Jocelyn’s Knitting History (post 1 of ?)

Jocelyn’s Knitting History – How I became a knitter.

In class this week Dr. Margo elaborated on the details for final project. Although this blog was intended to BE my final project… and now I’m thinking of doing something a bit …more … knitterly.

I’m thinking about creating the Grand-poo-ba of all Unfinished Objects – a knitted representation of Western Civilization. tee hee. I’m just *thinking* about it and the parallel between what I’ve learned from knitting and the thinkers contributions to modern thought.

To gain some inspiration, I’ve been reviewing my flickr account where I’ve documented photos of knitting from my very first project: A scarf in Lion Brand yarn (Lesson #1: Yarn is pretty)

Crack

I never finished it (Lesson #2: Knitting is a process.) and I gave the yarn to Rachel when I taught her to knit, a year later.

06.01.2007 BFF

(She’s still working on it)
IMG_4181

I learned to knit in 2006, shortly after Mom died. Shortly after I finished GNST 300. I was worried about Uncle Bill, Mom’s last surviving sibling. I kept going over to his house to visit. Really, I wanted to be with him just in case he’d talk, and he wasn’t speaking much those days but that was okay because I really liked not talking with him.

The process of us not talking drove Auntie Beth nuts & she put a pair of knitting needles in my hand.

It was such a sad time. Grief was (is) deliciously sad, and in those first shocking days I did everything I could to put one foot in front of the other. I followed my instincts and when something felt right, I simply said it.

Parents & family really are a mythic structure. I stood in front of a mirror the morning she died, when it was still to early to call anybody. I remember thinking the walls around my identity that Mom held up were now gone. Nobody had my back anymore. There was suddenly nothing . . . just, me?

Mom really never had my back. She had Alzheimers and in GNST 300 I wrote a paper about how I understood Marcus Aurelius’ words on Stoicism because of my experience learning to be her caregiver.

“Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear”.

It described  how stoicism was a tool I used for my (then) identity:

Once I identified that the responsibility of Mom’s care must be a priority, it served as a focal point for the development of a secure environment. Every action or choice I made from that day forward returned to the question of “How will this be best for my Mom and my ability to take care of her?”. This environment was more so valuable to me, because I’d never lived in such a secure place before.

“Reverence that which is best in the universe, and this is which makes use of all things and directs all things”

“Aurelius writes that the Stoic must focus on what is best for the whole, then, he can act to benefit the whole. I developed the simplest way to maintain this new found security, with my primitive skill set, which was to simply label things as relevant or irrelevant. If they were irrelevant I quickly learned to disregard them because it was easier to focus on what was relevant. I made some tough sacrifices for a young woman, from staying in with Mom on Friday nights when she’d be alone, to postponing studying at university for several years. In hindsight, I structured my “whole” as my Mother and I, only by disregarding that which is irrelevant was I able to develop a sense of much needed control and security that allowed me to focus on taking care of her.”

I wrote an email to the prof after Mom died. I remember writing it and feeling SO GOOD about it. Re-reading it today it’s confusing and it makes me feel so sad. It’s dated June 24, 2006 – 11 days after Mommsy died. It doesn’t make sense to me now but I think I was trying to explain how believing that my world had been stripped down to the bare bones and without the guiding force of my identity (as Mom’s caregiver) I’d relied on my own instincts to get through those early days.

“I want you to know how I’ve used the mythic structure teachings to dance with all the little nuances of Mom passing away, from accepting it but giving myself to permission (like, whoa!) to feel sad. Really sad.   And it gave me the tools to reach out from that sadness and comfort others, who don’t have the ‘mythic structure’ to understand (because they can’t!).   And by using those tools to let them help me, in their own way, and show them I’m  (kinda) okay it made me a stronger woman.   And you don’t feel like a grown up until you lose a parent, that’s for damn sure.  And it sucks.  However, I’ll never be able to describe to you why I’ve enjoyed the process thanks to your teachings.

Mom's 69th Birthday

I was at the begining of a new process. I was learning to build a new identity for myself. Not care-giver, not daughter of Anne, in unit 8 North, Advanced Dementia.

Just… Jocelyn.
So I learned how to knit. Now  I am a knitter.

I asked Rachel if I can have a little bit of that yarn back.  I think I’ll knit it into a smaller version of that first wibbly wobbly scarf to try and symbolize my identity that summer.  Uncertain and confusing but will make a great foundation for something amazing.

What I wish I had said.

