knit-in at the capitol

I spent many hours this past weekend at the Capitol, joining the protests against Scott Walker's budget repair bill. (For more pictures and ramblings, see the last bunch of posts on Madtown Mama...) I don't shy away from expressing my political opinions on my blogs, but they tend not to show up on this one as often, because most of the time, you know, knitting is just knitting.

Come to think of it, though, working knitting into my political/activist life isn't entirely a new idea. In 2004, I was still in graduate school and a member of the TAA when we went on a 2-day strike over contract negotiations with the state of Wisconsin. I remember sitting outside on a warm April day with a ballot box, collecting people's strike ballots, knitting squares for an afghan to donate to A4A and someone came by and made a comment about Madame Defarge. Not that there were any real parallels to draw between me and her, you understand, but Madame Defarge being the most famous fictional knitter in literature, it was hard not to say something.

I've been knitting for A4A for a long time, too, as you can see. For me, that's a political statement, though I suppose it doesn't have to be. I knit for Afghan citizens because I want to alleviate the suffering my country's military has inflicted upon them, even if it's a drop in the proverbial bucket.

And now, even as I write this, history is happening here in my city. (If you are late to the game, read this summary of events leading up to last weekend. It's better and more comprehensive than anything you'll find in the national media.)

I've been to the Capitol many days over the past 2 weeks. On Saturday, I joined crowds more than 100,000 strong (some reports say 70,000, but I was there on the previous Saturday when there were 70,000 and I guarantee you there were way more last weekend) in the freezing temperatures and falling snow to protest the bill. I marched. I held my sign.



After several hours when my toes were so cold they hurt and my fingers were numb, I went home and made dinner.

Sunday, I was back. I joined a few dozen other knitters for a knit-in on the 2nd floor of the Capitol. We didn't have any clever signs (though one from Friday night read "Knitters think this bill should be unraveled!") but we attracted a lot of smiles and pictures and pleasant conversation - what could be heard over the din of the continuing chants and drumming in the Rotunda, that is! I only stayed a couple of hours. I had a great time meeting other knitters and I spent a long time talking to this fine lady, who works for the Historical Society and wonders what will happen to the amazing plethora of signage covering the Capitol walls (she wants some of it to be archived):



The Capitol was supposed to be emptied out at 4:00. By the time I left at 2:30, things were getting a little tense, as rumors flew through the building that police were starting to slow the flow of people coming inside, allowing only one person in for every two going out. Pamphlets were aflutter with information about civil disobedience, the phone number for ACLU lawyers (with the instructions to write it on one's body with a permanent marker) and how to peacefully resist arrest (go limp).

This is what it looked like outside - lines of people stretching to the street, waiting to go inside the Capitol, chanting "Let us in!"





Police standing in solidarity:



...and standing quietly by the doors to the building:



Even a snowman was protesting:



I'd forgotten to eat lunch or even bring water along, so on my way out, I stopped by the world's most famous pizza stand (see this article in the NYT and you'll know what I mean):




When I got home, I checked in with my family and then immersed myself in live footage and twitter feeds, anxious to know how everything went down after 4:00pm. The good news is that no arrests were made and that the chief of police decided to let several hundred protesters stay the night, continuing the vigil that has been going non-stop for two weeks. They also cleaned the first floor of the building, and let me tell you, that needed to be done! People have been extremely conscientious about picking up trash and being as considerate as possible, but when you pack thousands of people in that building every day, it starts to smell like an old gym locker. Just saying. The bad news is that the governor still won't budge (though the news broke last evening that one Republican Senator has announced that he opposed the bill.* We just need two more to vote it down.) Memo to Walker: LISTEN TO YOUR PUBLIC! WE ARE NOT BACKING DOWN!!

Well...I guess this post really wasn't much about knitting at all, was it? I thoroughly enjoyed the knit-in. It was nice to have people to talk to, and have something to do during those hours of protest. I made some good progress on Stuart's sweater, too. More on that soon.

