Wild and Wooly Thing

I did It.

No, not that. Of course I've done that and I have a house full of kids and a magic bottomless laundry hamper to show for it. And because of that when some one says "movement" or "sit in" my mind goes directly down the hall to the bathroom. I don't think of taking such issues to the street.

But this time, I found a whole new direction and I stood up and marched for the cause -- straight down to the boardwalk with the other women. Men were invited, of course, but none were brave enough to take part. We gathered ourselves and our spirits and right there on the beach in full view of any person passing by (and several dogs, of course) we did it.

Without reserve, we knit.

It was Worldwide Knit In Public Day!

Surely you have it marked boldly on your calendar. No? Never heard of it? Seriously.....?

Well, me neither, but as soon as I caught wind of it all I knew I had to take part. I had never been much of a radical. I had never before answered a "call", unless you count giving dirty looks to people that idle their cars needlessly outside the school. But when the Naked Sheep informed me now was the time to come out of the granny woollen closet and declare myself a secure stitcher, there was no question. I was unashamed and unabashed of this nearly lost skill, poo-pooed by modernity as a occupation of brittle blue haired types with pickles up their bums, luddites in high waisted underpants creating coarse mufflers and pointy mittens in hard milled acrylic. How many acryls had to be shorn to feed their ugly habits? I knit. Of course I knit! In cotton and wool and silk and hemp. I kept my babies and tea pots warm and cosy. I secured my future mother-in-law's approval and support with a pair of argyle gloves for my husband back in the day.

And for this day I took up not just two needles but four and knit a sock in the round in a circle of like minded knitters: independent, proud and forthright. Women who spoke their minds and who had a plan. As a paddle boarder slowly crossed the lake beyond us some one in the group was inspired. "Lets knit him a sail!" she cried.

This was not a cottage pass time were were participating in, this was a classic art renewed and redefined. This was no country bee, it was a heady be-in of wild and wooly urbanites who knew who they were and the difference between murino and alpaca and didn't care a darn (in fact they all knew how to darn!) if they were seen to know it. Right there. In public.

Fo a brief and shining moment, I was one of them.

Then my 15 year old joined me for lunch from her near by work place and kept calling me "Mummy". After that my husband totally blew my cover when he showed up with our four year old in tow and told me it was time to go because we had to get groceries.

I was busted right down to domestic dabbler. It was plain I not the able fibre artist I longed to be.

But next year..... I'll be ready. I've marked my calendar. World Wide Knit in Public Day 2010, here I come. I have just enough time to knit myself a mustache as a disguise.