Bwop! Bwop! CBRM Knitters Needed!

One of the Torontonian Stitch & Bitchers and the giant pair of Noro(??) undies they made for Brent Bambury during the Feb 27 taping of Go!

Oh MAN, how DO I get myself into these things?? Well, not those things (i.e. the giant undies shown above) but these things meaning... well, read on and you will see.


Who: Local knitters with pride! (Even those who don't yet know how to knit.)
What: A taping of Go!, on the topic of "Giants of Canadian Rock"
Where: The Savoy in Glace Bay, 116 Commercial Street
When: 6 pm (the show starts at 7pm but we'll gather in advance)
Why On Earth?? Well, here's the deal...

There's a show on CBC Radio called Go!, on Saturday mornings at 10 a.m., hosted by Brent Bambury. On February 27, the subject of the show was Lobbying for Hobbying¹, and Brent invited four people to "show their passion for their pastimes" and convince listeners that their hobbies should be our hobbies. The pastimes in question were laughter yoga, playing the ukulele, naked photography in abandoned buildings... and knitting.

Okay, so right there you can maybe see my point. Laughter yoga, while actually it sounded really fun on the show, perhaps isn't very widely known. Playing the ukulele is kind of the textbook Lame Hobby - no disrespect to the ukulele but you've got to admit: that's how it's shown in pop culture. Naked photography in abandoned buildings... that is Seriously Obscure, as hobbies go. Now, Toni Wallachy's photography is really stunning (check out her Flickr photostream, too), so as art this naked photography in abandoned buildings bit is lovely. But as a hobby? I'm thinking there probably aren't a lot of participants. No, not so much.

So what was knitting doing in this obscure company? It was ROCKING, of course! Even so, I felt as though Bambury ... well, that he belittled knitting as a frumpy, granny sort of thing to do - in spite of the young and obviously hip Stitch & Bitchers who were there with Stephanie (or perhaps she was there with them?). I felt this way because of things he said, such as: "Knitting? Really, is this right? We're going to talk about knitting? I thought we were doing cool hobbies." And also: "I think knitting is something you do when you're too old to change the channel."

Now, in his defense, he was probably just making fun chit chat to drive the conversation along, but as a knitter I felt snubbed. Maybe I'm just a hobby snob and resented them lumping knitting in with what I considered to be Weird Hobbies when really I should have just been thrilled that knitting was getting some airtime, but there it is. Stephanie, who is always hilarious ("Knitters aren't knitters because they're patient, they're patient because they knit... We do this so that we don't have to be rude or drunk all the time.") and the other Stitch & Bitchers represented us well but I still felt like we got the short end of the needle, so to speak.

ANYHOO, during the conversation, Bambury gave Stephanie and the S&Bs this challenge: "Two weeks from now... Go! is going to be taping in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia... It is going to be cold on the Cape, so Stitchers, by the end of today's show, I want you to knit me some sexy, woolly undies - woolen underpants that I can wear out on the Cape."

And they did. See above.

So anyway, I listened to all this and, with knitter's pride bristling, decided that those of us within spitting distance of Glace Bay really ought to go to this taping on March 12 and make sure Himself has got his Noro on. Or at least in the studio, if not on his actual person. And I thought we ought to go with our needles and demonstrate that the knitting isn't all that obscure, thankyousoverymuch, nor frumpy.

I think we've got about half a dozen folks that're planning to go, but Chris (of Knit-a-thon fame) has let the CBC Information Morning guys know that we're going to be there so, on the off chance that the show organizers get wind of us coming, I'm really hoping we can get together a really big group of people so that we can make our point with pride and emphasis and NUMBERS.

I have let the Go! folks know that I'll be there with a knitting posse and requested tickets for us. Hopefully we'll be able to get a bunch of seats together - we'll be armed with sharp pointy sticks, so I think we'll be able to convince the nice folks at the Savoy to do that for us. They're actually going to save seats in the front row for anyone willing to sing on air but only a couple people called in to Information Morning this morning to do that, so I'm secretly hoping we can have the balance of the front row. If not that, then perhaps the second row?

The show is free and the topic is "Giants of Canadian Rock". Taping starts at 7pm but the audience is supposed to get there a little early; we knitters are going to gather at 6pm so that we can make sure to get seats together and also so we can teach any wannabe knitters the basics so they can be knitting with us by the time the show starts.² Bring your needles and whatever project you have on the go. (ha! Go!) And wear or bring something hand knit if you think of it!

Please please please, if you are a Cape Breton knitter, let me know via a comment here or by RSVPing to the Facebook event. If you know any Cape Breton knitters, please spread the word!

[Edit: Woo hoo! As of 11 am on Thee Day, we are now 14 knitters strong, plus various husbands and friends coming with. :D Bronwyn at Go! has been absolutely great about putting our names on the reserved tickets list in little dribs and drabs as people confirm, and I'm hopeful we'll get a good place to sit together. - J]


1. You can hear the entire audio of the show here. Look for the Feb 27 broadcast. The knitting bit is from around 14:00 to 23:30 or thereabouts, plus a bit at the end when they discuss the finished undies.

2. I'm not above bunging knitting needles and just-started projects into the hands of non-knitters to beef up our numbers, either. I shall come prepared!