poppies) and to the Friargate Quaker Meeting (white poppies).  It's been fun working with lots of different people to make them and we've had such a lot of positive comments.  

I thought it would be interesting to work out how long they took to make.  So with some actual info and some estimated, here's a rough idea ...

Gigantic Poppies - 190 cm in diameter

Gigantic Poppies - 1570 hours 

Making the individual handmade poppies  - 750 hours from the local community
Sorting and counting all the handmade poppies - 1.5 hours
Working out the size of the base petal shapes needed, cutting them out, making the knitted outline and stitching it in place - 9 hours
Attaching the poppies to the base - 18 hours
Making the finger knitted poppy centres - 5 hours
Finishing off - 1.5 hours

Total per poppy - 785 hours - that's 1570 hours for both poppies!

Giant Poppies - 1m in diameter

Giant Poppies (Extreme Kntting) - 32 hours

Dyeing and preparing the yarn - 6 hours
Knitting the poppy & stitching up - 5 hours
Finger knitting the centre - 3 hours
Attaching to the backing - 2 hours 

Total per poppy - 16 hours - that's 32 hours for both!

Big Poppies - Approx 60-70 cm diameter

Big Poppies (Big Knitting) - 24 hours

Preparing the yarn - 3 hours
Knitting the petals - 6 hours
Finger knitting the centre and stitching in place - 2 hours
Attaching to the backing - 1 hour

Total per poppy - 12 hours - that's 24 hours for both!

Total time making all the poppies - 1626 hours

That doesn't include all the planning, design, publicity, liaison, sponsorship, putting it up, taking it down etc.

So all in all if only one person did it all that's about a whole year's work (allowing for weekends and holidays).  Just as well lots of people joined in and made it all happen.  Thank you everyone - you know who you are!

Just some of the poppy makers!