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April 05, 2006

What Boobies Have Taught Me

It's that time again! Time to auction another boobie scarf! Here's the drill, although you probably know it by now: my super-awesome cousin Wendy will be walking 60 miles in three days this August in The Breast Cancer 3-Day in Minneapolis. She's raising donations for The Susan G. Komen Foundation. Since I'm too lazy to walk, I'm opting to knit five of Jillian Moreno's boobie scarves. She's got a new book coming out next week called Big Girl Knits. If you're a big girl and you knit, you should buy it. I'm going to buy it. That is, unless someone would rather buy it for me.


Jodi donated $50 and won scarf #1. Suzy came out of lurking and won auction #2 with her generous $60 bid. Now, are you ready to see auction #3 before I get all philosophical and shit?



Behold! Rosey boobies! There are more photos after the jump. The scarf details: It's 46 inches long by 4 inches wide. It's knit with Fjord by Crystal Palace in "Roses", which is a lovely varigated blend of dark mauve, pink, and dark green. Think dark and light pink roses on their lovely green stems. The yarn's 100% wool, but it's not scratchy at all. It's super-soft and snuggly.

How the auction works:
1. Bidding starts at $30. Bids will be accepted until 5 PM central daylight time on Friday, April 7th. To bid, just leave a comment with the amount you're bidding.

2. Once bidding has ended and I've announced the winner, make your payment in the amount of your bid onWendy's 3-Day donation page. It's secure, with the money going directly to the Komen Foundation. We won't see any of your payment info. Leave a comment in your pledge message regarding the boobie scarf so I know it's you.

3. Send me your shipping info, and the scarf will be on its way. I'm paying all shipping charges, even if you don't live in the U.S. of A.

Easy, right? Now, go look at more pictures of the boobies, place some bids, make some donations, and read about my boobie epiphany...







For some reason I had a hard time getting a decent photo. Really, it's not much different than the previous two scarves, aside from the colors.

When I finished boobie scarf #2, I had the following converstion with Wendy:

Me: I don't need the pattern for the boobie scarf anymore. I've got it memorized. I can knit tits in my sleep.
Wendy: That's gonna look awesome on your resume!
Me: Yeah. I'm hoping to gain employment knitting for the adult entertainment industry.

Seriously, I'm sick to death of knitting boobies. It's not that they're hard. They were at first, but now that I've knit 96 individual boobs, they're easy. Too easy. Methodical. The kind of process that gets wedged in my brain and I find myself mentally doing them when I'm nowhere near my yarn. The only thing I can compare it to is, when I was 15 years old and spent 14 hours a day in the hot August sun, slinging sodas at the Missouri State Fair. When I'd finally crawl into bed, sweaty and sticky because I was too exhausted to shower, I'd imagine filling wax cups with Pepsi as I was falling asleep. Yeah, it's maddening.

It occured to me, of course, that I can just quit, which is what I did to that job on the fourth day. Three scarves is good. It's a nice little bit of money in Komen's coffers. It was fun and novel and cute, but no one's making me do this. I can quit anytime I want.

But then something occured to me. Do you know what's a hell of a lot harder than getting a little bored with knitting the same scarf over and over? Walking 60 miles in three days, that's what.

Do you know what's even harder than that? Going through chemo, or recovering from a mastectomy. Or waiting for biopsy results, waiting for the cancer to come back, waiting to die.

Suddenly, knitting boobs doesn't seem bad at all. It seems like an honor and a priviledge, something I should be thankful that I'm healthy enough to do while I sit at Starbucks for hours with my friends, or while Clara Jane leans against me on the couch, or while B. and I watch Walk the Line, knitting for three hours straight. I should be grateful to wake up with knitting-induced claw-hands the next day, grateful that I'm healthy, and so are all the women I love. If my deformed claw-hands do just a little bit to keep us that way, then it's worth it.

So, I'll keep knitting boobs until they total a perky little 160 (that's five scarves-worth). I might even do more as penance for even being so silly and lazy as to think that it's too boring or too hard. Here's hoping that knitting a lot of boobs is the hardest thing any of us ever have to do in our lives.

Posted by Robin at April 5, 2006 10:38 PM

Comments

"knit tits". This made me laugh. I needed that.
The colors are so lovely. You know if I weren't dirt poor I'd bid. I still owe my wonderful boyfriend some money for my latest car repairs. Ha.

Posted by: Exena at April 6, 2006 05:55 AM

I like your revelation at the end there.

Posted by: jess at April 6, 2006 11:07 AM

Well, I'll get this started... _I'm bidding $35_

Just outta curiousity, might there be an Orange Boobie Scarf in the works??

:) And yeah, I'm giggling at the "knit tits in my sleep" part too!

Posted by: Debbie at April 6, 2006 12:07 PM

I give! It's beautiful, doesn't match a coat I have, but... well, I'm just a bit above dirt-poor this month.

I bid $30.

(Warning of much seriousness ahead)
When your fingers are cramping, think of R. in Belleville -- 26 and just cleared of cancer, had a double mastectomy to celebrate so she, a single mom of a 2-and-a half-year-old son, would never have to do chemo again. And she was nice every single time I ever talked to her at work. Amazing.

I should have bid weeks ago.

Posted by: Mary at April 6, 2006 12:13 PM

$40! (And how did you beat me? Thought I had the first bid...)

Posted by: Mary at April 6, 2006 12:24 PM

Poppy, you so rock! Love em.

Cassie

Posted by: Cassie at April 7, 2006 01:44 PM

C'mon! Surely someone can do better than $40! I know it's April, but it's gonna get cold again in six months and you're gonna want this scarf.

Two hours, fifteen minutes remain...

Posted by: Poppy at April 7, 2006 02:43 PM

Hush! You know I was going to do better than $40 -- but don't you be driving up the auction! :)

Posted by: Mary at April 7, 2006 03:11 PM

$45!

$50!

Sold?

It's my best offer. Guess I'm not so good at this auction thing... :)

Posted by: Mary at April 7, 2006 03:17 PM

$50.01

tee-hee...Too much "Price is Right?"

$55.

Posted by: Roni at April 7, 2006 04:12 PM

You... you... swooper!

:)

Posted by: Mary at April 7, 2006 04:40 PM

Alas, Mary, you've been swooped. Congratulations Roni!

Debbie, thanks for bidding again. Start saving your pennies, because I bought orange yarn yesterday for boobie scarf #4! Totally inspired by you. You can get a sneak peak here: http://www.cascadeyarns.com/dive%27-Teseo.asp. It's color #28222, but the photo doesn't do it justice. The varigations go into a much lighter orange from the darker ones pictured. And it's soft. So, so soft. I love it.

Posted by: Poppy at April 7, 2006 05:18 PM

hehe...sorry Mary, but I want that scarf. It's sooo my current color combo. And now I'll get to say that I'm wearing Wendy's boobies!

Posted by: Roni at April 7, 2006 05:59 PM

Phuk. I was so wrapped up in getting home from work without dying in a tornado Friday that I forgot to bid.

Posted by: Julie at April 9, 2006 08:03 AM

Yay! Orange! I'll totally swoop in for Orange Boobies! ;)

Posted by: Debbie at April 10, 2006 11:11 AM