The day was successful but exhausting. It started with me picking up the beginnings of the watch I was knitting for the Knit for Food Knit-a-Thon ….
… and taking it with me to a Hands Off protest at the state capitol.
And I knitted while standing …
The protest was great. They estimated that over 1,000 people showed up, a huge number for Tallahassee. It was actually FUN. Most of the signs were angry, but the people themselves were good-natured and friendly. Here’s a couple of my favorite signs.
We had lunch with a friend afterward, and I continued to knit.
I kept knitting while my husband drove us home. I kept knitting while he made dinner. I kept knitting while we watched TV. At a few minutes before 10 PM (EDT), I finished.
I still need to block (handwash and air dry) the hat. And I still need to randomly select a winner from my donors.
I will complete the other projects (socks and a scarf) that I’ve written about (Knit for Food Knit-a-Thon 2025). They will take a lot more than a day to complete.
Thank you all for your support. This was my first fundraiser, and I am so glad I participated. We raised over $500,000 for Meals on Wheels, World Central Kitchen, Feeding America, and No Kid Hungry.
At a time when I often feel helpless, this experience showed me what good can be done when people come together.
The Knit-a-Thon has officially started. And two hours from now, I’ll be at a protest at my state capitol. Here’s more from me:
So my video might be kinda long (about 4 minutes) for WordPress so if you can’t view it … I’m just saying hello and thank you to everyone who has donated to my team of one for the Knit-a-Thon. Here’s more info if you missed it: https://givebutter.com/knitforfood25/marie-bailey/mariebailey
I show my progress on the three projects I’ll be knitting throughout the day. To be honest, not a lot of progress from my last WordPress post so if you can’t view the video, you’re not missing anything really.
You can also find me on Instagram (@marieannbailey57) and Facebook (https://facebook.com/marieannbailey). I HOPE to post pics during the day.
Again, many thanks to everyone who donated. I am planning on having a giveaway of one or all of my projects for those who donated. [The finished project has to pass my standards first.]
As I mentioned in my last post, I’m participating in a Knit for Food Knit-a-Thon on Saturday, April 5. The fundraiser will divide donations equally among four organizations: Feeding America, World Central Kitchen, No Kid Hungry, and Meals on Wheels. If you’re interested in donating, here’s the link: Knit for Food Knit-a-Thon 2025.
I’m a bit nervous since this will be my first time participating. I’m supposed to knit for 12 hours, generally 10 AM to 10 PM. It’s a honor system but, trust me, knitting for 12 hours is nothing to a lifelong knitter.
BUT.
April 5 is also the day when rallies are planned across the nation. You can learn more about that here. My husband wants to go. Two of our friends want to go. I should go. But I also committed myself to knit for charity.
So I’ve come up with three knitting projects so I can knit according to my environment. (Apologies for the poor quality of the photos. I have a learning curve when it comes other photographing indoors.)
The beginning of a watch cap in light olive.
The simplest project will be a watch cap in an overall knit 2, purl 2 rib. I’m using a design by Sandi Rosner, a knitter who also writes on Substack at A Good Yarn. [If you’re a knitter and a lover of books including audiobooks, I highly recommend Sandi’s newsletter. All her posts are free but I have a paid subscription because she offers detailed yarn reviews.] This is the kind of project I can easily do while distracted … like at a rally. Yes, I can knit standing up and no doubt I’ll probably squeeze in a few stitches while walking.
Multi-colored yarn that will be knit into a pair of socks.
The fabric in the photo above is what knitters call a swatch: usually a 6″x 6″ square knitted in either stockinette or a specific pattern with your preferred yarn and needles. The point of the swatch is to measure the number of stitches and rows per inch, or the gauge, and see if the results match the gauge of the pattern. I am the sort of knitter who tries to get around swatching, but in cases where fit is very important–for example, a sweater or a pair of socks–swatching is necessary. I haven’t measured the gauge of this piece yet, but I suspect it will tell me that I will need to use size 1 needles to knit the socks I have in mind.
