Things That People Have Said To Me Since I Started Working In A Yarn Shop
- “i need more of the rowan felted tweed, i’m making some first-world-war balaclavas and i’ve run out”
- “i’m making my husband an x-files themed jumper for christmas and i can’t find a good colour for the spaceship”
- “do you have any wool/acrylic blends on sale, i’m making hats for the seamen’s mission to give to sailors and i know they say to use acrylics because they’re cheap but it gets awfully cold at sea and i worry”
- “i need some black wool for gloves, but it has to be flame-proof because i’m making them for the beltane fire-jugglers”
- “could you see if you have another copy of this pattern for a baby shawl, i’ve knitted it in different colours for all of my six children and twelve grandchildren but it’s started to fall apart a bit"
- [from a blond, six-foot surfer dude] “yeah, do you have any really light needles, i’m going backpacking around argentina and i want to do some socks while i’m on the coach but there isn’t much room in my rucksack”
- “which of these colours do you think would be best for a knitted corgi”
- “do you have any patterns for dog hats”
like honestly you don’t even understand how happy this makes me, like half the time these women are really self-deprecating about it - “oh this is probably a really silly question”, “you’re going to think this is really weird but -” - and i’m just like no!! this is amazing!!! yes, we do have patterns for dog hats!!! please tell me all about why you’re knitting a dog hat!!!!
and i mean, some of the stuff they make is unbelievable. there’s one lady who knits wedding-ring shawls, these enormous lace shawls they do on shetland that’re about six feet across and made out of yarn that’s basically thread, which you can pull through a wedding ring because they’re so fine. and there’s another lady who knits dolls about three inches tall and she’s like eighty and she’s done maybe two thousand of them and i found this out yesterday when she came in for a pattern for an entire knitted nativity scene, including the animals and the star. and there’s all the ladies who knit clothes to donate to the refugees and tiny, tiny clothes for premature or stillborn babies at the maternity unit and hats for the seamen’s mission and jumpers for the homeless, and all the ladies making this incredible stuff for their friends or their relatives or just because they feel like it, and it’s just, they’re my favourite, every single one of these people is my favourite
Anyway speaking of mutual aid Tuesday is the international day of action to help the Unist'ot'en Camp of the Wet'suwet'en Nation, donate here and here. We will likely be seeing the RCMP and the police descend upon them in the next few days (reports were that the hotels in Smithers were booked with RCMP and police) and they need monetary support and awareness of their cause, which you can read more about at the links.
if you are in vancouver we will be gathering in solidarity in front of the bc supreme courts at 11:30am, jan 8 and marching to victory square. canada’s efforts towards reconciliation are superficial and they continue to use police violence to infringe on the sovereignty of the wet’suwet’en nation on their ancestral territories. i was one of a few ppl who delivered a set of demands written by the community to coastal gaslink’s office (primarily to stop trespassing on wet’suwet’en land) several weeks ago and they made it clear that day that the mounting mass opposition and negative media coverage won’t stop them from exploiting unceded land. we can’t ask for genuine reconciliation and truth under a settler-colonial state, this land has to be taken back!
in terms of the 4 chrises chris pine is #1 to take the strap and you may quote me on that
