Mary’s tea cosy labour of love for Lew
In a Warnbro house, on a comfortable chair behind a mountain of wool, sits craftswoman Mary Spencer.
While some people knit blankets, clothes or bags, Mrs Spencer has developed a passion for knitting tea cosies.
She has knitted 101 tea cosies, each brightly coloured, with a name and individual character.
The 76-year-old said she knitted her unique pieces to help raise money for Alzheimer’s research, in memory of her husband Lew, who died from the disease almost two years ago.
“When my husband got sick with Alzheimer’s in 2003 it got to the stage where he used to sleep in his chair a lot, and if he woke up and I wasn’t there he would get distressed and agitated,” Mrs Spencer said.
“It got to the stage where I was spending a lot of time sitting across from him and I would knit.”
Originally from England, Mrs Spencer said she learnt to knit in primary school, and from a young age had knitted clothes, toys, bags and blankets for her family and friends, and had continued to do so throughout her life.
In 2010, Mrs Spencer bought a book titled Wild Tea Cosies, and this took her knitting to a new level of creativity.
“My husband at this stage was in full-time care, and I’d found this book and really enjoyed knitting a couple of the patterns for tea cosies from it, and then decided I wanted to make a couple of my own designs,” she said.
“I enjoyed doing it so much that I did enough to do an exhibition and sale at the Safety Bay Library in 2011.
“My first exhibition, in a day-and-a-half, raised $1800 which I donated to Alzheimer’s research.”
Since beginning her tea cosy cause she has raised $8160 and counting.
Her fourth exhibition Cosy Memories and Marmalade is now open at the Kwinana Darius Wells Library and Resource Centre, where 18 of her tea cosies and a number of prayer banners can be viewed.
Mrs Spencer said there were no time limits for making her tea cosies, and she could knit two in a week or one over a couple of weeks.
“They are all different ... I don’t know how I come up with the ideas quite frankly — sometimes I can see something and think ‘oh that would make a good tea cosy’,” she said.
“They just grow … I start off with a basic tea cosy usually ... and then I just add to it and it doesn’t always work out as I planned.
“I don’t know, they tell me what they want to be — the tea cosies talk to me.
“I just enjoy the fun of it, and the sillier the tea cosies are the more I enjoy it ... I really am a little bit crazy, but it is fun.”
The artist said knitting the tea cosies gave her a purpose and made her happy.
“I enjoy the reaction on people’s faces when they look at them,” Mrs Spencer said.
“I feel so strongly that the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease is increasing rapidly, and I think they need as much money as they can get for research.
“What I give them isn’t very much, but it is a little bit, a drop in the ocean, but if everybody put a little drop in the ocean it would amount to quite a lot.”
The exhibition ends on October 21.
