If you were at Homecoming this year, chances are you were among the throngs of alumni living up to that famous opening line of the Oil Thigh: “Queen’s College colours we are wearing once again.”
But among all those tricolour devotees was one alumna wearing something a little different: a hand-knit Queen’s sweater more than 35 years in the making.
Its story stretches back to Queen’s sesquicentennial and a future king, and it arrived at Homecoming 100 connecting three generations of one family to the university.
The alumna donning the intricately woven threads was Allison Thistlewood (nee Decker), Artsci’96, the former president of the alumni branch in London, UK.
She was also the knitter of the sweater itself – a traditional Fair Isle design featuring the Q, the thistle, clover, and books from the Queen’s coat of arms.
All told, Thistlewood spent two years on the project.
"The knitting part was about six months of solid knitting," she says, "but there was about a year and a half before of thinking about it and figuring out how to go about it."
“But I like a challenge – a big chunky, epic project,” she adds with a smile. “And it did take a lot of sleuthing.”
Thistlewood’s take on the traditional Fair Isle sweater preserves details from the original design, including elements of the Queen’s coat of arms, while adding personal touches such as her graduating year on one sleeve. (Photo: Supplied)
The case started in the winter of 2023, after Thistlewood read a Queen’s Alumni Review story about the October 1991 visit of Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, to Queen’s. It mentioned a sweater presented to the future king for the university’s 150th anniversary that had been made by Mabel Corlett, Arts’60, the first woman to earn a geology degree at Queen’s and who later became the geology department’s first female professor.
Thistlewood kept digging, eventually connecting with an online knitting community and the former president of the alumni branch in Boston, Joanne Lynch (nee Muzzin), Sc'95, MEng'97, who had Corlett’s original black-and-white pattern and kindly sent it to Thistlewood.
“It was a fun game to figure out what the yarn was, to get the same gauge so that it comes out the same size as what was originally intended, to work out the colours,” says Thistlewood.
She also added a few personal touches, including her graduating year on one sleeve and the Homecoming 100 date on the other. And she used a Scottish wool for the sweater, a nod to her living in the UK, as well as her third year spent on exchange at the University of Glasgow.
Prince Charles speaks at the JDUC in October 1991 during Queen’s sesquicentennial celebrations. At front right, an attendee holds the sweater later presented to him. (Photo: Queen’s University Archives)
But the sweater was about more than the challenge of making it, says Thistlewood. It was also a way to mark her 30th reunion at Homecoming this year, which was also made especially meaningful by her family’s Queen’s connections.
Thistlewood has been periodically coming to Homecoming since she was about six years old with her parents, Jim Decker, Sc’70, and Sophie Decker (nee Martschuk), Arts’69, Ed’70. This year, her son Harrison began his own Queen’s journey as an engineering student.
Though Queen’s runs in the family, Thistlewood says she and her husband were careful not to steer Harrison toward her alma mater. He considered other universities before ultimately choosing it for himself.
“I don’t think anybody could have told him how great Queen’s was going to be until he was there and experiencing it himself,” she says. “Now he’s like, ‘Oh, I get it.’”
The family ties run even deeper. Harrison has joined the Queen’s Rocket Engineering Team, which is supported by his grandfather’s Sc’70 class, and now grandpa and grandson will celebrate their milestone reunions on the same Homecoming cycle.
For Thistlewood, wearing the sweater this year brought all those connections together.
“I think the sweater just inspires a lot of pride and joy,” she says. “Queen’s was such a great experience for me, and I’ve stayed connected in so many ways. There’s something really special about carrying that forward.”