I was a real cranky pants in class yesterday. We discussed The Holocaust, not just the events of Holocaust but the psychology of society behind the Holocaust. How a person like Hitler was could be elected leader & why German people didn’t do anything to stop the Holocaust.

That wasn’t what made me cranky and on-the-verge of tears. Late last week I was in a shop at a mall and an Asian woman came in. She went straight to the sales clerk, clearly educated about what she wanted and though her English was a tad thick & broken she was very clear. The sales clerk’s language slowed right down and she spoke to her like she was three years old. It was so offensive when, at one point, she explained a simple concept to the woman, who was about 50, using small words. It was hurtful, enraging and embarrassing to watch, and I did nothing. It bothered me all week.

In class yesterday we discussed The Banality of Evil We discussed how although we know Barack Obama is not a facist, we can understand the experience of rabid approval that elected him. We talked about how racism, in any form (think: jokes) can erode away at our morality – how even the average person can take small steps to prevent such a society from existing again (at least, I think, MY society).

I wish I had spoken up. I wish I had said something to make that awful sales clerk at least aware of what she was doing. I didn’t understand what I do now: I had a responsibility to my society to say something. If I don’t, I’m as bad as her.

I think I would have said something like this, and I KNOW I will say something next time:

“Excuse me, I know you’re helping this customer and I can see you’re trying really hard to help her understand. But really? Did you have to explain what ‘c – o – t – t – o – n’ is? And maybe you could give her some credit, because she’s twice your age, that she just because she doesn’t look like you doesn’t mean she doesn’t understand you. So smarten up, right now, and imagine walking in her shoes for a day.”

And then I would have walked away and said under my breath: “i-d-i-o-t”.

2009 Winter Count

I’ve been so enjoying posts of bloggers participating reading Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 blog challenge and desperately wanting to participate but, and I feel quite loathe to admit this: I am a very boring girl and, sadly, have had difficulty remembering or drafting repsonses to the prompts, such as:

Rush. When did you get your best rush of the year? (likely the other day when I watched a man slip & fall on the ice. eeeks!)
or this:

Restaurant moment. Share the best restaurant experience you had this year. Who was there? What made it amazing? What taste stands out in your mind?.
(this did)
3.13.09 Marche

I realized when I went sorting through flickr to jog my memory, I have not done my 2009 Winter Count yet.

A winter count are pictorial traditions used by Lakota and Blackfeet tribes.
The winter counts would have a single picture for each year (first snowfall to first snowfall) that would serve to name that year. The pictures would be used as a reference that could be consulted regarding the order of the years. More extensive oral histories were passed down using the winter counts as guide posts.

Honestly, I haven’t much felt like revisiting 2009. It hasn’t been a bad year, quite the opposite. It’s just been… a year. A year in which, looking back, I feel like I have used my days well. This was the first year in about a decade I didn’t travel on an airplane. This was a litness test I created for myself when I was nine: When I’m grown up, I’ll be successful and travel on an airplane ONCE EVERY YEAR.

Sorry, nine-year-old self. Next year!

Here’s what I think of 2009, in pictures:
This year I have challenged myself in new ways & lunged in where I would have once ran away.
The homage tree
This year, my neice made me cry honest happy tears.
Hey Everyone? Lookit my neice.  Now.
I loved my job
02.10.09  Part 2 - Happy Panda!
I lost my job
Wednesday
“Fun” employment is a phrase I’ll associate with 2009. My friend, Rachel, and I had many funemployment meetings. Every week.
photo.jpg
In June, Maggie came to visit :)
Chinese Cultural Center w. Maggie
That week I took a picture named “Being a hostess is exhausting”
Being a good hostess can be tiring
The best money I spent this year was $7.99 on a schmancy envirosax bag. It stays in my purse and is there when I need it.
A close second, was buying an iPhone in April. It continues to delight me every time I use it (I just learned there is something called conductivity thread & if you sew it into your into my hand-knit mitts it will make the touch screen go)
04.06.09  It's Luf.

I had eleven trips to the vet this year.
Free Cat!
And I acquired a Third.
Day 21?  Luf

My favourite pictures are the ones I tagged “Me right now”

Me, right now.

And, of course, the fabric
hex, v. green

I read seven books this year.  (I started ten)

03.02.09 Canada Reads

It’s been a very good year.  It’s been a year, not an exceptional year, but it will lead to exceptional things.  I don’t want 2010 to be better or worse than 2009, I’d just like it to look differently.

These are the most important pictures of my year, from snowfall to snowfall. I hope they capture me at my best, beit personal best or simply my favourite photos. I hope you enjoy the season!

