Inspiration: The mender, Michael Swaine

During the RavOlympics the year I moved to Minneapolis, I decided to do some sort of Guerilla knitting. I’d seen lots of inspirational and cool knitting. I thought to dress the Mary Tyler Moore statue down the street from work or knit and plant flowers in the snow and ice. But so many people were cold, knitting for statues, trees, and poles seemed a waste of warm wool and alpaca. That’s how I decided to hang hats on trees.

A few years later I had put off knitting and hanging warmth. Then a fantastic article appeared on Facebook about a man who brought his sewing machine out onto the street to mend people’s clothing and sleeping bags. People would come every month with their clothes and he listened to their stories and thoughts. Other sewers would bring their machines out to help with the workload. I’d love to be able to knit for people while they sat with me. Maybe that’ll be my next plan.