*ETA: I spoke too soon. Republican Senator Dale Schultz won't say whether he's voting yes or no on the bill.

fair isle friday

I don't think I'm going to make "fair isle Friday" a regular feature or anything, but I enjoy the alliteration, so here's a peek at my latest project:



Those are the earflaps for a Polar Chullo. I'm knitting it for one of Daniel's teachers, who liked her Toboggan Noggin so much that she asked me to make her another hat. She specifically requested earflaps. I kind of wanted an excuse to make a polar chullo, so I suggested this pattern. That might have been crazy because the gauge it calls for is approximately a zillion stitches per inch, but it looks like fun, so I'm going for it.

The first part is driving me bonkers, though. The earflaps are knit back and forth, and they have fair isle, too, which makes for quite a mess on the back:



I considered adapting the earflaps to be knit in the round somehow, but decided against it because the recipient wants to line the whole hat with fleece, and I'm afraid the earflaps knit double-thick would make it really unwieldy and bulky. So I just suffered through. The fun part is yet to come.

new mittens for stu

This week, I have spent a good deal of my mental energy engaged in thought and action regarding Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's "budget repair bill." If you follow my non-knitting blog, you've read my thoughts on the matter. I am not alone; I spent the entire afternoon marching around and in the state Capitol with thousands upon thousands (50K or more) of union members and supporters in a peaceful protest against the bill. One poor guy got kicked in the groin, but there wasn't any rowdiness other than that. Of course, the Crazy Train brought a few Tea-Party-Movement/Walker-Supporters into town, but believe you me, they were vastly outnumbered. (I'm sure Fox News would have you believe otherwise.) Every so often, about a half dozen of them would walk through the crowd going the wrong way; we politely let them through, but drowned out their chants of "Pass this bill!" with our own "Stop the bill!"

Yeah, so this whole thing has me so distracted this week that I haven't done much knitting. Not serious knitting, anyway. And having a sick kid didn't help much, what with being up several nights in a row with a coughing, feverish little girl. But I did manage to finish Stuart's mittens, on Valentine's Day no less!





Hooray for Stu. He happily dropped me off and picked me up downtown (I don't mind the bus, but it would have taken me MUCH longer to get home to fix dinner) and took care of the kids all afternoon so I could participate in the protests. He is a good man and understands my passions. He is getting a sweater for his birthday, too...that happens to be in less than a month...guess I better get cracking!

wordless wednesday - in solidarity!

valentine's day miscellany

It's Monday. How about a bit of random?

1. You know how I was spouting off about how lately I'm all about project monogamy? Well, I think all it took was stating it publicly in a blog post to make it not true anymore. In the last week I've started about three more projects and planned several more. Halfway through binding off the bottom of the lightweight pullover, I decided to try it on, and discovered that I really want it to be a couple inches longer, so I frogged all the ribbing, put it back on the needles, and that's where I stopped. This is, in part, what prompted my latest bout of startitis.

2. I knit a little mitten (pictured in last week's Wordless Wednesday post), which is really not so much a mitten as a gauge swatch for a fair isle hat I'm doing by request for someone else. I didn't get the gauge I need, and the little mitten, while lovely, has approximately one gazillion ends to weave in, plus I think the thumb might end up too small, so I haven't even decided if it's worth finishing, much less make the second one. If nothing else, I suppose I could sew a loop on the end and call it a Christmas ornament.

