The Atlanta Knitting Guild's Blooms

We wish we could have gathered all the Atlanta Knitting Guild Blooms creators in front of our camera — (From left, front row) Jean Kammerer, Elizabeth Clause, Linda Fetter, Whit Robbins, Debra Davis, Randie Cowan, Megan Brightwell, (Back row) Diana Baber, Barbara Argo, Nancy Williams, Joyce Culpepper, Jolie A. Elder, Nyla Couturier.

Click on the above image and enter the Atlanta Blooms fantasy garden created by the Atlanta Knitting Guild. Twelve videos that are sure to dazzle the eyes — and touch the heart — of every knitter.

Would there have been a STITCHES South without Whit Robbins?

Years ago, at the very first STITCHES East in Cherry Hill, I remember Whit — the founder of the hundreds-strong Atlanta Knitting Guild (AKG), and Knitter of the Year 2009 — inviting us South. “Ours is a beautiful city,” Whit said, “And Spring is a wonderful time to come to Atlanta; when all the flowers are in bloom.”

How many years can one politely decline such a cordial invitation? It took us twelve years, but with Whit's encouragement — and the groundwork of XRX Inc. CEO Benjamin Levisay and his fab team — here I was, heading South. Or, driving South, I should say, with XRX Books Editor Elaine Rowley, while the rest of the XRX team flew.

Is it really 1,165 miles from Sioux Falls to Atlanta? When did we find ourselfves in Saint Louis — always a requisite stop — in the shadow of its graceful Arch that commemorates the heroic Trek West? A few minutes from the Arch, we enter the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis on Lindell Boulevard. It's a drizzling Tuesday morning, and the church is empty and dark. But the dim light entering through the windows of the vast dome is reflected by the millions of mosaic pieces that cover the walls, arches, apses, and domes, filling the church with an other-wordly, soft, golden hue.

Next time we find ourselves bathed in a golden light, we're a few hundred miles down the road, at Nashville's Centennial Park. I've wanted to visit the Nashville Parthenon ever since I was a child and saw a postcard picturing the only full-size replica in the world of the Acropolis monument. Standing in the sanctuary, in front of a two-story-high replica of the gold-and-ivory statue of the Goddes Athena was a childhood dream come true.

Five feet-tall cala lilies? Just one of the wonders created by the Atlanta Knitting Guild that transformed the STITCHES South Banquet into "Alice in Georgialand."

Then it was on to another tabernacle, historic Ryman Auditorium, the so-called "mother church" of Country Music, a delicious lunch at the renovated Union Station, and back on the road to Atlanta.

We set up our cameras for our Spring shoot at Centennial Olympic Park, in the heart of the city, surrounded by the CNN Center, Olympic Rings, and Baron Pierre De Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games. I stand by the classic Doric columns and doves of peace of the De Coubertin memorial, remembering Ancient Olympia, where the Olympic Games were born, about twenty minutes from where I grew up.

I am also watching the heavy clouds overhead. A couple hours pass waiting to get the photo shoot go-ahead from the sun — not to mention permission to shoot from the Olympic Park Office. It turns out that the Olympic is a state park, and we only had permits to shoot in city parks.

But the wonderful Olympic Park staff proved that Southern hospitality is alive and well. Not only did they give us permission to shoot, they waved the hundreds-of-dollars fee. And sure enough, the sun came out of the clouds, and had our shots.

Whit had promised us flowers, and the huge planters in front of the Visitors Center provided just the right touch of Spring. But we didn’t just find gardens at Olympic Park, but in Midtown, home of Margaret Mitchell of Gone With the Wind fame, and beautiful Piedmont Park — locations we scouted for our Spring shoot. There was a garden in full bloom at our STITCHES Banquet (see photo, below).

“I just casually said to our guild,” Whit says, “Wouldn’t it be nice to do some centerpieces? And, as the guild always does, it grabbed onto this project, and it grew and grew and grew. We have a lot of artistic, sophisticated knitters in our guild.

"Megan Brightwell and Linda Fetter had the vision and created and handed out packages for each of the flowers. Linda had spreadsheets with all the flowers, petals, embellishments, and I had a dining-room table piled high with yarn — we had to eat in a little corner for several months.

