knittedwit

True Colors: Over the Net

by

Over the Net is inspired by tennis player (and ophthalmologist) Renee Richards, a Trans woman who sued the US Tennis Association for her right to play after being banned for her gender. Her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and the results, allowing her to continue playing, paved the way for Trans athletes to play the game they were meant to, without being discriminated against. We really feel like we hit this colorway Over the Net (haha!), and hope you feel the same way.

This colorway used to be called A Poffle of Puffs.

The cowl shown is Shannon’s Roll Out the Barrel cowl, and features Over the Net paired with Carbon.

You can find all of our in-stock True Colors yarn on our website here.

True Colors: Indigenous Artistry

by

We’Wha was a Zuni artisan and Ihamana. In traditional Zuni culture, the lhamana are people who are assigned male at birth, and who take on the social and ceremonial roles usually performed by women in their culture. Ihamana wear a mixture of women’s and men’s clothing and much of their work is in the areas usually occupied by Zuni women. They are also known to serve as mediators. We’Wha was born in the mid-1800s, and served as an ambassador for their people to the colonizing United States government. They were a highly-regarded weaver and potter, and were loved (and sometimes feared) and respected by their tribal community. They became an activist later in life, when conflict broke out between the Zunis and the US government, and was accused of witchcraft. They died at 47 during an annual tribal festival. Their legacy lives on in the stories told and the artistry that has survived.

Indigenous Artistry is the colorway named for We’Wha; it was originally called Magical Me.

We are sharing a shawl made in Indigenous Artistry and Lavender Menace, Shannon’s Glitterati.

You can find all of our in-stock True Colors yarn on our website here.

True Colors: Black Cat

by

Jose Sarria (1922-2013) was an activist drag queen who, in his younger years, joined the US Navy because he thought their uniforms were the most attractive of all the armed services. Alas, he was denied those uniforms, as he was rejected by the Navy, so he served in the Army for  years. After being discharged, he lost the love of his life, Paul, to a drunk driver, and found himself a bit adrift. Some friends encouraged him to enter a drag competition, which changed his life. The Black Cat, in Oakland, California, became his home, and he proved to be an engaging entertainer as well as an inspiring activist, working on gay rights throughout his life. He was even the first openly gay person to run for office in 1961, and, although he didn’t win, he paved the way for Harvey Milk, who won the same seat Sarria ran for 16 years later. This colorway, now called Black Cat, used to be called Dobby’s Socks.

Two socks are shared here: Slumber Slips, in our Bulky, are a bulky-weight slipper-sock, and Sundae Socks are a simple fingering-weight sock shown in our Sock base. Both patterns are by Shannon Squire.

You can find all of our True Colors on our website, including this week’s releases!

True Colors: Greenwich Village

by

Sylvia Rivera (1951-2002) was born in New Jersey in 1951. She was assigned male at birth, but knew that she was Trans in elementary school. Her home life was so toxic that she left at the tender age of 10, and was taken in by a group of drag queens in NYC who welcomed and took care of her. This group included the woman who would become her best friend, and with whom she would make history during the Stonewall Uprising. Throughout her life as an activist, she was routinely disappointed by gay right’s groups that chose not to include Trans rights in their work. She kept on fighting, however, doing everything she could to bring attention to Trans rights, and worked hard to help Trans folk who were homeless or jailed. She inspired the formation of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, an organization dedicated to fighting for Trans rights.

This colorway used to be called Dobby’s Pillowcase.

One of our lovely sample knitters made up this dreamy Muriel’s Shawl in Greenwich Village, modeled by designer Shannon Squire.

You can find all of our True Colors on our website, including this week’s releases!

True Colors: Be True to You

by

In the 1500s in Angola, Francisco Manicongo was born. Francisco was a “jimbandaa,” a person assigned male at birth but who loved men and dressed as a woman. Jimandaas were honored in their communities, as was Francisco, until they were kidnapped and enslaved in Brazil. They were enslaved by a cobbler, and remained true to themselves throughout their life, even faced with the homophobia of their enslavers. On March 9th every year in Rio de Janiero, Xica Manicongo Day is celebrated by the LGBTQIA+ community, ensuring that Francisco Manicongo’s legacy lives on.

