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.
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?!
Marie at 1 Write Way 