2009 Winter Count

5 Things that are making me happy right now

I’ve been smack-happy lately. Five things that are making me happy right now (in no particular order).

Canada Reads 2010, and am impromptu trip to Pages on Kensington today to pick up some of the titles.

A trip to Costco last week that yielded all the goodies of a Christmas Stocking. Chocolate Pretzels, comfy new yoga pants, 100lbs of kitty litter – I think I covered all the Costco bases!

Gwen Bell’s The Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. A fun little blog Today is Day One: (Last year was the best-travelled year of my life! New York City, Vancouver Island, Utah, Seattle, All over the map. This year? I went to Banff. Twice!) Both memorable, though the impromptu trip I took with my friend B was the BEST! Hot Springs! Ice Cream! Lots of laughts! Good times.

05.22.09 Banff

Cat, aka First Cat. She’s not the most confident beast and I’ve always had a sense of “I could take you or leave you” lately. She’s been very sweet lately :)

Cams

WORK! I love my job and just finished a big project. I’m writing a paper for GNST 500, doing a little each day. It’s hard work but I’m so enjoying the process. It’s been two years since I last wrote an academic paper and I’d forgotten how fun it is. So back at it…

Have a great week!

Thursday-Night-TV rhymes with Nietzsche

Thursday evening two weeks ago I cuddled up on the couch to dive into “The Genealogoy of Morals” and I left the telly on for background. Big mistake.

Have you watched Flash Forward? It stars Joseph Fiennes as Mark Benford, a mild-manner FBI agent and others who are not Joseph Fiennes. The story line goes like this: For two minutes, everybody in the world sees their future. Joseph Fiennes as Mark Benford see’s himself in his office, drinking (scary, because he’s an alcoholic. six years sober!) with bad guys chasing him.

The flash of the future is a specific date & time, everybody see’s where they are and what they’re doing at this exact moment. Some people even recognize others in their flash forward and compare notes with each other.  Almost all the characters on Flash Forward suffer from terrible anxiety about what they have seen.

Joseph Fiennes as Mark Benford has a Nanny who believes all the forward-flashing angst who thinks GOD is responsible for the Flash Forward. “To punish us.” she said.

This is when Nietzsche will forget to watch Survivor. Nietzsche would totally agree with Joseph Fiennes as Mark Benford’s Nanny because he wrote that God did a smack down on arrogant people. A spiritual humiliation is in order when they’re not paying attention to God’s laws, or when they become strong (according to Nietzsche strength is nature of human)

I think Nietzsche will be quite entertained by the angst Joseph Fiennes as Mark Benford (and other Flash Forward characters) are suffering from.

Why? They are not taking responsibility for their existence. He believed that human nature was strong and societal institutions – those we create to make order and create sense of the world (government, religion, business, etc) fundamentally keep human nature weak.

Allow me to demonstrate with a simple example:

picnikfile_KvMEoZ

Institution cat is much smaller than Human Nature cat, who could clearly kick Institution cat’s butt if she were to take responsibility for her own existence (as they would if left to their own nature) However, history and the rules of the house (society) dictate that it’s UNACCEPTABLE for Human Nature cat to attack Institution cat. Although when  Human Nature was a kitten and new to the rules of the game, she might have given him an ass kicking he’d never forget.  She’s lived long enough to know that it’s not in her best interest to do so.

In other words, the rules of the society (institutions) have made her weak.

So watch Flash Forward tomorrow night and think about how the characters are reacting to their existence. Are they really taking responsibility for it? The fundamental assumption of the flash forward is the characters have no control over their destiny (Move AWAY Joseph Fiennes as Mark Benford. MOVE FAR FAR AWAY!). I think Neitszche would say “That sounds about right”

or

“And the good shall be he who does not do violence, does not attack or retaliate, who leaves vengeance to God, who, like us, lives hidden, who shuns all that is evil and altogether asks very little of life — like us, the patient, the humble, the just ones” Read in cold blood, this means nothing more than “We weak ones are, in fact, weak. It is a good thing that we do nothing for which we are not strong enough.”

(Nietzsche was a tad bitter).

Knitting content:

Started a new sweater last week:

Cascade Eco Plus

So I may take a break from the other one:

Getting in touch with my inner uberman

This post is a bit rambley, and I feel I should be much more focused since the purpose of this assignment is to blog my way to ultimate meaning.   I will create something more comprehensive that fulfills the assignment.