This colorway used to be called A Memorable Exit. 

We are sharing a Flotus Shawl by Shannon in Be True to You paired with Carbon (a dark grey).

You can find all of our True Colors on our website, including this week’s releases!

True Colors: Quilted

by

Our new True Colors line, honoring amazing LGBTQIA+ folks, continues this week with Quilted, a colorway paying homage to Cleve Jones and the absolutely amazeballs NAMES AIDS Memorial Quilt he created (which now weighs over 54 tons!!!). Cleve is a white gay man, who lived in San Francisco during the AIDS crisis and saw many loved ones get sick and die. He, too, got sick with AIDS but he lived, and wanted to memorialize those who were not so lucky. He was an outspoken AIDS activist who worked in City Hall, and he started a project that was to inspire the quilt. He asked everyone he came across to write down the name of someone they had lost to HIV/AID, and created a public work comprised of those names on posted on City Hall, and was struck by how much the patchwork of names resembled a quilt. So Cleve started making. And making. And making. Literally 54 tons of fabric and countless hours of work later, the quilt is now available as an interactive exhibit online. Cleve was born in the US in 1954, and is currently still alive.

This colorway used to be called Extended Camping Trip.

We are sharing a sweet pair of socks today, Shannon’s Slip Away pattern, which features Quilted.

You can find all of our True Colors on our website, including this week’s releases!

True Colors: Stonewall

by

We are super pleased to share this new/old colorline with you! When JK Rowling showed her true colors as a TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist), we knew we couldn’t continue to promote or profit off of our color line inspired by her best-known work, but we also loved so many of the colorways we created, so we decided to repackage them into a smaller color line, paying homage to people in the LGBTQIA+ community, with a special emphasis on Trans folk. From 9/16 – 11/25, we’ll be sharing 2 of the colorways from this new True Colors line a week, here on Instagram and on our blog, telling a bit of these stories (you know how we love a good story!). We hope you enjoy honoring this fab group of groundbreaking individuals as much as we have enjoyed learning more about them. We are starting out our journey with two of our favorite colorways from the set, honoring two Trans women who did so much for Trans rights and their communities.

One of our all-time favorite colorways ever, Stonewall is named for the inimitable Marsha P. Johnson, who lived in the US from 1945-1992. Johnson was a Black Trans woman who was one of the inspirations/instigators of the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion along with Sylvia Rivera (look out for a colorway inspired by Sylvia in a few weeks). The P in her name stood for “Pay it No Mind.” Johnson had a glowing personality; everyone loved her. She was a mother figure to many young Trans people, and worked to provide housing for young Trans people in NYC. She founded STAR house in 1970, which was a 4-bedroom apt for Trans folk to live in. Her legacy lives on in many ways, one of which being the Marsha P. Johnson Foundation, which organizes and advocates for Black Trans people. This colorway was originally called Spectrespecs.


We are sharing two projects that feature Stonewall, both from designer Shannon Squire. Margaret Sullivan’s Shawl is in 2 skeins of our Fingering, and Short Attention Span Socks are in our Sock base.

You can find all of our True Colors on our website, including this week’s releases!

True Colors: French Court

by

We are super pleased to share this new/old colorline with you! When JK Rowling showed her true colors as a TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist), we knew we couldn’t continue to promote or profit off of our color line inspired by her best-known work, but we also loved so many of the colorways we created, so we decided to repackage them into a smaller color line, paying homage to people in the LGBTQIA+ community, with a special emphasis on Trans folk. From 9/16 – 11/25, we’ll be sharing 2 of the colorways from this new True Colors line a week, here on Instagram and on our blog, telling a bit of these stories (you know how we love a good story!). We hope you enjoy honoring this fab group of groundbreaking individuals as much as we have enjoyed learning more about them. We are starting out our journey with two of our favorite colorways from the set, honoring two Trans women who did so much for Trans rights and their communities.

This stunning colorway is French Court, and it honors Chevalière D’Eon, who lived in France from 1728-1810. D’Eon was a White Trans woman who was a secret spy for the French King; she spied on Russia and England, presenting as male the whole time. She transitioned at 49 and was formally presented to the court as a woman – the first trans woman to be presented/accepted at French court. This colorway was originally called Spattergroit. 