The sock pattern is a simple rib stitch pattern, but with #1 needles and multicolored yarn, I need to pay attention to what I’m doing. I can watch TV more or less but I wouldn’t be comfortable taking this project to the rally. I have to be alert to any possible dropped stitches which, for me, are easy to miss when I’m knitting on such small needles.
Just the tip of the iceberg that might become a shawl … or a scarf
My third project is a Pines and Needles Shawl. You can see some versions of the shawl here: Pines and Needles Shawl by Sweaterfreak. Now I didn’t knit a swatch for the shawl, but I did experiment with three different needle sizes before I decided on one that seemed to suit the yarn best. The thing, I’m not using yarn recommended by the designer. The yarn I’m using is finger-weight yarn, or yarn usually used for knitting socks, which is finer than the recommended yarn. So … I’m using a finer yarn and smallish needles (#3) which means I’ll likely wind up with a Pines and Needles scarf. I think I can live with that.
This project requires me to pay close attention. I’ve already had to rip out (or frog in knitters’ parlance) and start that little triangle over several times. Not the kind of project that I’d want to take to a rally.
So, there we are … or here I am. I am excited about knitting all day on April 5 and for a good cause, not just my own selfish pleasure in knitting. Meanwhile, evenings are getting warmer here in north Florida so Raji’s snuggling might soon come to an end, at least for the summer.
Friends, I thought long and hard about this. This morning, I decided that it’s something I simply have to do. I’ve signed up to knit for 12 hours on April 5, 2025, to raise funds for Feeding America, World Central Kitchen, No Kid Hungry, and Meals on Wheels.
Many of you know that knitting is my “happy place.” I can do other things like weave or write, but my deepest intrinsic satisfaction always comes with knitting. And that’s one reason why I haven’t been blogging very much. I’ve been knitting. Recently I completed the Elvan shawl that I wrote about here.
The first photo of the Elvan Shawl is from the designer, Florence Spurling. The others are my own photos showing more detail of the intarsia patterns. Generally, it was fun to knit, and the yarn was wonderful to work with.
After these photos were taken, I sent the shawl to a friend. This particular friend was someone I knew from high school, someone I had lost touch with until a few years ago when I heard that her mother had died from Covid. And then a couple of years later, she was diagnosed with cancer. Thankfully, she’s gone through her treatments and (so far, so good) has been doing well. I thought of her often while I was knitting the shawl, thinking of how sweet the soft wool yarn would feel against her skin.
She wrote to me when she received the shawl. She wrote all the words that makes a knitter’s heart sing.
And so I keep knitting.
For the Knit-a-Thon, I’m planning to knit socks. I have quite a stash of sock yarn, and socks can be done quickly. Plus, who doesn’t need socks?!
I’ve been finding a lot of ways to avoid writing. Firstly, I challenged myself with a new-to-me method of knitting. Well, not entirely new to me as I had knitted “top-down” sweater patterns before, but those patterns always resulted in raglan sleeves … you know, the ones with a diagonal seam from armpit to collar. Not the best design for someone with a pear-shaped figure like myself. This new-to-me method, designed by Julie of Cocoknits, has a tailored yoke and pattern variations for different body types.
Are you all still with me?
I bought the Cocoknits sweater book and workbook and even a work stand (which I haven’t yet used but it came with a nice hemp bag that I could put all my tools in so that was handy). I do have some issues with the book as it was written in a narrative style, and I spent a lot of time flipping pages to figure out what to do when. I also had three false starts (meaning I started knitting and then had to rip out and start again because I misunderstand the instructions). Eventually, I also realized that it would be best to use the stash yarn that’s been wallowing in my cedar chest for the past 20 years. If the sweater is a failure, no great loss then.
And I persevered … much better than I do with my writing. For some reason, I rarely, if ever, give up on my knitting. Following is the result of my labor. Yes, this is a selfie. I do NOT enjoy taking selfies but my husband was busy and I just wanted to get it over with. The “pose” is simply to show a sleeve, not my hair, but … whatever.
Me wearing Prototype 1 of Cocoknits Emma Version B, posed to show sleeve
As if that were not enough to distract me from writing, I decided to weave potholders. Yes, you read that right. Potholders.
