NIGHT after night, hour after hour, it was a case of knit one, purl one as determined Sheila Carter completed her painstaking patriotic gesture.

In what has to be among the wackiest, if not warmest tributes to the Queen on her Diamond Jubilee, the greatgrandmother has nimbly knitted the majestic Royal Barge.

Measuring a metre long, it has the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh sitting on their thrones as the barge cruises through the capital as part of the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant on June 3.

But the 75-year-old from Harefield did not rest there.

She then set about knitting waving spectators and a flotilla sailing alongside – and to top it all the iconic Tower Bridge.

The labour of love involved about 500 frantic hours and an estimated 1.8million stitches using 4,500ft of wool.

Sheila, who confessed she had never visited London, said: “I got a bit of wool and started knitting. It was strange but I just got taken away with it.”

Right down to the final touches, Sheila says she’s tried to make everyone as lifelike as possible.

She added: “I don’t know why I did it and if I had to do it again I would not know how I did it.”

But this is not the first time she has wondered with her woolly wizardry.

For the Royal Wedding, she knitted a 3ft tall wedding cake topped with William and Kate.