A GROUP of knitters brought smiles to children’s faces over the Easter weekend as they organised the Big Easter Yarn Bomb Hunt 2017.

The queens of crochet at Swindon Stitch and Bitch have since January been knitting furiously, creating little bunnies, eggs and chicks – 600 in total.

And on Good Friday they planted their creations in various locations around Lydiard Park and let kids and grown-ups track them down.

Star knitter Suzy Cowper and her trusty sidekick Tracey Major did a similar thing with knitted Pokemon back in the autumn, which proved to be a huge success.

Suzy said: “We really enjoyed doing the Pokemon and afterwards people wanted us to make more. Because we did so well with that, we thought it would be a great idea to do an Easter hunt.”

For the Pokemon hunt, the group crocheted 200 prizes for children to find. But this time they upped the number to 600 in the hope that they wouldn’t be found quite as quickly.

Suzy said: “We got even more members involved this time and everybody really enjoyed taking part. They were gobsmacked when we said we were hoping to knit 600, but we managed it in the end – it wasn’t a mad dash like we thought it would be.

“It was great because all the prizes were slightly different. When different people make things like this, they tend to turn out differently.”

Suzy said that the rabbits took, on average, around 45 minutes to an hour to knit, while the chicks took a little longer.

As well as giving families a weekend of Easter fun, the group of 10-13 people also managed to raise £50 for mental health charity Swindon Mind by asking people to make a small donation.

“People seemed to be very happy and they thought it was really sweet that we had got together to do this,” said Suzy.

Tracey said: “We really enjoyed it. It was great fun and we were thrilled with people’s responses.

“People were looking at us a little funny when we were going around planting them, but it was all good fun.”

Thinking about what the talented group will turn their hands to next, Tracey couldn’t say for sure, but she suggested they might do something to help the homeless.

The Swindon Stitch and Bitch Club meets every Monday from 7.30pm at the Manor Farm pub in Haydon Wick.

They are hoping to reach their target of £100 for Swindon Mind. To help them, log on to https://goo.gl/Gqqvvu.

They are grateful for every donation.