Knit One, Mail for the Holidays Too!

Knitters Invited to Great Falls Postal Knit-In Dec. 7

GREAT FALLS, MT — Knitters and customers from throughout the Great Falls area are invited to a special holiday “Knit In” in the Great Falls Main Post Office lobby on Friday, December 7th from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

The event is help celebrate both the new Holiday Knits stamps and the Breast Cancer Research Stamp. This holiday season, the U.S. Postal Service has issued four new Holiday Knit Stamps featuring knitted images of a reindeer, a Christmas tree, Frosty the Snowman and a teddy bear. They were designed and machine knitted by nationally known illustrator Nancy Stahl, who was inspired by Norwegian sweaters and knitted Christmas stockings.

The Great Falls Post Office is also promoting the Breast Cancer Research stamp which was first issued in 1998 with a portion of stamp sales going to help support breast cancer research. More than 700 million of the stamps have now been sold and that has raised more than $58 million in BC research.

Knitting is enjoying a surge of popularity among the young and very hip. There is a very active knitting blog community, and many yarn stores are as much a social scene as they are commodity shops.

For the Dec. 7 event, the Great Falls Post Office has teamed up with the Treasure State Stitchers to ask knitters to participate in knitting hats, scarves and afghan squares for donation for chemo treatment patients through the Sletten Cancer Institute Hair Center and the VA. Donations of caps, crocheted or knitted squares, & yarn will be accepted for those projects. Customers may pick up a free pattern and instructions for the caps at Pam’s Knit & Stitch at 413 Central Avenue as well as the Great Falls Main Post Office.

The Great Falls Post Office will stock the lobby with sofas, easy chairs and tables. Knitters are invited to bring their yarn and needles and spend a few hours working in company with other knitting enthusiasts.

“We invite all our customers, and especially those knitting enthusiasts and persons interested in knitting, to stop by the Main Post Office on Friday, Dec. 7,” says Great Falls Post Office Customer Relations Coordinator Jacque Stingley. “It should be a unique and fun event, and a good opportunity to mail early for the holidays with these beautiful Holiday Knits Stamps.”

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An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that visits every address in the nation, 146 million homes and businesses, six days a week. It has 37,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products, and services to pay for operating expenses, not tax dollars. The Postal Service has annual revenues of $75 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail.