Garterstitch100 for Centenary of International Women's Day

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, and in Glasgow (with the help of women from around the world) it was celebrated by the creation of a truly behemoth knitting project, 100 million knitted stitches to represent the 100 million women who are estimated to be missing from the world's demography. Although knitted squares fill the the large theatre/arts space the Tramway, it's actually nowhere near 100 million stitches - which really hits home the hugeness of that number.






Most of my pictures were taken on the day before the big event, when I helped out a wee bit with the sewing up and hanging up in the Tramway - the hours I put in a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of time, effort and love put in the organisers Ruth and Jude, and numerous extremely devoted helpers.





I found the experience deeply moving - and it's been described much better in an article here and by Karie (who also contributed a wonderful visual art piece, about knitting, heritage, identity and connection). Just the sheer amount of knitting is mind-blowing, and all the letters that people have sent in along with their knitted pieces.




If you're in the Glasgow area, it really is worth popping into the Tramway to see the knitting and other displays, and make a bid in a silent auction on the handknitted blankets, with money going towards women's charities.

It was all a big Shrove Tuesday feast for me, because I'm giving up knitting for Lent! Not so much as renunciation, but as a way of thinking about the role it's played in my life for the last ten years. I will knit on Sundays, but a 40-day knitting fast will be difficult, even if not consecutive days! I'm also doing it so as to spend time doing other things that I don't do because I'm knitting - reading, exercise, embroidery, quilting, spinning, writing - and that includes writing in this blog, which I'll try to keep more regularly over Lent, documenting my non-knitting experience. And I also need to type up the journal I wrote during my time in Israel a couple of weeks ago...