Many, many years ago, long before I moved to California, I learned to spin yarn and weave at a college I briefly attended. I fell in love with both activities and when it was time for me to pay tuition for the Spring semester, I decided instead to buy a 4-harness floor loom and move back home. The loom I bought is similar to the one below, but mine had four treadles instead of six.
Four harness, six treadle floor loom from Harrisville Designs.
I wove a few things, dragged the loom across the country with me, wove a couple of more things, then sold my loom to a friend when I moved into a studio apartment that simply didn’t have enough room for it. Since then, I’ve wanted to resume weaving, but haven’t felt like I have the space for it or the dinero. And now I feel totally out of touch with weaving.
I subscribe to a magazine called Little Looms which promotes weaving on small, even tiny, looms. A recent issue had an article on weaving potholders. I know I wove potholders when I was a kid, but my memories are vague. That said, I was hooked (no pun intended) by the article. I promptly ordered a potholder kit from Friendly Looms (which just happens to be affiliated with Harrisville Designs, the company from which I bought my floor loom all those years ago). Of course, I also had to buy a pattern book. Of course.
Wendy wondering what all this has to do with her.
Here’s my first potholder.
After I shared these photos on Facebook, two of my relatives asked me to make a couple for them. Cool.
Weaving potholders is a meditative practice. It also doesn’t take long to make one. It’s almost instant gratification compared to knitting a sweater.
But, in truth, I have been writing. I joined a group in the SmokeLong Fitness Community and have written a bit. I want to share what I’ve written here. I just need to figure out how I want to do that.
And if you’ve read this far … here’s your gratuitous cat photo.
My little boy Raji loves snuggling up to my big boy Junior.
Nothing. Yes, dear Reader, I got almost nothing for this post today. I have been fairly productive of late, but not with writing or blogging. Again, it’s the knitting.
A friend noted that the buttons on the baby sweater I knitted for a baby-to-be might not be appropriate for a baby.
Yes, they are cute cat heads but the ears are rather pointy, not too sharp against my rough old skin, but I don’t want to the buttons to be the cause of baby’s first injury. So I swap them out for these.
And, to be honest, I think these buttons are better suited. They are pretty without drawing the eye entirely away from the sweater pattern.
I hope to present the parents-to-be with the sweater and hat tonight. I’m sure they will be pleased that at least the outfit can be machine washed and dried, and yet it is wool. Merino wool, in fact, which is very soft.
Well, that’s it for now. I’m thinking (again) of changing my blogging schedule. If I aim for Fridays, then I can have all week to write and revise my posts instead of doing them half-off as I am now. We’ll see.
Oh, and what about the classes I’m taking? Well, the Modern Poetry class is a no-go for me. It’s too fragmented: too many links to follow, an audio here, a video there. Each week brings an email (or two) with several embedded links. In contrast, a class I started a long while ago (on a lark), through the same platform (Coursera) has a very simple syllabus, with all content accessible through my iPad app. The course is historical fiction and very interesting so far. I can (and have) happily watched a video lecture while knitting. I’ll say more about that class in a later post. I’m still looking forward (with eagerness and dread) to the Fiction Workshop that will be offered free through the International Writing Program. That will start on Thursday, September 24. And, no doubt, you’ll hear all about that as well.
Until then a little eye candy for all you cat lovers: my green-eyed boy Junior. Why buy a fancy cat bed when an old basket and a couple of magazines make him happy?
Hello, dearest Reader. I feel like I’ve fallen far off the grid, and yet it’s only been a week and several hours since my last post. The real difference is I haven’t visited any of my friends’ blogs. I’ve been busy, which is quite fitting since today is Labor Day in the US.
