Witchy Woman

"Jim Simpson would have to be the toughest man to ever pick up a pair of knitting needles.

The former prisoner of war, who spent more than 19 months in Germany's World War II prison camps, not only survived interrogations and torture but managed to knit arguably Australia's most valuable war artefact, outside a museum.

Jim's rug is a perfectly preserved 1.83m x 1.9m knitted woollen blanket, featuring the map of Australia and the Coat of Arms.

"I knitted it with straightened handles from the camp's cooking pots; they looked like pieces of number eight wire," Jim says.

"The cook agreed to give them to me if I knitted him a pair of socks.""

The toughest knitter.