Super-knitter completes epic challenge

Julie Bruce, 56, completed her epic challenge, knitting a total of 67,000 in one day alone in an 18-hour sitting.

Throughout March she has managed to knit 17 blankets, three scarves and 20 bonding squares. She has also managed to raise more than £400 for Kirkwood Hospice .

She now plans to donate her baby blankets to hospital neonatal units and lap blankets will be given away to elderly people.

She said: “The idea came to me and I put a comment on Facebook in February that I wanted to do this challenge for the hospice.

“I can’t run, I can’t cycle, but I can knit and I find it enjoyable and I thought, let’s do some good.

“Then the next thing I know I had been given a large amount of wool by a customer whose wife had been in the hospice. It was her wool that had been left over when she died.

“He showed up at the shop with a boot full of wool and just gave it to me.”

Julie, who runs a family-run newsagents with son Chris, 25, and husband Adrian, 56, in Mirfield, said: “It has been a long month and it has been more of a challenge than I had expected but it has gone quite well.”

Julie, who was taught to knit by her grandmother aged five, said she knits most days and normally has something in progress on her needles.

She said: “When you’ve had a long day at work it’s nice to sit down and relax and I find knitting very relaxing and enjoyable.”

Julie estimates she can knit up to 120 stitches a minute - a speed to rival the Guinness World Record of 118 stitches a minute set by Dutchwoman Miriam Tegels in 2006.

She said: “It all depends on what kind of wool you use as some wool knit quicker than others.”