Vancouver Island senior gives back by knitting hundreds of hedgehogs to help others

Esquimalt, B.C. -

To appreciate why Norah Macey’s been knitting hundreds of hedgehogs, we need to go back to the day she was unexpectedly compelled to buy a book about knitting socks.

“I hadn’t knitted in 25 years,” the senior recalls with a laugh. “I thought, ‘I guess I’ll knit socks!’”

Although the first socks she made were so big her husband ended up using them as slippers, Norah was undeterred.

“I knitted like a banshee,” Norah smiles. “I knitted morning, noon, and night.”

She knitted countless cozy items for her family and friends, before knitting for strangers that she noticed cycling in her neighbourhood.

“I’d see people with cold ears,” Norah says, showing CTV News knitting that fits under a bike helmet. “I would say, ‘Here, have these ear-warmers.’”

When the cyclists would inevitably offer to pay, Norah would invariably decline to accept — which her younger self would never have imagined.

“There was a time in my life when I could have used a couple dollars to buy a loaf of bread for my kids,” Norah says.

Norah says she originally stopped knitting around the time she started raising her children in poverty.

“A lot of people helped me back then, feeding my kids,” Norah says. “I could not have survived without the kindness of people in the neighbourhood.”

Norah is in a better place now. So when her step-daughter recently suggested knitting items with broader appeal than water bottle holders or illuminated leg warmers — perhaps hedgehogs — Norah was inspired.

“I think it’s time for me to give back,” Norah says.

She says she’s made hundreds of hedgehogs since then. They take about three days to knit and feature colourful coats and smiling faces.

While she used a dozen of them to decorate her Christmas tree, most have been given for free to people in need or donated to charities (including the yellow and blue ones she’s currently making to raise money for the Red Cross in Ukraine).

“When they are finished I feel like I’ve given birth,” Norah smiles. “And then I give them away and there’s so much love.”

A love of giving that Norah suggests people receiving pay forward whenever they can.

“I don’t care how much time passes, you are going to do something kind for someone else,” Norah says, before laughing. “And then we’re even!”