Meow

I have been furiously knitting pussyhats since getting home from our holiday travels, but haven’t had a chance to post about them. I made seven in all. Two of them were for S1 and me, which you see on our heads in the photo above. We made the journey into Our Nation’s Capital in a caravan of 5 buses filled with 242 local folks; the buses were arranged by our local YWCA. There were some other buses leaving from Gettysburg and many folks drove closer and used Metro or MARC to get into the city. We knew many, many people who participated. The group pictured above is our “buddy group” – we managed to stick together throughout the entire march. I learned that it is challenging but not impossible to keep five smart, resourceful women together in a sea of hundreds of thousands!

I hacked S1’s and my hat with a duplicate stitch pride rainbow to give them a little something extra.

While we were in Texas last month, I offered to knit a hat for my dear college friend Stephanie, who marched in Austin, TX. Here are some photos she sent. If I had realized her mom was marching with her, I would have made her one, too – and her partner, Don!

Even though the Texas Capitol looks a lot like the U.S. one architecturally, the live oaks and short-sleeved t-shirts give away the location. (Texans usually remind you at this point that their Capitol is a little taller than the U.S. Capitol. It’s true.) The local newspaper reports that there were 40,000-50,000 folks there.

If you follow my friend Steven on Instagram, you already know that he marched in Austin, too. I didn’t have to make him a hat, though – boyfriend can knit his own! (Steven, hope it’s okay I copied this from your feed.)

 

I also knit my sister a hat – she marched in Atlanta where she lives. That’s her on the left at her sign making party:

And here’s a shot she sent me of the Atlanta march, which drew about 60,000 folks. Some of them were librarians in town for the ALA Midwinter meeting.

I had a little extra yarn, which turned into a hat that my friend Jocelyn took. Then Julie passed me more pink yarn and I produced two more hats, which went to Kerri and Denise. All three of those hats ended up in Washington, but I don’t have photos (yet).

I’m sure you’ve seen aerial photos of the marches by now – the pink-tinged rivers of people are instantly recognizable and now unforgettable. No one will ever be able to use those photos to fake attendance at another event on the mall. And what a refreshing change from those red hats made overseas. I know a good bit of the pink yarn we saw was probably spun in overseas mills, or made from Australian wool. Mine didn’t happen to be – I used Great White Bale and Quince & Co. Lark, both grown and spun in the U.S.  Nevertheless, those pink hats were mostly made by American hands to participate in our American democracy. That’s a pretty patriotic thing to do.

I’ll end this with just a few of the hundreds of smart and sassy signs we saw yesterday.