“Knitting the flowers was a lot of fun. Everybody worked together. This was absolutely a team effort, and we spent a lot of time together on the weekends. It was a bonding experience for our members. The more they got together, the more creative they became — it just really exploded.

“I purposely didn’t look at all the flowers until I walked into the STITCHES Banquet. I was really blown over. They are spectacular, each one a work of art.”

Whit isn’t alone in her appreciation of the blooms that greeted our Banquet guests. I’m in the queue to enter the ballroom, and I didn’t understand why the line isn’t moving. Normally, after the doors open, knitters rush in to claim the best tables, the ones closest to the runway. I enter the ballroom through a side door to see what’s the problem and find myself in a wonderland. Huge flowers, towering high above, dot the ballroom, and I feel small, like a kid in a mythic garden.

These centerpieces tower about six feet high, transforming the beige ballroom into a colorful conservatory. Bluebells, bell flowers, sunflowers, poppies, roses, calla lilies, hibiscus, rebecca, and other fantasy flowers bloom on each table.

A fantasy garden — courtesy of the Atlanta Knitting Guild — greeted the guests at the STITCHES South Banquet.

“I was thinking of an Alice in Wonderland look,” says Linda Fetter. “We had yarn donated, we put it together in different ways, kitted up with patterns. People took the kits and came back asking, ‘Is this right? What is this going to be?’

“When the knitting was finished, we went through sessions where we were wiring and assembling. We could see the hibiscus, but with some of the others we really couldn’t see what was going to happen. As they went on the stalks, things started coming together. And to walk into the Banquet… ‘Well, where are the bluebells? The bell flowers?’ And against the black background of the stage, they were gorgeous. It was exciting.

Yarn stash turns into blooms in the creative hands of the members of the Atlanta Knitting Guild.

“About six people created their own flowers, and their creativity is truly astounding. We were thinking of a calla lily, and they were thinking of something that Walt Disney would fall in love with. I like knitting outside the box, and I think it’s wonderful that our flowers will travel so people see what can be done. You don’t have to limit yourself. You can create something that is so much more — truly spectacular.”

How did these huge, seemingly top-heavy creations, suspended on thin wire stalks so they did not obscure the view of the runway — and anchored in colorful pots, remain upright?

"Cement Man" Scott Brightwell provides scale for an Atlanta Blooms sunflower.

“My husband, Scott, anchored them in cement,” says Megan Brightwell, who’s been living with the flowers in her garage for weeks. “It was so cool to hear the excitement at the Banquet, see people stunned.
“I got to watch them go from being bags of donated yarn, to bags of knitted petals, to things taped and wired together. On stalks they popped, they were fabulous. I was so excited watching the flowers progress, seeing what grew out of the combined creativity of about 50 people. To think that all this amazing work was going to go away after this weekend broke my heart. To hear that people are going to see them, enjoy the combined work of our knitting community, is magic.”

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all,” says the President of the Atlanta Knitting Guild, Jolie A. Elder. “What more can I say? Whit, who is a force of nature, said, ‘STITCHES is coming! It’s going to be awesome, y’all are going to love it — we should knit some centerpieces…’”

“We were so thrilled to be having STITCHES here, we put an announcement in the newsletter, people showed up, and we started talking about what we wanted to do. Our team included Whit, with Megan and Linda as the primary designers, and of course, Elizabeth Clause, Marian Rose, and Diana Baber.”

We expected centerpieces, I tell Jolie — but a flower garden? What was it that inspired the Atlanta Knitting Guild to reach such, well, heights?

Jolie pulls a handbook out of her handbag. “I have the guild bylaws,” she says. ‘The purpose of the Guild should be to support and enhance the art of knitting. Additionally, this organization shall promote interest and skill in knitting, while encouraging high standards of quality and workmanship.’