Yet I couldn’t wait to get home to  write about class today.  One thing I love to hate about GNST 500 is when I have made my mind up about how I see the world,  one of these philosophers goes and proves me… wrong.

This happened once before, Rousseau.  After Women’s Studies, Rousseau made  my inner radical feminist, basically, go after some nuts.  And today, we did Nietzsche’s The Genealogy of Morals.

I’d quite made my mind up about Nietzsche: He was a crazy and angry German philosopher whose philosophies centered on him being crackers.   i didn’t enjoy reading “The Genealogoy of Morals” and it only affirmed my position that, not only was he nuts, AND CRANKY but a racist anti-semite, too.

I was wrong.    I hate that.

In the Genealogy of Morals, Neitzsche writes that our (to severerly over-simplify) niceness holds us down.  Virtues such as kindness, honesty and basically anything God says you should do makes you weak.  WEAK!

THIS PISSED ME OFF.  Actually, what really pissed me off was a few weeks ago.  Our class was divided into groups and (long story short) one of my group members declared that I get something out of being nice.  He’s right, I do. In the purely agnostic sense,  I get NOT BEING MEAN out of being nice.  After years of practice, I have it down to a perfect science.  Always try and do the right thing, help people when you can (if they deserve it) be firm when necessary and it will always be a-okay.

… but…

Now I’m in business for myself and I find myself in situations where being nice has no currency.   This is where existentialism comes in (we are what we create) and the exact moment where business coach suggested I inflate my hourly rate to account for, ahem,  my helping disorder.

To put it in Nietzschean terms,  I need to get in touch with my inner ubermesch:   She is determined and dedicated, she is NOT WEAK IN THE FACE OF … uh, men in suits.  She will call no more than twice to get an invoice paid,  will not take “no” for an answer and…

Oh, screw it. I’m way more Machievelli’s Prince than I am uber mesch.   However in terms of actualizing existential potential, a parallel maybe drawn between Nietzsche’s Ubermensch and those cunning sociopaths who tend to succeed in business.

I came home and looked up the Ricky Gervais sketch one of my classmates suggested.   Funny.

Thoughts on a Tuesday

Tuesday’s are a bit random in my world. I teach knitting Tuesday mornings. I love meeting my students and seeing their progress for the week gives me a really happy kind of boost. Yet, I don’t produce much on Tuesdays and the rest of the day is a bit of a write-off.

So, I’ve decided to take a page from my writing/knitting heroine, The Yarn Harlot, and post my random thoughts as they fit this assignment: my personal journey towards Ultimate Meaning.

1) I made a big commitment recently, 100 days to billable clients. It’s scary and it’s HARD. To work through the fear I’m working with Jeremy Miller to stay on task. I’ve called this project my Daily Desk project and I’ll be blogging about it on Tuesdays at Sunday Night Success.

2) I made another big commitment recently. To finish ALL my projects that are on the needles (Central Park Hoodie, Hemlock Ring Blanket), and the projects for the yarn I bought just in August and September (Malabrigo for a Pink Beret, 100 different shades of Cascade for Fiddlehead mitts). I’m going to finish all these by my birthday in two weeks!

2a) [Then, I will start using the yarn I bought in October (Cascade Eco Wool for Cozima AND some g o r g e o u s yarn from Whistler fiber artist, Ruth Williams. It's called Cherry, it's a merino silk blend. I cannot wait to cast on. It's going to be a real treat!]

2b) [this plan doesn’t account for the yarn I bought in 2007 or 2008. Later.

2c) I finished something!

when I'm old and can't remember my name this picture will still make me laugh.

The Mara shawl by Madelintosh.  I loved every second of knitting this because (a) it’s for a person I like very much and (b) the yarn. So gorgeous.   Hand dyed yarn really is a treat to knit with.   This is Tosh Worsted in Ginger.

3.  This week in class we’re reading Nietschze, continuing on with Frankel (whom I’m learning to love, or in his words, developing a strong repeating pattern for conscious & externalized affection) Kafka, & someone named Bakunin.  Thursday afternoon I have a date with myself, a caramel latte & these thinkers.  Good times.

4.   I miss my mom very much this week. I think it is because I had one of those unconscious-conscious moments you have when you lose somebody you love.  We measure time since we lost someone, and in my mind it was four years although the third sadiversary was in June.   I felt very silly for making that mistake.   It feels good to feel sad,  it’s my relationship with her now, and I like it. I can always get a new Mom, courtesy of Kleenex.

