Knitting our way to GA!!!

Spread the call to every knitter you know. . . .

An invitation from the Rev. Janet Edwards

In June the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will meet in San Jose with several overtures before it meant to end discrimination in our church against out gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender believers.  Here is our opportunity to combine the truth of GLBT inclusion and the beauty of handcrafted creativity into an unmistakable visual sign of God’s all embracing love.  The idea is to mark every supporter of GLBT inclusion at GA with a hand-made rainbow scarf so that all there will know that many in the church support this cause.

Challenge from Janet to Knitters/Knitting Groups across our land:
This is a social justice project, knitting us all together, compassionately, with our GLBT sisters and brothers who suffer so from the rejection of gifts for service to the church, judgment of loving relationships and silencing of voices among us.  This is a challenge for you to create as many rainbow scarves as you can, according to the directions below, between now and June 9, 2008.  Experts and beginners, like me, can knit our way to San Jose, establishing a solid fabric of strong support for the efforts at our General Assembly for full inclusion of GLBT faithful.

Yarn: Red Heart Supersaver Multicolor; the color is Mexicana (0950).

The yarn is online at the following website, www.coatscollection.com. If you type in the search engine on the page DB010527 (both are zeros, hope they don’t look like Os) it takes you to the type of yarn and then you can find Mexicana (color 0950). If the site won’t let you see all the pages of yarn, you can select on the page, see all (as opposed to 12 yarns per page) and Mexicana is listed.  Also online on Joanne’s Fabrics and available at their stores and Michael’s. Please use only this yarn, as this is the thread running between us all!

Knitting Instructions:

The scarves can be any size between 3 to 6 inches across and 48 to 68 inches long, using needles between sizes 8 and 11.  It takes about one skein of yarn to make one in simple knitting with these dimensions. Remember as you choose your stitch and your pattern that these will be used in summer in San Jose, mostly inside the air-conditioned conference center.

Comments from Tammy Besser, a veteran knitter:

For straight knit on size 10 and 11 needles I’m casting on 10-14 stitches. Everyone is welcome to use whatever stitches, patterns, etc. you wish for these...it is a great project for trying out something new! My favorite to date is made with seed stitch, cast on 13 stitches on 10.5 needles alternate stitches (knit, purl) beginning with Knit on each row.

Crochet Instructions available upon request.

Please feel free to spread this invitation far and wide to knitters and GLBT allies who will learn to knit as I have!!  

Peace be with you all!

Questions/comments direct to:
Janet Edwards:  JMEA08@comcast.net, 412.302.3827

Mail finished scarves, soon but no later than June 9, 2008, to:

      Janet Edwards
      5701 Fair Oaks St.
      Pittsburgh, PA 15217