“That’s what the Atlanta Knitting Guild does — and that’s what you and STITCHES do. You bring in fabulous teachers who teach us how to be skillful, talented, creative knitters. And I didn’t realize the synergy that you get when you bring that many people from an industry — who are creative and on top of their game — together, in one place. There are people here who are being discovered this weekend, talented people who are a local secret — and I’m watching the secret get out. It’s wonderful that knitters around the country are learning about our guild’s artistic, and philanthropic, work as well.”

(Left to right, from top row) We gathered all the Blooms creators we could find in front of our video camera: Whit Robbins, Megan Brightwell, Linda Fetter, Jolie A. Elder, Marian Rose, Jean Kammerer, Linda Walker, Kathleen Pickens, Diana Baber, Joyce Culpepper, Elaine Wang, and Elizabeth Claus.

Whit, Linda, Megan, and Jolie have been joined by other members of the Atlanta Knitting Guild who are patiently waiting for their turn in front of the video camera. The air-conditioning of my suite cannot keep up with the hot video lights, and the room temperature is rising, but you wouldn't know it from the smiles, enthusiasm, and creative energy.

A rebecca — or a fantasy flower Walt Disney would love?

"I was awe struck, it was breath-taking," says Marian Rose. "We knew we had a big room to fill, and that's why we went up into the room. It was incredible."

"I didn't want to take seat," says Jean Kammerer. "I wanted to walk around and look at all these flowers. If these flowers made a statement, mine was a sentence, or a part of a sentence." Then, Jean, who knitted hibiscus leaves, sweetly relates how creating the Atlanta Blooms helped a friend who was undergoing chemotherapy.

"It was a lot of fun working on these flowers," says Linda Walker. I walked into the Banquet and saw my flower — and I was blown away..."

Kathleen Pickens says that the best comes out in her when she's with the members of the Atlanta Knitting Guild. The flowers? "Wow!" Kathleen says. "They sparkle; they're fabulous."

"Imagine," says Diana Baber, "you go to a guild meeting and you're given a ziplock bag with a couple of balls of yarn, some buttons, and some upholstering fabric. And, somehow, with the magic of the Atlanta Knitting Guild, "all those leaves and petals become the most fabulous flowers." Diana adds, "I hope the Atlanta Blooms will take our knitting spirit to other parts of the country."

Joyce Culpepper says she loves being a member of the Atlanta Knitting Guild, and sharing, "This passion to create something from a string." She knitted and glued together flowers, and then, when she saw them at the Banquet, she says, "It's hard to use a superlative word that someone else has not used."

Atlanta Knitting Guild Member Elaine Wang is rather shy about appearing on camera, because, "I didn't do any of the knitting," she says. But many hands were needed to create the beautiful blooms — and Elaine's were among them.

"It was amazing," says Elizabeth Clause, "a lot of fun, everyone's creativity coming together." When Elizabeth walked into the STITCHES Banquet and found herself in, "Alice in Georgialand, it was breathtaking." Elizabeth found, in the Atlanta Knitting Guild, "Passionate, intelligent, people with incredible character," whose support she treasured at a difficult time in her life...

Next stop for the Atlanta Blooms? STITCHES Midwest, in Chicago. Our own Mavis and Kristi drove Atlanta’s Blooms 1,125 miles by truck to Soux Falls, after XRX, Inc. CEO Benjamin Levisay made arrangements to take the Atlanta Blooms on a STITCHES tour.

Whit speaks for many when she says, "I’m so glad they’ll be appreciated throughout the country. I hope they inspire other guilds and other knitters to do great things. Because knitting is so much more — worthy of being in an art gallery."

You won't want to miss our Atlanta Blooms videos describing the creative output of this wonderful group of knitters.

Their accounts don't just reveal the close-knit community that is the Atlanta Knitting Guild and the artistry of their knitting needles. You'll hear about the healing power of knitting — for a member who was undergoing chemotherapy while knitting blooms; and another who had just lost her job and found in the guild support and encouragement...

Atlanta Blooms Videos.

Next stop for the Atlanta Blooms? STITCHES Midwest, in Chicago.

A shutterbug captures the scene as XRX Inc. CEO Benjamin Levisay helps pack the Atlanta Blooms for their long trip North — and STITCHES Midwest.