5.  Cute kitty picture.  This photo is so misleading, because he appears to be a nice cat.  A cat who doesn’t recognize jeans as “cat tree”, or consider “hissing” an invitation, or running away an invitation for a kitty piggy back ride.

Don't be fooled

On Communism (and TV!)

There’s a wee bit of knitting content at the end.

I’m officially at the point in the semester where I find myself looking forward to Saturday afternoon lecture. Last Saturday’s class was my favourite yet, with a fun (!) discussion of social darwinism and videos of insects. We spent the last part of class discussing Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.

I spent this part of class with my nose wrinkled up. I’m going to say something now that is firmly anti-thesis and which would make my Grandmother. who used the word “commie” like I use an f-bomb, drop a big C-bomb.

I don’t understand why communism is that bad, as an economic system. Karl Marx wrote, Communism was born from the “complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold graduation of social rank” (Note to self: study this point against Burke who wrote that social rank created stability: A place for everyone, and everyone in their place!). Marx wanted to create a level playing field for society, and Communism was the solution to his hate-on for all things Capitalistic

Now, I KNOW the communist governments were VERY bad. In my mind, I separate the principals of communist economics with the restriction of rights are freedoms that happened behind the iron curtain which were bad. Very very bad!

May I politely suggest for you to consider this:

The fear (and it was really scary!) around the Cold War effected our World View (of course it did, it was very, very bad!). We, now, associated anything communist with being bad. Very, very bad.

I think this gives communism the economic system the short end of the stick.

When you get married, your merge your individual property. You get a joint bank account, share a phone line & a car & friends & cats. These are all “to do”s in the communist manifesto.

Maybe communism is best served in small groups such as households or islands off Vancouver island where people won’t starve because the collective can meet the individual needs.

Or maybe I’m a bit too idealistic. ( Have been accused as such.)

Marx wrote Communist Manifesto with support from Friedrich Engels, who shared Marx’s anti-capitalist beliefs and came from a class of people so that he could afford to support Marx while he wrote. In short, Engels was Marx’s sugar daddy.

Dr Margo cited Virginia Woolfe’s A Room of One’s Own. (I haven’t read it, but I am going to) in which Woolfe suggests William Shakespeare’s gifts would have been denied the same opportunities to develop them because of the doors that were closed to women (citation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Room_of_One%27s_Own) and if we all had time & money we would come up with innovative ways of thinking.

Today I was with one of my knitting students. I showed her how to pick up stitches on a square and form them into the toe of a sock. She declared “WHO THOUGHT OF THIS?”

I said: “The didn’t have TV then.”

I really, really worry that human are going to surf the web and watch TV until we don’t have a bit of creativity or innovative thinking left. Who will be considered the great thinkers of our generation? Mark Burnett, who invented reality TV? What is our society losing in terms of knowledge because we mute our “thinker” with entertainment?

That said, it is Thursday night and I do love me some 30 Rock but I feel quite balanced in watching it because I wrote this blog post. I have alot (a lot!!) on my plate these days but accomplishing this blog post feels really good.

Knitting content: Continued work on the Mara from Saturday. This was before I doubled the number of stitches on the edge to create a lovely ruffle (right now there’s over 800 stitches on the needles). It will be finished soon!!

Daily desk 007

More on the Cowichan sweater disappointment

I love knitters. I really, really do. A gathering is being planned in support of the Cowichan knitters when the Olympic Torch travels through the Cowichan Valley next week. I found this post from Skipper on Ravelry:

Just so you all know, there is a gathering being planned for Saturday, Oct. 31st, during the Olympic torch relay in the Cowichan Valley, in support of Cowichan knitters (and to make a statement to VANOC about our support of Cowichan knitters)! Wear your authentic Cowichan apparel and join us, if you can, from noon until about 3 pm – I’ll be driving up from Victoria in a van that can hold 6 others, and there’s at least one other van going, so we have lots of room ….. PM me for details, please, and pass this info on to anyone you think might be interested. Thanks!

Skipper’s blog is here, and I presume if you’re not on ravelry you can contact her through it. Take lots of pictures! I wish I could go.

…and from the “how to make a bad situation worse” file, see this CBC article on how the RCMP is *investigating* the sweater-wearing protestors. Sigh.

Aside, I am gushing with love over the knitting community. Have had almost 40 people join the knit along. Details to come once I unravel my brain (Will we raise money? How? Who will give us prizes?) etc. Ideas welcome.

