Knitting and Other Thoughts

I finished a project!

They are Ellie with the yarn Crazy Zauberball .  I started them probably 3 or 4 years ago.  They mean a lot to me in many ways.  I made mistakes in both of them that are still there.  I learned to let the mistakes go and to get on the with project.  They are the smallest needles I've used so far to knit something, and I learned that I can knit things that have small needles (more stitches so it takes more time).  I'm pretty sure it is the only pattern I have ever paid for.  I used to fill out surveys for a website and after 6 months of a lot of surveys, I had enough points to get twenty dollars.  I used part of that money to buy the pattern.  I learned of the pattern from my favorite knitting blogger, the Yarn Harlot, when she was knitting five or six pairs in a month for Christmas presents.  I picked those buttons out of my button collection (purchased from Ebay), and sewed them on myself!  It's the first time I've added embellishments to a knitting project.  I've sewn lots of buttons before, that part wasn't new.    I bought the yarn a few years before the pattern when I was in Denver visiting my cousin.  I remember going into the yarn shop and falling in love with all the colors in the ball and how they changed.  I knew I wanted to knit something special with it, and I waited and waited, and then knew it was the right yarn for Ellie.

I wish I could say they fit me perfectly, but they don't.  I learned a lot in those four years about shaping knitting to custom fit, but I haven't applied it yet, and I didn't want to apply those techniques on the fly.  I read a lot about knitting.  My favorite books are older ones written like a conversation and just talk about knitting and what to do.  A lot of those knitters don't use patterns but use math and experience to knit sweaters and leggings and socks, etc.  Patterns make knitting very rigid and strict, and in reality, it can be fluid and changeable as you go.  Like cooking.  I don't use recipes too much when I cook and if I do, I usually change it as I go.  But, when I first started cooking I needed the recipes, and I still need the patterns for the knitting.

I have a next project I want to make that I think I'm going to do without a pattern.  I have a ball of color changing yarn I got in New Orleans when I was there with my Mom and Sister, I want to turn it into a very loose knit sweater to wear over black dresses.  I'm knitting the swatch right now, experimenting with different stitches.  I like it because I'm using big needles that are NOT double pointed, so I don't need five needles, just two, and they are metal instead of wood.  Basically the opposite of everything I did for Ellie.  It's a fast knit.  I like the seed stitch best so far, but I think I need to try a larger size needle.  I'm using 7s right now, but I want very large holes, or very loose knits. I think I'm going to base it off this Tabard Pattern, but use a better stitch. 

Today at MOPS we listened to a Pastor talk about God's Fierce Kindness for us and relating it to the Christmas story.  It was hard for me, because based on a lot of what he said, I didn't see the spreading of Christianity, but the spreading of and start of the white western culture and the start of repression of women.  He said that God had Alexander The Great conquered the whole world so the everyone learned Greek and had roads so that Christianity could spread farther.  The whole world, huh?  No, the whole world as remembered by western culture.  Did he capture south or north America? Did he capture japan or china? no.  Ganghis Kahn also conquered the whole world once, and spread his religion I'm sure.  Wish I knew what that was.

Then he described the good guys of the Jesus birth story, Mary, Joseph, the wise men and the shepards.  Then he talked about the bad guys of the story...someone named Boaz and his harlot mother, and another twice widowed woman who dressed as a prostitute and slept with her father in law and got pregnant.  It really made me angry because the pastor made these women seem like the scum of the Earth because they pretended to be or were women that slept around, and that the men were the victoms.  What about the Father in Law that slept with a prostitute and didn't even notice that it was his daughter in law?  I'm sure she really enjoyed that experience.  I bet she did that just to piss him off, and not to somehow secure her survival in a world that treats women as property *sarcasm*.  Especially since her first two husbands (brothers) were such "bad people, God had them die, so they did."  If they were that terrible, what do you think that woman was going through? Good things?  And, who raised these two terrors?  The father in law, the victom.

There is one profession that women do more than men and make more money at than men (unless he is a pimp, then f*** him) and that is being a prostitute.  It is also one job that gives women power over men.  I wonder why it's so demonized? It's the one area where women are in control and can live on their own without a husband.  (Not saying it's a great job or anything, but it's one of our "tools" or options, like being the third son of a farmer and joining the army).  And this pastor makes her a "bad guy" because she sleeps around.  Thanks for the continual female oppression.

Finally, I was thinking, what if Mary was raped and Christianity is the largest cover up and denial of rape in our culture's history?  I wish I could give Mary a hug.