Knitting has become part of my activism since the election.  Making something to share messages of activism really speaks to me.  Last year I made several of the Pussyhats, a Welcome blanket, and just recently made a pair of fingerless gloves for the March For Our Lives movement that is happening this upcoming weekend.


In a visual idea of creating a "sea of eyes" during a national dialogue of gun violence in America, the co-creator of the Pussyhat movement had a vision of a new knitted symbol for the march.  I am deeply impressed the youth voice in this movement.  I was able to get a pair of gloves made and just barely in the mail on time!  I will not be able to attend my community sister march but intend to keep the discussion front and center with my own children.


From a knitting perspective this pattern was not the time for me to learn duplicate stitch.  I am interested in learning it more but the embroidery pattern was not working for me on the weight of yarn that I used from my stash.  So I think my eyes look botched as I did a quick satin stitch for the white of the eye.  It does not get much more homespun than my amateur embroidery skills on this project!  One other adjustment I made was to change the color to brown for some diversity from the pattern.

Hoping as a country we can stop, look, listen, and talk about what we can do to change this tide.

I thought I would share some of my finished fiber works and upcoming projects as I spent the day watching big ol' fat snow flakes fall and doing some volunteer knitting teaching with some 4-H'ers.




First I was happy to bind off my Olympic knitting project, the Eureka Cowl.  Cast on during the opening ceremony and bind off during the closing ceremony.  I did a couple adjustments to the pattern including removing the popcorn bobble in the pattern and I also reduced the amount of sections at the end opting for a smaller design.  It was a fun pattern that reminds me that I still want to make a Boneyard Shawl!  This was my first time working with Brooklyn Tweed and I enjoyed the loftiness, earthiness, and color.


I also had the pleasure once more of doing some community art work.  I have been able to work with a group of friends in my community doing large scale art installations for our film fest called True False.  This group dubbed "the fiber mavens" created 4 panels this year using traditional embroidery stitches with upcycled fabric on hardware cloth.  The four images were of microscopic views of a leaf, cracked mud, pebble and a topographic map.  They hung outside one of the venues.  I loved these this year!




For my upcoming projects I have two on the horizon- one is a pair of fingerless mitts for the upcoming March For Our Lives knit along.  This is a vision by the co-creator of the Pussyhat movement.  I will share more in another post on my progress when I get ready to start the eye embroidery but more information can be found here if you are interested.





As I look forward to some spring break knitting, like many other knitters I saw and fell in love with the shawl/scarf from the Black Panther movie.  It has hit the knitting community like wild fire with knitters trying to decipher a pattern and the yarns.  Both the costume designer for the movie and the pattern designer have been really accessible to the knitting community.  The pattern was designed for machine knitting which as far as I can tell quite a bit different from hand knitting.  They also listed out some of the yarns used as well.  The great thing is that what stands out in this scarf is the combination of the yarns, colors, and textures.  Really you can decide on some different stitch patterns you like and roll with that along with some yarns you enjoy.


I am using Noro Silk Garden in colorway #417, Madelinetosh Dandelion in colorway Shire- this is discontinued (I totally guessed on this one based on early tweets and found a shop online that had a skein before it was announced) Madelinetosh Merino Light in colorway Plaid Blanket, and Malabrigo Mechita in colorway Hojas.

Wish me luck as I just let my creative juices lead the way on the stitch patterns.  You can find the pattern here.



And to throw in some wood element I wanted to share that I have added a new font option for the calendars- a fun cursive option.

What are you wrapping up at winter's end?