Cowichan Sweaters, Canadian History & The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything

In the late 1600’s the Hudson Bay Company was founded when, in May, 1670, Prince Rupert granted the lands of the Hudson Bay watershed to “the Governor and Company of Adventurers (source) of England trading into Hudson Bay.”  Their first century of business, Natives brought furs annually to established trading posts to barter for manufactured goods such as knives, kettles, beads, needles, and the famous HBC blankets.  (source: HBC history)

HBC (as it’s now known) has a seven year sponsorship partnership with the Olympic committee.    They are the official outfitter and apparel sponsor for Team Canada.

Patrick Dickson, VP of Marketing at HBC, said of this partnership“For us, this was an opportunity to promote our connection with the country on that basis of creating an emotional bond with consumers. It’s a very powerful one and we really haven’t played that card in a while and it is a good opportunity to show how we are interconnected with Canada,”

“Emotional” bond is so the right phrase.   I have such happy memories shopping there with my Mom.  The only credit card she ever had was a Bay card.    The warm fuzzy sense of Canadiana I associate with The Bay has now been replaced by a sick feeling in my tummy, and I’ll explain why.

In class yesterday we learned Hegel’s Reason in History – an incredibly amazing formula that qualifies the progress of human nature.  Dr. Margo cited Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy’s famous “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything (42)”

I’ll completely oversimplify it and explain it like this:

  • When a thesis (or commonly held idea)  is challenged by an anti-thesis (or opposing view) a new synthesis (or truth) is created.
  • The new synthesis is then challenged by another opposing view, and so on and so on.

An incredibly oversimplified example:

I thought sushi was gross (thesis) until a friend dared me to try it (opposing view).  The (synthesis) result is I love sushi.

The new thesis, is I REALLY LOVE SUSHI and if you tried to keep me from (anti thesis) a good tuna roll  it would not end well (new synthesis, don’t get between a Joce & her sushi).

Now, back to the Bay & my poor broken heart.

As described above,  the Bay’s business was founded exporting fur to England, a cornerstone of Canadian history. (thesis).  A business of trade actually reliant on the first nation’s contribution animal furs.  Without First Nations, there would be no HBC today. None!

As official retailer for Team Canada,  HBC says they approached Cowichan band of Vancouver Island to produce their traditional sweaters as part of Team Canada’s wardrobe.   Cowichan sweaters have been described by textile historians as a perfect example of folk art.  The decorative icons which the sweaters are the sweaters trademark represent institutions of First Nations life.   They are a natural fit for Canadian Athletes to wear as they enjoy the spotlight of the peak of their competitive career.

HBC wanted traditional Cowichan knitters to produce 700 to 800 sweaters in the 10-month period before last week’s Olympic wear launch. He said the job could have been done, with about 25 knitters, for a price of less than $300 a sweater.

I work in Corporate Responsibility and PR, and my job is to create a solid, honest synthesis that (ideally) can not be challenged by an anti-thesis.   At the cost of less than $300 a sweater, they’re earning less than $100 profit on each $350 sweater.    if I was part of The Bay’s CSR department, I would have fought (anti-synthesis) to bite the profits and produce these sweaters locally  It could  have been a really beautiful tribute to their past… or charge double and give ALL the profits to a First Nations athletic program (which is part of their contract as official Team Canada sponsor).  This could have been and an optomistic tribute to the past  and a tribute to a First Nations vision for the future.  (new synthesis).

HBC outsourced the hand-knit (and the company quick to point out they’re NOT COWICHAN) sweaters to be produced in…. China.   And I’m heartbroken about it.  They wrote:

“It was clear that they were unable to meet Hudson’s Bay Company requirements as a national retailer for consistency, speed to market and volume for delivery,” the company statement said.

They produced less than 1000 sweaters to sell in their stores.   All this, for less than 1000 sweaters.  At a profit of $50-$100 per sweater? It’s 1670 all over again.

You can see the NOT COWICHAN sweaters in this article, which I pulled some of this information from.

I have a Cowichan sweater. It was my Mom’s, and I don’t think it was ever worn. It’s 40 years old, warm like oven and it’s still in really good shape.

Cowichan Sweater

In tribute to the Cowichan knitters (who WERE ripped off by HBC) during the Olympics next year I’m going to attempt to mend my broken heart and I’m going to knit a new Cowichan sweater for myself. Would you like to join me in a knit-a-long for this great knitting tradition? Maybe knitters can create a new synthesis for this horrible act by a Canadian institution.  Leave a comment and If there’s enough interest I’ll create a rav group, organize pattern sales, etc.