Hello lovelies
Happy Humpday! I hope you’re having a wonderful week so far and that you enjoyed the weekend. This week I come bearing a free pattern in honour of International Women’s day, which I imagine you know was last Sunday. I really enjoyed reading so many inspirational stories on Sunday and wanted to share some love with you (in the form of knitted things.)
International Women’s Day
I know it’s over but surely we don’t have to wait for just one day a year to talk about it so I just have a few paragraphs about feminism and International Women’s Day (IWD) that I wanted to write because I think they are super important… IWD is a global celebration of women. It’s an opportunity to share female achievements and empowerment and also shine lights on the inequalities that are still a problem today. For me, it’s a day for saying ‘look at what amazing women have managed to do in this patriarchal system, look how far we’ve come and also look at what’s still left to change.’ In my experience it’s always been an inspirational day that allows us to celebrate change and become even more determined to continue to push for equality.
But we must remember that that isn’t everyone’s experience. No everyone feels as included and seen on IWD. While we fight for equality we sometimes don’t look outside ourselves and see the inequality that other people – particularly minorities – have to deal with. While we’re celebrating the gender pay gap closing, we’re sometimes neglecting to notice that the ethnicity pay gap is much larger. Feminism is SO important and we absolutely need to use our voices to fight for our rights as women but we mustn’t forget that it’s a sliding scale, and that our feminism needs to be intersectional because we will not have equality until a disabled woman, a woman of colour, a trans-woman, a plus size woman or a gay woman is treated equally also.
White feminism is just as dangerous as the patriarchal structure itself so please lets all be conscious of how inclusive (or not) we’re being. I’m very aware this sounds a bit like a lecture and I hope you’re reading thinking ‘I know all this already Lauren, just give me the free pattern damnit!’ but it’s my blog so… 
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I bloody LOVE being a feminist and I imagine that if you’re here, looking at this ‘Girl Power’ pattern you do to. I’m not here to reprimand anyone or ask you to stop, quite the opposite! I’m asking you to continue empowering and inspiring the women around you and I’m asking us all to consider if we could be even more inclusive – in any way – when we do so?
What we knitting?
So, back to the knitting! The pattern is for a ‘GRL PWR’ banner that you can make in the colours of your choice. It’s a quick knit and it’s technically an ‘Advanced’ pattern because it uses some colour work but I hope that rather than scaring you off, that might encourage you to try colour work if you haven’t before! Colourwork is super fun and much easier than it looks, once you’ve got the technique under your belt it’ll open up heaps more patterns for you to try out too. We have a video below and more tips and advice on the knitting knowledge page to help you work through it.
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To make the banner you’ll need:
- 100g Ball LAD Super Chunky Yarn – Main Colour
- 20g LAD Super Chunky Yarn – Second Colour
- 20g LAD Super Chunky Yarn – Second Colour (optional)
- 12mm knitting needles
- Jumbo needle/stick to hang it on
- 3.5mm Pompom maker & 5g of each colour you want for pompoms (Optional)
Happy Knitting!
I’ll leave you to get knitting! I hope you enjoy the new banner, if you make it then please do share your pictures with me as I’d love to see what colours you go for and where you hang it.
Happy Wednesday pals!
Take care,
