As the pandemic sparked a national knitting and crochet revival, the UK’s leading craft marketplace, LoveCrafts, found that 8.7 million UK consumers used crafting as the biggest aid towards their mental health.
Crafting had become the number one tool to aid wellbeing. In 2020, Olympic Gold medallist, super crafter and diving hero, Tom Daley learnt to knit, unveiling the therapeutic and calming benefits that just 10 minutes of daily knitting and crocheting had on his mental wellbeing.
Now, the diving champion has created his own line of knitting kits, Made with Love by Tom Daley available to purchase exclusively on LoveCrafts.com. Daley hopes these kits will aid people’s mental wellbeing, giving the nation the chance to unwind and get rid of any stress or anxiety.
The designs include sweater vests, a bubble cuddle cardi, a colourful flamingo and a hat and scarf, all of which can be purchased on LoveCrafts.com.
Each kit contains everything you need to make your knitted creation and every little detail has been carefully considered. The designs use 100% merino wool, sourced from happy sheep, which, as Tom says, is “just so soft and squishy, like a warm cuddle.”
Everything in the box can be used again or recycled, even the instructions in the box are printed on a 10x10cm card, so you can use it to measure your tension square. Designed for beginner knitters, the kits will help newbies learn new skills too, with helpful videos to explain new techniques along the way.
Daley comments: “I do think I have crafting to thank for the way I was able to compete at the Olympic Games. During Covid, at the Olympics we couldn’t do anything, we couldn’t go outside, we couldn’t go and interact with anyone else, so we had to find something else to distract ourselves from it and honestly that was where my Olympic knitting project came about.
“My baby, if you like, Made with Love by Tom Daley started on my Instagram. I started off learning to knit with kits and the fact I’ve been able to design some of my own and share my love of knitting with other people is super exciting. I didn’t want anything to be too difficult so they are very much on the beginner to easy scale. There are lots of different designs we’ve got a Christmas jumper, a cardigan, a vest, we’ve got some flamingos, stockings, hats, scarves, and a blanket as well.”
He adds: “My next thing is the minister of knitting and I’ll get knitting and crafts into schools as part of the curriculum. I think it would be an amazing thing for kids to learn to unwind. I think people would really like it.”
