Our introduction to knitting activism was through Grant Neufeld’s photo set on flickr.
Residing in Calgary, Grant has been an activist for most of his life and a few years ago, he become a knitter. I spoke with Grant on the phone and he told me how knitting and activism first intersected in his life.
While brainstorming protest maneuvers for the 2000 World Petroleum Congress in Calgary, one of Grant’s fellow protesters mentioned a European activist group that had incorporated knitting into their demonstration. Grant was impressed.
The protesters spent the day standing on the corner knitting. At rush hour, they had knit together a huge net and they threw it across the intersection, stopping the traffic. It was such a strong image. Forceful but peaceful. That sort of contrast was very exciting for me. These kinds of jarring contrasts can get people to think.
I’m wondering whether the people involved with knitting could extend any sort of kinship with fishermen hanging web with their twine, net needles and net knots (such knot also known as the weaver’s knot because it passes most easily through the thread guides on looms when one must bend a new thread onto the end of the one just running out; also known as a becket bend and a sheet bend among sailors.)
When I was a youngster I took up knitting with the idea of knitting myself a scarf. In my youthful impatience, I’m afraid it ended up as a knitted hankie. But as I matured and learned splicing, knotting, plaiting sennets, coachwhipping, coxcombing, square knotting, hanging monkey fur …. all useful pursuits aboard a windship. I think I know a bit of what you are talking about.
Wow, that’s cool, Joel. I bet it’s incredibly handy even off a boat. All I know are the running knot and the trucker’s hitch (to tie my kayak down to my car).
Lisa Auerbach at http://www.StealThisSweater.com told me:
“There is a great book- No Idle Hands- which talks a bit about the link between knitting, cycling, and feminism.”