Crocheting royal fans let imaginations ‘go wild’ on postboxes for coronation in Wallasey

Crocheters in Merseyside have been stocking up on wool and letting their imaginations "go wild" to celebrate the coronation, creating royal-inspired postbox toppers.

Judit Kocsis-Barna, 48, has used her skills as the founder of Inspire Crochet Group in Wallasey to create her own take on coronation regalia, dubbed "the cartoon version of the crown jewels" by her husband, Istvan, 48.

Ms Kocsis-Barna, who works as a carer, made a crocheted crown, sceptre and orb, complete with crocheted gemstones, as part of a postbox topper which also includes work from others in her group.

"We usually put our creations on a postbox outside Wallasey Post Office - which is a huge oval one - which Amanda and Sarah who work there have looked after for us this year," she said.

"Members Sandy, Pat, Karen, Norma have helped with other items including guards and Camilla holding her crown in the wind and Charles wrapping his arm around her, and I made a crown, sceptre and orb.

"I roped in my husband who built the structure for the crown for me and he mapped out where I should crochet the coloured gemstones.

"He has called the crown the cartoon version of the crown jewels."

Ms Kocsis-Barna has crocheted since the age of nine, and has spent "hours, hours and hours" making the three items, in which she closely studied images of the regalia online.

She added that the orb was the easiest to make and includes a plastic bowling ball, with the sceptre proving to be tricky because of its partially twisted shape.

"I thought, I don't know what to do and it was midnight and I was looking on YouTube for a twisted crochet video and found one in Italian," she said.

"I don't speak a word of the language and they were crocheting frosting on a cupcake in this twisted style, but I figured out how to do it from that."

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