Guernsey style infant sweater and hat. Yes, the buttons are cat faces :)
I still have the baby blanket to knit, but at least I’ve completed the sweater and cap. I have my doubts about this pattern, though, and it’s the second time I’ve knitted it. I used to knit sweaters a lot, adult sweaters for friends, me, and my husband. The baby things have only come about in the last 14 years, since my nephews started having children. Then a good friend gained a granddaughter and coworkers started having babies. For a long while I was knitting baby blankets, occasionally throwing in a sweater or socks or a dress. The thing is … I hate sewing the pieces together, especially when the stitch pattern is anything other than stockinette stitch. I recall only one time in my knitting life when I sewed up the seams of a cardigan so well they were almost invisible. (And when I say “sew,” I mean taking several inches of the yarn and a large blunt needle and weaving the seams closed.)
Knitting is much like writing for me. I love the process. I love seeing the pattern unfold through my fingers as much as I enjoy seeing a story take shape on a page. I love the feel of soft wool against my skin as much as I love the intimacy I develop with my characters. But I don’t love having to put the pieces together as much as I don’t love having to revise and rewrite. The problem is self-doubt.
Whenever I knit for someone else, I’m more critical of my work than when knitting for myself. I will rip out a finished sleeve and start over if I find a mistake. Even when I’m convinced I’ve done the best I could, I still find “defects” in my knitting: a slight gap where I twisted a stitch one way instead of the other; a telltale seam along the back of the hat. It’s the same when I think of other people reading my writing: Melissa’s breakdown is too melodramatic; the setting too vague, too Anywhere, USA. Typos and grammar can be fixed by an editor. Poor revision cannot (well, not unless I’m willing to spend $$$$$$$$$$).
So it goes.
Shortly, things will be even busier. I’ve managed to register for two free online courses: (1) Modern & Contemporary American Poetry offered by the University of Pennsylvania; and (2) How Writers Write Fiction with the University of Iowa, the same folks who offered the poetry course I took a few months ago. The poetry course will start on Sept 12 and the fiction course on Sept 24. And I still have my day job.
Am I insane? Is there a padded cell in my near future? I keep taking things to the limit. Cue The Eagles.
As many of you know, I am a knitter. I’ve knitting for roughly the same number of years as I’ve been writing, and my writing marathons often alternate with knitting marathons. My first memory of knitting was when I was 9 when I was given a kit for a pink knitted minidress. The kit came with acrylic pink yarn, huge wooden needles (comparable to a US size 17) and instructions. What I managed to knit was not a minidress, but some kind of tangled mess.
And yet, I was hooked (so to speak) from that day forward.
Over the next ten years, I knitted with whatever I could find (we were a family of few means), even some spools of synthetic yarn that a high school friend discovered in her basement. If people gave me yarn, I would knit them something. While that sounds awfully generous of me, keep in mind that I was still learning to knit (I am self-taught) and so I’m not sure that my “gifts” were always appreciated or desired.
I’ve have several peaks and valleys with my knitting (just like with my writing) over the past 40-odd years. One Christmas, when I was still a teenager, I went crazy and knitted, crocheted, or needlepointed a Christmas gift for every one in my immediate family. Ahhh, the good old days when I was a mere college student and had time enough to knit, read, and write.
During a brief sojourn at a private college, I took a spinning and weaving class. So then I had to add spinning and weaving to my hobbies. The best education I got out of that particular college was learning to spin and weave. Rather than return for another quarter, I left college and bought a 36-inch floor loom with what would have been my tuition money. But these were mere detours along my knitting path. I enjoyed weaving immensely but in spite of even bringing the loom with me all the way from upstate NY to Oakland, CA, I could never embrace it as I did my knitting. With knitting, all you really need is yarn and a needle (I say a needle because I work almost exclusively with circular needles). Weaving requires much more preparation before you even start weaving. By contrast, spinning is also “simpler” if you buy your wool already carded and you’re happy to sit and spin with a small spindle. Eventually the loom and the spinning wheel were sold to a friend, while I continued to buy every possible length and size of knitting needle.