3. Stuart commented one day last week that he wouldn't mind having a pair of lightweight mittens. He's got some nice heavy-duty waterproof ones my parents gave him for Christmas, but they're too warm for the thawing weather we're having now. I took some measurements, chose some yarn, and cast on last Thursday, optimistically thinking I'd have the mittens done for Valentine's Day. Not that we really celebrate Valentine's Day, but it seemed like a reasonable deadline. I almost made it:



As you can see, I've just got a bit of thumb left, so by this evening sometime Stuart shall have his new mittens. I've stalled, though, because I don't know exactly how long his thumbs are, and I don't want to guess. I left him a phone message at work asking him to measure his thumb length, which I'm sure he'll find a little weird, but we've been married almost 10 years, so by now this stuff doesn't faze him much. In any case, if he calls back with a measurement, he'll have his mittens by suppertime, and if not...he'll have to wait just a bit longer!

4. We got word from the contractor yesterday that he'll be ready to start up basement work in a couple of weeks. The next steps are wall framing and very messy plumbing work, so we have to get Everything Out. This includes the stash. Now that I've relocated it ALL AT ONCE I realize - yet again - just how much there is. I love my stash, I love my yarn, but it takes up a fair chunk of real estate in our little house. I'm trying very hard not to get into a guilt spiral about all of this but I do think it's time to think about reducing. Or at least not expanding. Not to mention, taking sealed plastic tubs out to store in the shed sent me in a bit of a panic about planning the next few months of knitting (impossible because I always change my mind about what to knit next) and keeping everything accessible in case I need it immediately. Not that I can't get to the stuff out there, but it is certainly not easy.

wordless wednesday

on the needles

The last few months, I've been on a monogamous knitting jag. I'll focus on just one project at a time until it's done, and then I start another. The only recent overlap was the Christmas knitting, when I had two projects going: MJ's mittens, which were colorwork and therefore not portable, and my brother's socks, which were easy and were mostly knit away from home or in front of the TV.

Now I'm back to doing one thing at a time, and I'm not entirely convinced that's a good thing. Having too many WIPs can be overwhelming, of course, but it's nice to be able to go back and forth between two or three projects to keep the creative juices flowing, to prevent one project from going stale.

At the moment, though, I'm just chugging away on the Lightweight Pullover, which is going surprisingly fast considering its small gauge. The design is so very simple and straightforward that I can pick it up and work on it pretty much whenever I want. I've been knitting while the kids play in the living room, while I'm talking on the phone, even while reading bedtime stories (I put the Little People to work holding the books and turning the pages, and this makes Them feel Very Important).

Even though I haven't started anything new, I've sneaked in a bit of swatching. Here's my current knitting basket:



You can see I've already reached the ribbing on the bottom of my sweater. When that's done, all I have left are the sleeves. When I started, I was a little concerned that I wouldn't have enough yarn for long sleeves, but I'm not even through the second skein (each is about 400 yards), so that is no longer an issue.

The blue yarn you see resting on the top is Valley Yarns Northampton Bulky, which I just bought to make a sweater for Stuart (I was serious about owing him a sweater!), but alas, it's not going to work out. I'm having gauge problems, which I can get around, but the real problem is the color. It's called "navy" but the color is just a little too bright; he pretended to like it, but I can just tell it's not right for him. I really want something darker and more subtle. Ah, the perils of buying yarn online unseen! (I've already got an alternate plan for the yarn, though. I asked Anya the other day if I could make her a sweater, and she asked for a blue one. I found this pattern on Ravelry, and I think it's a good match.) I've already placed an order for another yarn, which hopefully will work out (this is how the stash...er...collection grows!)

And last, do you see the brown tweed peeking out? That's some kind of tweedy wool I bought for a project - I've already forgotten what, though perhaps it was something for Anya - a couple years ago. I was even considering donating it to a community center when I saw the latest pattern release, Jetty, on Winged Knits, and I had an aha! moment. The pattern and yarn seem to be a good match, and I think I have exactly enough.

That's a lot of sweaters in the line-up. My husband's birthday is next month, and I really really want to make him a sweater, so that takes priority. But aside from that, who knows where the shifting winds of my knitting mood will take me once I'm ready to start another project? Socks? Colorwork? Baby stuff for the rash of birth announcements we've received lately? I've had the attitude lately that I knit for my own joy rather than obligation, so...we shall see. We shall see.

by the way...

