On January 19, 2017, two days before the Women's March, I stepped into Knitty City, a yarn store on West 79th Street in Manhattan in New York City, and confronted an active, humming community.
A group of women toward the back of the store were knitting away on pink "pussy" hats. Stacks of patterns for the hat spilled over at the checkout counter. Skeins of hot pink yarn were being wound into balls—or was it hanks into skeins? (I'm not a knitter myself.) And an employee was on the phone explaining to a caller, "Yes, we can teach you all the stitches needed to make the hat . . . it will take about a half an hour to get started . . . some people learn the stitches and then go home to knit, you can do that or knit here . . . if you knit at home you can come back at the end and we'll help you finish off the hat."
Finally, while I was there, a few women came in asking if any of the hats were available, and were told when the next batch might be ready.
Before I left, I thanked the young woman who waited on me for everything the store was doing to support the march; but as I walked out, I couldn't help thinking about how much the march was doing for yarn stores nationwide, most of which are owned and run by women. The pussy hat project benefited women in both directions.
Or maybe I should say in all directions. Out of curiosity I called the owner of Knitty City, Pearl Chin, after the march. She confirmed my hunch about sales: from around Christmas to the day of the march, she estimates about a 30% uptick in yarn sales, the overwhelming amount in pink. Further, people working through or in the store made at least 500-600 hats that were given away for free—but everyone who received a hat was asked to make a donation to a women's organization.
Women (and some men) are still knitting the hats—Knitty City has pledged they will keep going till everyone who wants a hat has one. Beyond that, Chin is cheered by how many people learned to knit, and hopeful that they will keep going. Community has always been a part of her mission at the store.
A couple of women have a good idea about collective action to protest an anti-woman president by taking back the word pussy and making it our own. Another woman has a good idea about using it as the title and image for a hat to unify women in support of the march. And because they took their ideas seriously enough to act on them, the ripple effects are supporting women in countless ways.
We just all need to be paying attention to our good thinking!
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January 26, 2017
Addendum.
1. The Pussyhat Project launched Thanksgiving weekend with the goal of creating a sea of pink hats at the Women's March on Washington D.C. on January 21, 2017. They and we did it, at the D.C.march and at over 600 solidarity marches that took place this past weekend. Isn't that a sight to see!
Read all about The PussyHat Project at this link.
2. Even Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards joined in the Pussy Hat knitting fun. In an Instagram post the previous Saturday (january 14), Richards took a photo of her hot pink ball of yarn in front of an instructional YouTube video - "On my way to the immigration march in Washington this morning," she wrote in the caption, "and using the train ride to learn how to knit my own pink hat for the Women's March next Saturday!" Here is the instagram link.
Hmm....wonder where she bought her wool.
3. One additional fact from Susan Whitlock-- "My mother made my hat! "
