Here’s a good yarn: Plymouth diving star Tom Daley has launched a line of knitting kits.
The Olympian had capped winning a gold medal at the Tokyo games, receiving an OBE and broadcasting an alternative Christmas message to the nation, by launching Made with Love By Tom Daley with London-based LoveCrafts.
The 27-year-old sportsman, who surprised Olympic viewers by knitting poolside during the summer games, has produced a line of his very own knitting kits available to purchase exclusively on LoveCrafts.com.
In 2020, Plymouth-born Mr Daley learnt to knit, unveiling the therapeutic and calming benefits that just 10 minutes of daily knitting and crocheting had on his mental wellbeing.
He now hopes these kits will aid people’s mental wellbeing, giving the nation the chance to unwind and get rid of stress or anxiety.
And the athlete has linked with crafting supplies company LoveCraft to produce what the firm calls “the celebrity collection the nation has been waiting for”.
Made with Love by Tom Daley is a line of his own knitting kits and designs include sweater vests, a bubble cuddle cardi, a colourful flamingo and a hat and scarf.
Each kit contains everything the budding knitter needs to make a knitted creation and every little detail has been carefully considered. The designs use 100% merino wool, sourced from “happy sheep”, which, as Mr Daley said 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 users can use it to measure a 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.
The crafting supplies company described Plymouth’s most famous diver as “gold medallist, super crafter and national hero” and “a friend of LoveCrafts”.
Mr Daley said: “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. 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."
As the pandemic sparked a national knitting and crochet revival, the UK's leading craft marketplace, LoveCrafts, found that 8.7million Brits used crafting as the biggest aid towards their mental health. Crafting had become the number one tool to aid wellbeing.
