Stitchez

I am enjoying my new job. It is labour intensive as I am basically cramming five days worth of work into three, but the work is enjoyable and I am having fun getting to know my new colleagues.

One of my fellow editors is Glenda. She is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Long, jet black hair, pale, porcelain skin, emerald eyes. She really could be one of the fairy folk except that she wears Nick Cave T-shirts and Doc Marten boots to work. She has so many black bangles and bracelets on that she jingles as she types. “I hope you’re not freaked out by me, Selma,” she says, “but I am one of the last remaining Goths in Sydney. Everyone is an emo now. They totally don’t get the Goth sensibility. It’s a lifestyle not a name tag.”

Glenda drinks black coffee all day long. The only hint of colour surrounding her is the little red pencil she uses to correct the proofs; it flicks tirelessly, a little red bird darting through tall grass. Glenda may be doused in black but there is something about her that is golden. She is a knit graffiti artist.

She was inspired when she heard the story of a group of guerilla knitters from Houston, Texas who wanted to make graffiti and street art more acceptable and decided to use their unfinished knitting projects as a way to “warm the world, one car antenna at a time.”

Glenda’s tag name is Stitchez and she knits colourful scarves, blankets and even tea cosies which she attaches to pieces of public property like telegraph poles, fence posts, parking meters, mail boxes and so on. She views it as a form of installation art. Her ultimate aim is to tie a 100 foot long scarf to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. She says I can come along the next time she tags as long as I have something I have knitted myself to tie to something. Now if I could just figure out how to cast on…..