Guinness World Records is thrilled to announce that Mother India’s Crochet Queens (India) successfully made the Largest crochet blanket in the world, measuring an astonishing 11,148.5 m² (120,001 ft² 72 in²) – easily covering the football pitch on which it was laid.

Official Guinness World Records adjudicator Mr P Patel travelled to Chennai, India at the end of last month to verify the incredible new record.





The lady behind this mammoth project was 44-year-old crochet-lover Subashri Natarajan, who told us: "I started the wonderful art of crochet from a young age. At the age of 10, I remembered very clearly playing with yarn creating beautiful dreams with crochet. I have been a very ambitious child always wanting to achieve great things in life. This dream of making it big in the world stayed with me into adulthood. I have always been looking for opportunities to come my way and finally decided that I have to create an opportunity and not wait for one. It is at this time I decided to research on Guinness World Records projects related to crochet.

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"Having the very thought of associating myself with Guinness World Records gave me a sense of pride. That which I cannot feel or achieve with any other organisation in the world. Anyone in the world can identify and understand the magnanimity of Guinness World Records. Having attained a great record, I feel proud and at the same time thankful to Guinness World Records for being supportive throughout the entire journey. To me the journey has just begun and it is to follow many more dreams and adventures in the coming years."





Initially planning to go for the title alone, Subashri soon realised she’d need help and used Social Media to invite Indian women across the globe to unite as part of her Mother India’s Crochet Queens campaign.



Over 1,000 participants aged eight to 85, from India, as well as 13 other countries, contributed by creating hundreds of 40 x 40 in sections to make one enormous blanket.





Once the record was confirmed, the huge crochet blanket was taken apart and the individual squares were donated to those in need through NGO charities.





Record-breaking crochet tapestries have grown significantly since the title was first achieved in 1999 with a comparatively tiny 23.77 x 8.22 m (78 x 27 ft) creation. The most recent record was 3,377 m² (36,349.58 ft²), produced by 67 Blankets for Nelson Mandela Day (South Africa) in April 2015 - but the Crochet Queens’ design was more than three times larger.