Fast forward to where I live now. Still knitting by choice, but my knitting has changed quite a bit. I don’t like sewing up the pieces of a sweater: easing the top of the sleeve into the armhole; trying to sew the sides together; and then finding holes in the seams. I’ve knitted cardigans, the bane of my existence because not only do they require piecing together but they also have (shudder) buttonholes to contend with. It’s not that I can’t knit well enough; I just find finishing to be annoying. When I’m done knitting, I want my knitting to be done and immediately wearable. So now I knit socks, shawls, scarves. Occasionally I’ll see a pattern that looks intriguing enough that I’ll give piecing another go. As with this shrug:
The pattern (Kimono Shrug) was quite easy, but the yarn (Noro Silk Garden) was actually a bit difficult to work with. It’s a blend of wool and silk and silk isn’t elastic like wool; that is, it doesn’t yield as nicely to being pulled and looped. Sometimes I felt like I was trying to knit with rope. But the effect of the yarn, the colors and the pattern, are worth the effort.
I’m sending this shrug to a friend who lives in California. She’s an artist (mixed-media). I’ve knitted for her before. In the distant past, we even bartered a few times, my knitting in exchange for her illustrating some patterns that I wrote and tried to sell. In all honesty, I didn’t set out to make this shrug for her, but, once it was completed, I just kept thinking of how much Jennifer might like it. How it might keep her warm when she’s working in her warehouse studio. How it might flatter her (and me) if she wore it to one of her openings. So I wore it twice to confirm that, yes, it does drape nicely and is warm without being too warm. But it’s off to Jennifer, and I hope she likes it.
So what hobbies do you have? What else do you look forward to doing, besides reading and writing? Do you like to restore antique cars? Brew your own beer? Cross-stitch? Sew? Let me know in the comment section ;)
On the trail at Chimney Rock, Point Reyes National Seashore Park, California July 2012
It’s been a week since I submitted my final word count to Camp NaNoWriMo and my brain still feels as empty as this great expanse of sky. I’ve written little since: mostly comments, an attempt at poetry during a downturn in my mood, and the ubiquitous note-keeping I do at my day job. I had thought of planning to edit one or both of the novels I’ve written in the past 6 months. Remember, they are both first drafts so editing will open the opportunity (and challenge) of rewriting. But … always there is a but … my physical environment is suffering from neglect and my other projects are demanding their due.
For one, I’m engaged in The Knitting Guild Association’s (TKGA’s) Master Hand Knitting Program, Level 1. For those of you interested in such endeavors, here’s a link: http://www.tkga.com/?page=AboutTKGAMasters
I actually had completed Level 1 almost 20 years ago, started Level 2 and then just quit. I am an avid knitter and have been knitting for over 40 years. I can also sew and crochet, but knitting has always defined me. I’ve made everything from baby blankets to cardigans to socks to shawls to scarves to pullovers. As the years go by, my knitting has become simpler, except for the socks and a venture into Entralec.
In recent years, I’ve resisted patterns like cardigans that require lots of finishing. Even with socks, I prefer to knit toe-up two-at-a-time because that method requires the least amount of planning and finishing. So why am I enrolled in the Level 1 Master program again? (Beside the fact that after 20 years, the association has updated its standards and requirements.) In truth, because I thought if I ever attempt to sell my knitting, it might be helpful if I could be “certified” as a Master Knitter and for that, you need to complete all three levels of the Master program. But knitting is labor-intensive and selling would only work if I was willing to do it for free. And, once knitting becomes a job, the joy goes out of it for me.
My writing is much like my knitting: I love the process (the knitting, the writing). I love the end product (the sweater, the novel), but I don’t like everything I have to do to get there (the sewing of seams, the editing). And, as with knitting, once the “fun” goes out of writing, so goes the writing.
After all these years of writing and knitting, I feel like I’m still discovering myself as a writer and a knitter. And I’m starting to let go of that urgency to “Be” something or someone, to define myself by someone else’s precepts. I’m a contrary student: I love to learn but I hate instructions. I love to find out something new, but I hate being told what to do.
Yet I intend to finish Level 1 of the Master program, even if I have to write a two-page, single-spaced report on blocking (really, is there that much to be said on blocking?). Level 2 will depend on how much of Level 1 I might be asked to re-do. And with my writing, it will be easier to simply create anew rather than rework what I already have. We’ll see. For now, I have some knitting to finish.
Marie at 1 Write Way 