We are sharing two patterns that feature French Court, both from designer Shannon Squire. Bobble-Palooza is a hat in our Worsted base, and Pee Dee Queue socks are in our Sock base.

You can find all of our True Colors on our website, including this week’s releases!

HerStory October 2020: Cristeta Comerford

by

Our October HerStory recipient, Cristeta Comerford, is a really good cook. So good, in fact, that she became the first woman AND the first person of Asian decent to hold the title of White House Executive Chef in 2005.

Born in 1962 in Sampaloc, Manila, in the Philippines, Comerford studied food technology at the University of the Philippines, but left to emigrate to the US before finishing college. She worked her way up through the ranks of chefdom, and impressed everyone she worked with with both her strong work ethic and her intuitive cooking style, which she credits to her mother. Comerford has been the White House Executive Chef since 2005, first appointed by Barbara Bush, after serving as a sous chef in the White House for ten years. 

The world of the professional chef is still one that’s dominated by men, even though women are traditionally the ones cooking in their own homes. Comerford realizes what an inspiration her story is to many up-and-coming chefs, and shares her wisdom and knowledge freely. She doesn’t believe she’s reached the pinnacle of what she can achieve, because, as she says, “once you’ve accepted the fact that this is the pinnacle…what is the next step? You go down right? So I think in life, you should never take anything to be the pinnacle. Everything you [achieve should] just be a stepping stone to a better thing.”

Growing up in a large Filipino family, Comerford learned at the knee of a matriarch who effortlessly provided tasty food to her large brood. She learned to navigate small spaces with lots of people, to create foods that appeal to a broad range of palettes, to incorporate seemingly disparate culinary influences into appealing dishes. But she also learned that her family and her interpersonal relationships are what truly feed her, and she both relies on and works to nourish those relationships. On cooking at home, she and her husband are of one mind: if it takes more than 10 minutes, it’s a lot of work. 

Our October colorway, Para su Chef, is one created for this chef, this immigrant who really does get the job done, who has shattered glass ceilings, and keeps on cooking. 

HerStory September 2020: Yalitza Arapacio

by

Representation matters. No one understands that more than our September HerStory honoree, Yalitza Aparicio. She is a Mexican actress who made her film debut in 2018’s Roma, which centers the Indigenous experience in Mexico. The film tells the story of a live-in housekeeper of Indigenous descent, who code-switches between the family she serves (with whom she speaks Spanish) and her co-worker, who is also Mixtec and with whom she speaks Mixteca. The film was critically acclaimed, not only for the beautiful story it told, but also for shining a light on the plight of the Indigenous community in Mexico. It inspired more focus and attention on Indigenous peoples, and a deeper commitment to activism for Aparicio.

Like much of the world, Mexico is currently experiencing a reckoning in regards to race and class, and particularly in the way Indigenous peoples have been treated. Roma helped to start lots of conversations about the struggles Indigenous people face, and the discrimination against them that is inherent in Mexican society. Colorism is a big problem in Mexico, and it’s long been perpetuated by Mexican media: dark-skinned people with Indigenous features are often relegated to the lower rungs of a society that is deeply classist, and are not represented in much of popular culture.

When people don’t have access to things like the cinema, they don’t pursue careers in things like the cinema, and therefore are not represented in things like the cinema. Aparicio works with organizations that aim to expand access to movie theaters, therefore exposing Indigenous folk to the possibilities, not only inherent in the stories that are told, but in the telling of the stories. Aparicio’s parents are both Indigenous; her father is Mixtec and her mother is Trique. Her casting in Roma was very deliberate: director Alfonso Cuarón wanted an recognizably Indigenous woman to play this role. This in itself was a revolutionary act, as lighter skin is held to a higher regard throughout Mexico.

Our Indigenous Excellence colorway celebrates the indigenous heritage of Yalitza Aparicio; each skein is a blending of the traditional regalia. We hope you’ll take some time to learn more about the indigenous people of your home country as you work with your September HerStory yarn, and maybe rent Roma while you’re at it.