Make It Mondays: I Can Sing a Rainbow
The day of making things.
*****
I love this cowl. It's soft and colorful and I can wrap it two or three times around my neck. And because it's a cowl it doesn't fall off like a scarf sometimes does. And I made it myself.
In colder weather I wear it often even though I have other scarves and cowls.
Not long after I finished making it, back in the days when we could actually go out and see people, one Sunday, I decided to go to a church I hadn't been to before. It was The United Church. I had been to United Churches before and liked them, I just hadn't been to this particular one before. Like many churches, the United church has coffee and treats after the service to give people a
chance to visit and fellowship
The people were very nice to me and gave me compliments about my lovely cowl and asked me polite questions. We talked for a bit, and then invariably, someone would tell me about how inclusive their church was and how gay people were welcome there and I would nod and say that was nice. The first time I was told about gay people being welcome I didn't think anything of it. I already knew gay people were welcome. It wasn't like some big announcement from the United Church. I had occasionally visited the United Church in my old town where the new pastor was gay.
The second time someone told me gay people were welcome I thought it was a little odd that I happened to be told twice. To be honest, the gay thing wasn't high on my radar. I was more interested in finding a church where not everyone was over 75, women were allowed to speak, they weren't writhing in the aisles spouting scary nonsense words, I wasn't expected to become a polygamous wife, and Kenneth Copeland in his devil mask wasn't in charge.
The third time I was told that gay people were welcome I started to get uncomfortable. Why were people telling me this over and over again? Was it a test? Were they seeing if I was going to turn purple and become a giant blueberry like Violet Beauregarde? Was it a code for something else - like a password to get into a speak easy?
The fourth time I was told I was getting really weirded out. Why were these people so obsessive about someone's sexual preferences? Aren't we supposed to just accept gay people as part of the family without making a big deal of it? Were they telling me that they frequently put on musicals?
On my drive home I happened to look down at my lovely colorful cowl. And then it hit me. They thought that because I was wearing a colorful striped scarf it meant I was gay. That made me mad. Why shouldn't I wear my lovely colorful scarf?
I have no problem with people being gay.
I'm just not one of them. Not only am I not one of them, but I have no desire at all to be anymore than a friend with a woman. I love women - as friends, as sisters, as daughters. But my attraction is 100% men. On the Kinsey scale I'm like way over to the hetero side. Which is really trying because so many men are well...men, in all their forms of misogyny, patriarchy, and control issues. And when they get to my age they become impossible men. And yet, I am attracted to the sight, smell, and masculinity of men. When they are good men. Sadly, the only good men around my age are married, or madly in love with their dead wife. Even sadder the men who are available, aren't interested in women their own age. They want women who are their daughter's age because they think they are defying age by marrying a woman they can't keep up with.
So what? You may ask.
Here's the so what. There is a part of me that would like a little romance. There's a bigger part of me that says it's unlikely to come my way, but I'm not about to squash the teeniest tiniest chance by having men think I'm a lesbian. The only men that would show any interest in me are the ones who want to conquer a lesbian, and I don't want THAT guy.
So that church was out of the question. I didn't want to go to the effort of changing anyone's mind. I was not anxious to go to church wearing a sign saying "I'm not gay" because then you look like a crazy bigot and no one wants to be your friend so why go to church when I can find God at home? I get that church isn't about finding a romance, it's about worship and fellowship of all kinds of people. I know this. However, where better to find a romance than at church? It's certainly not a deciding factor - I could probably be fine with an all women's church, but, I already had an uphill battle with a church convinced I'm gay because I like pretty colors.
There was no winning this.
And I didn't want to hang out with people who think that if you're straight you have to stick to wearing beige, brown, or muted tones of blue.
I WANT TO WEAR MY BEAUTIFUL MULTICOLORED STRIPED SCARF - AND BE STRAIGHT!
And so I will. Because I'm at that wonderful age of womanhood where you don't have to care a flying fig about what people think about you. Well, unless of course you want to meet a romantic interest or get a job. Let's get to the pattern so that you too can have a beautiful colorful striped scarf that will make people jump to incorrect conclusions about you.
The Pattern
This is a great take along project since you don't have to count stitches or look at the pattern. It's just stockinette stitch. I took it to my knit nights so I could visit with people and not have to pay too much attention to my project.
I used six different solid colors of the same yarn. It was either sport weight (2) or dk (3). Sadly, it's the one yarn that I didn't put into my ravelry library and I can't find the leftovers anywhere so I can't tell you what it was. Only that it was a bamboo blend. So much for my organized stash. You can use a heavier weight, but bear in mind, the lighter the weight the drapier it gets. You
might have the yarn in your stash, or maybe you've been eyeing some yarn at your LYS but couldn't decide what color. Now you can have all the colors. LIke I said, I used 6 colors. You can use more or less. But you need at least 3. Decide what order you want your colors to go in. Lay them out, move them around, do the hokey pokey, figure out which colors go best together, then label them A, B, C, D, ... So mine was
A - Purple
B - Aqua
C - Green
D - Orange
E - Red
F - Fuchsia
I cast on 76 stitches. If you are using heavier yarn you'll want to cast on fewer stitches. I used a provisional cast on which meant that I had live stitches that I could graft together later to turn my scarf into a cowl. If you need to know how to do this you can google provisional cast on. So with A cast on 76 stitches. Note, I did not put on a ribbed edge so mine rolls. It's quite nice
but if you want it to be flat, then it's a good idea to do a ribbed edge.
1. Knit one row of A
2. Purl one row of A
3. Knit one row of B
4. Purl one row of B
You'll have a stripe of A and a stripe of B. Do these four rows until you have 18 stripes of A and 18 stripes of B.
Break off A and attach C.
5. Knit one row of C
6. Purl one row of C
7. Knit one row of B
8. Purl one row of B
Work these four rows until you have 18 stripes of B and 18 stripes of C.
Break off B and attach D.
9. Knit one row of D
10. Purl one row of D
11. Knit one row of C
12. Purl one row of C
See the pattern now?
When you've knitted your E and F section, break off E and attach A. You'll be doing an F A section. Then you'll either kitchener stitch (google it) or do a double bind off (google it) with the live stitches at the beginning of your scarf.
So for my scarf, it's
Purple, aqua
Aqua, green
Green, orange
Orange, red
Red, fuchsia
Fuchsia, purple.
That's how I did my scarf. Now if you use fewer colors you'll want to do more stripes in each color, if you use more colors you can do fewer stripes in each color. Or you can vary how long you make it. You could also decide to use pastels or neutrals or deep jewel tones. You can make the sections different numbers of stripes. Let's say you have pink, light gray, dark gray a black and a cream. You might have more pink than anything else and hardly any cream, so you have lots of pink stripes, just a few cream ones, and a fairly even amount of the grays and black.
Here's an idea if you want to be really wild. You could use different weights and types of yarn. Ribbon yarns, metallic yarns, fuzzy yarns all mixed together. It won't look remotely like mine and you likely won't have the same effect, but it will be all yours. You'll just have to accept that it will be uneven stitches and rows. That's okay.
It's entirely up to you.
Autumn is almost here and I'll be wearing my cowl again. I just may not wear it to church.
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