As last year wound and we continued to be in various degrees of isolation, a number of knitters and crocheters I know got into make-alongs, where a designer issued a pattern and people did it and reported progress. Sometimes you could get a prize for completing, other times it was just the finished item. Most of the time these are mysteries, where you work a step and then another and at the end hopefully have a finished object that looks as it should. I don't like those because I worry that I will put much time into something that isn't to my liking. Also, the immediate time commitment can be pretty daunting, and not always possible depending upon what work requires.
They do seem to be a way for people to strengthen a community, so with the isolation requirements stretching into this year I thought of trying a make-along for a (mostly) knitting group I founded online in 2005. Given how I feel about make-alongs, what would I do? Not everybody wants a shawl, or socks, and I didn't want to design a pattern that would intimidate people or have "I don't like that style" responses.
And given how the year is likely to go, I wanted to develop a series of make-alongs that people could do, but without requiring one in case somebody joined the group later or didn't have time for one, or was on medical time-out, or any other reason.
So today I announced the first make-along for 2021, with the theme of
Make Something Using The Colour BLUE.
And that was it.
No restrictions on shade, except that it has to be clearly BLUE. No restrictions on design, except that the BLUE must be evident and not just a row or a few stitches or a button added. Something new, something in progress, doesn't matter as long as it contains BLUE.
None of my in-progress items contains a clear blue; the "We Knit In Texas Y'All" vest contains grey-blue but I want to use something definite. So I cast on the Dots hat from Berroco using these supplies:
Midmonth Resolution Report
I've done some reading but not finished a book. I have worked on the "Omega" shawl, spending two days untangling the current ball of yarn as it collapsed badly near the end. I've work in the remainder and am now on the second ball of yarn and somewhere around Row 50 of the seventy-six or so rows of the last plain (mostly stockinette, only the single increase at each edge) section. I may make it slightly longer before I do the border.
A personal resolution I didn't mention was to achieve 7/7 for my tracker: one week (which starts on Monday) of at least 6h30m of sleep each night; getting at least 250 steps each of the nine assigned hours (during workday, which can be more difficult); achieving my minimum exercise minutes; and if possible meeting the new metric of "mindfulness". Last year I had exactly ONE week where I met the three metrics that existed: Sleep, steps per hour, and minutes of exercise per day. Often I miss out on sleep or steps, especially when I have a lot of cameras-up meetings - or in the before times, when we were doing in-person meetings.
This week I was 7/7 on the first three and 4/7 (but I am assigned for only three days, so in a way it was 4/3) for the mindfulness. Next goal will be to get 7/7 on all four metrics.
Not that I want this blog to be political, but.....
It's a rough time for many of us, not just in the USA, but since I live here, it's what I know about the most. The abovementioned online group has people in other countries which are also going through elections and other political activity, on top of the pandemic. We have people who work in the USA government who are having a lot of distress right now. And since the group is not limited in the type of persons allowed, we have differing political opinions.
I had to ask people to back off a bit after the events of January 6th, which got some upset, and one demanded that I remove her. I said that I don't remove people but she could leave if wanted, and in the end, she didn't.
Another person did leave. Somebody posted about the "Inauguration Celebration" shawl pattern, and this person responded only "Why would any thinking person celebrate the inauguration?", without signing the message. While not forbidden, I ask that people include knitting or other fiber-working content in their messages (so, a shawl pattern is fine, a response to it might not be) and to sign their messages. I politely asked the person to send her message directly to the person to whose message she was responding, or to repost it with some knitting content ("OKC" = obligatory knitting content) and her name.
No, instead the person left. I'm a bit offended as I wasn't telling her that she couldn't voice her opinion on the list, just asking her to follow some simple rules about posting. I have friends all over the political spectrum, some of whom believe that the certified results of the USA's November 2020 election are not accurate, and some who believe that the president-elect isn't going to do enough for the country.
As for me, I will do what I can, where I can. I'll get the vaccine when they finally get to my group. This weekend, I am participating in some Day of Service activities in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. So I think I'll end with a quote of his:
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