A BRIGHTLY coloured blanket is bringing a welcome splash of summer to a wintry Poole High Street.

Sunset in Poole Harbour is made up of about 200 squares of knitted wool, in all colours and is on display in the window of Café No.34.

“It was a real community effort,” said Sue Challis of the 150cm square blanket which has been embellished with gulls and turned into a seascape.

High Street wool shop Plan-Knit Wool donated spare knitting needles and balls of wool, taken up by cafe customers who soon got busy with them, as did members of the knitting circle, Knit Together.

“The wonderful thing was we still don’t know who a lot of the people who knitted the squares are,” said Emily Bradbury, part of the management team of the cafe, which is run by church-based charity Poole Missional Communities, and staffed by volunteers.

“We are grateful to people who took part and hope they will pop in and see it,” she added.

It took about 18 months to create with Sue, who had broken a leg at the time: “Crawling around on the floor, dragging my plastered leg, while stitching the blanket together.”

The community project began in spring 2011 after a group of Christian women created a weekly drop-in group Space for Life at the cafe, which has a meeting room upstairs, where they can chat and enjoy craft activities, with an opportunity for reflective silence in the middle.

“Only when it went into the café window could we see that it actually works,” said Sue, who is hoping knitters will stop by and admire their community blanket.