Monday, January 28, 2008

My Election Mobius

Man, the last two presidential elections have left me feeling beaten down.
I'll just come right out and admit that I voted for Nader/LaDuke in 2000. May I remind you that times were different- Nader was different- and I had enough optimism/ feelings of frustration with a two party political system to think that voting my convictions was a good idea. Um, sorry about that one...
Of course, the painful results of the 2000 election were made much, much worse by the events that followed in 2001.
2004 was unbelievable. Despite the fact that I agree strongly with the Douche vs Turd analogy drawn by South Park, http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douche_and_Turd I sucked it up and voted for the democratic ticket. Fat lot of good that did us all.
This year, despite a very healthy dose of cynicism, I could maybe see myself inching back towards a somewhat optimistic outlook when I think of some of the candidates vying for the democratic nomination... Ok, one of the candidates, but it's a start... Perhaps that's why I am making my Inauguration day scarf a giant mobius. When I need a little reeling in, it can remind me that, no matter how good things may seem, politics will always cycle back to the same place. Of course, my husband points out, when I'm feeling down, it can symbolize no more Bush forever.

My plan is to finish a round every other week-ish. Right now I'm using yarn from the stash under my bed. I have no idea exactly how long or wide it will turn out to be so it could potentially turn out to be a huge chaotic mess. ...Actually, that's exactly how I feel about election years.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Thoughts and Ideas

I've been talking about this knit along with some people and a few thoughts and ideas have come up:

• Anyone could join at any point in the year - there really is no need to 'catch up' with the people who started with 365 days to go. Just cast on an knit a bit every day. Even if you're starting November 5th and are making the scarf to celebrate the inauguration of your candidate.

• You don't have to knit every day. You might choose only to knit on weekends or Mondays (if you're a Monday person - I'll be lucky if I remember to do mine on Mondays...).

• If you're doing lots of stripes and you don't want fringe, you might want to designate one day of the week as a weaving-in-ends day instead of a knitting day.

• Some of us, local to Northampton, MA, were talking about having a scrap swap later in the year. This is an idea if you're bored with your own scraps or they are of a limited color palette.

Day Seven (358 to go)


I have noticed that I am tending towards to the blues and greens. I have a theory. I think that we are willing the election to go blue (and green and purple) through our knitting. I will soon run out "liberal" colors and will have to turn to more red state colors, but for now I am enjoying the symbolism.

Got to figure what color for tomorrow when I am seething over the State of Union address.

Day Seven


I have noticed a color pattern - I tend towards the purples and greens it seems. My technique so far has been to randomly grab scraps and knit them up, with very little consideration for matching colors or textures, and yet here we are with very little color variation.

Odd, especially since the current Primary Catchphrase is "Change". Hm. At least so far none of the yarns are engaging in unnecessary and unproductive personal attacks. We will see if that trend continues as we get closer to Super Tuesday.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Day 4

I wanted to capture a before shot of my scarf, for posterity's sake:

I'm doing a fake basket weave using a knit 6, purl 6, repeat. My plan is to reverse the pattern on the first of each month at the start of each week.

Judging from the current length of my scarf, we still have a lot of Bush left, huh?

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Day 3 (363 to go)


Here's my scarf on day 3. I'm doing one garter ridge (two rows) per day. I decided to leave the ends and tie every 4 or so together as fringe. I also decided to make it bias which isn't really clear yet, but I am starting row 1 every day with an increase and starting row 2 with a decrease.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Inauguration Day Scarf-Along! Join us in knitting a row or two a day on a scarf that you will wear on Inauguration Day - January 20, 2009. It doesn't matter what your political views are, many of us are ready for a change. The next 12 months are going to be crazy and interesting and unpredictable. I give credit for the idea to a coworker who suggested I start a project that I would knit a little bit on every day until we swear in a new US President.

The scarf can be made of any yarn you like, but I plan to make mine out of the little balls and scraps of yarn that end up piled in the corners of my house.

Basically, you cast on whatever number of stitches you want, in whatever yarn you like, and knit a little bit every day for the next 365 days. Bind it off on January 19th, 2009 and wear it while you watch the next president being sworn into office on January 20, 2009.

You can do any pattern you want - I've listed some ideas below. Mine is going to be basic. I'm planning to do one garter ridge a day in a different color (leaving the ends hanging for crazy side fringe I think). It's going to be a crazy, chaotic, hodgepodge scarf (to match the crazy, chaotic, political hodgepodge I expect we're in for over the next 12 months).

I'll be posting regular updates (maybe on key political days like Super Tuesday and Democratic Convention Day and The Day Mitt Romney Dropped Out of the Race Day) here and on the Knitting Liberally blog.

Anyone is welcome to join in. Join any time, you shouldn't have any trouble catching up since it's just a row or two a day...

Some scarf ideas:

ZigZag
Focus on Fringe (scroll down a bit...)
Noro Striped Scarf (because we love Brooklyntweed)
Meandering Stripes
Kureopatora's Snake

And if some of you are really anal about stripes, but still want to appear to be doing random stripes here's a cool stripe generator.

If you want to join in send me an email and I will authorize you so you can post to this blog.