By the way, Jessi rocks. She sent me this a few weeks ago:



It took me this long to take even this not-so-great picture, but I wanted to share my appreciation publicly. It's a crocheted neckwarmer in the most beautiful heathery shade of jade or teal. I could tell immediately that it was made of 100% wool because it's nice and warm, and happily not one little bit itchy. My favorite thing about this neckwarmer is that it's one big loop, so I can double it up to wrap it nice and warm around my neck without the annoyance of ends coming out and needing constant adjustment. (I'm not saying I don't like a good scarf, but there is something appealing about the practicality of something loop-shaped.) Anyway, I wear this all the time and it goes very nicely with my espresso-colored coat. Bonus.

(I am really enjoying the ongoing conversation about stash. Thanks for your comments, everyone!)

food for thought, and a new project

A few weeks ago I discovered this blog, and a recent post (and subsequent comments) about the term "stashbusting" really got me thinking. If you read through the comments, there's a pretty interesting discussion going on. I'd never really thought about "stashbusting" as a negative term before (and I'm not sure that I do now, to tell the truth), but I've been pondering how Stash and Guilt and Consumerism and Creativity get all mixed together in a messy pile, and how that's not really a good thing.

Yesterday morning, I ventured to the basement with an assortment of odd skeins and leftover yarn to put away, and as I opened various tubs of yarn finding space and trying to keep organized, I caught myself thinking several times, "Good grief, there's a lot of yarn here." I felt guilty for a moment, because of course having a lot implies that I have too much, which means there is something wrong and I should take some kind of action to rectify it. Or that I should find some way to justify what I have.

I wonder if this is partly a gender thing that goes like this: because I'm a woman I enjoy shopping and accumulating stuff, but I'm supposed to feel guilty about it later. At least, that's how the stereotype goes. And specifically, as a knitter, I should feel guilty about having more yarn than I can knit up in the next week or month or year or two years (or whatever deadline you want to put on it) and therefore I should berate myself privately and on my blog, and joke about how my stash demonstrates how I have no self-control or discipline and then I should resolve to knit only for charity for a year to use up stash so I can allow myself to go buy more and then it all repeats. You see the vicious cycle here?

I'm not saying I'm immune to this narrative. Once upon a time I announced I'd go two years without buying yarn. That was more than two years ago and it was an epic FAIL. I remember telling my mom about it, and she laughed at me. Because she is wise and she herself has a substantial stash of quilt fabric and knows how these things go. I think it failed ultimately because putting limits on one's creativity is a stupid and useless thing to do. (I'm not talking about actual neuroses like hoarding or compulsive buying, by the way. Those are wholly different issues.) Knitting is a wonderful thing, and I should knit because I enjoy it and can make beautiful things that are often useful as well. I should not knit just for the purpose of using up yarn. Then it's a chore, and I have enough chores to do already.

You should know this about me: I am a very responsible, disciplined person. I'm also fairly organized (I think it would be a stretch to say "very" organized...) If I weren't extremely well-disciplined, I wouldn't have been able to finish a doctorate in music. If I weren't responsible, I'd be a lousy mother. If I weren't reasonably organized, the household would be in chaos, but it's not. I get things done, my kids are lovely (you know, except when they aren't, but that's cause they're kids), and I also happen to be a very creative person who knits all the time...so tell me why, exactly, I'm supposed to consider it a personal shortcoming that I have a lot of yarn?

My brief moment of guilt in the basement yesterday did result in my picking out a couple skeins of sock yarn to donate to a community center for their knitting group. That was a good feeling, actually.

What do you guys think?

Oh, yeah. And here's a peek at my new project:



It's the top third or so of a Lightweight Pullover, using, oddly enough, some of the first yarn I ever stashed, or collected, or whatever you'd like to call it. I'll expound more on that later. Right now it's time to knit.