Pussyhat Project For Women’s March Causes Run On Pink Yarn

Edmonds joined hundreds of other knitters in the Bay Area chasing down spools of pink yarn, which flew off shelves at an unprecedented rate, as knitters across the nation made pink hats with cat ears for participants of the global Women’s March in Washington, D.C., on Saturday and simultaneous protests locally. Launched Thanksgiving weekend, the Pussyhat Project issued a call to arms for knitters to create a symbolic statement to counter a crude reference President-elect Donald Trump was caught making on a hot mike about grabbing the genitals of women. With the clock ticking down toward the march, expected to draw more than 200,000 participants in Washington and millions more at sister marches organized globally, Edmonds hit an unexpected knot in her rush to complete the remaining hats she’s promised to marchers. Edmonds rushed to a nearby Michaels, the arts and crafts retail chain, hunting for the coveted yarn. Hayashi drove out to the Michaels in Vallejo from her home in Benicia and after searching the store for 30 minutes with Edmonds on FaceTime, she was able to snag close to 10 skeins of pink yarn. There are bins under the actual racks so I pulled out every single black bin to see if there were any (pink yarn spools) in there, and there were none. Celia McCarthy, a co-owner of Piedmont Yarn and Apparel in Oakland, is one of many yarn stores participating in the Pussyhat Project by holding workshops for knitters to make the iconic beanies together and is also a drop-off zone for completed hats. Justine Malone, the owner of the yarn department at Cast Away and Folk, a yarn store in Santa Rosa, was expecting 30 more skeins of pink yarn to be delivered to her shop Wednesday. The Pussyhat Project posted instructions on its website of a pattern to guide those making the hats. The pattern calls for a medium weight pink yarn, which Malone said her shop sold out of nearly a week ago. “We are having to convince people to alter the pattern a little bit so they can use a thinner or thicker yarn rather than what’s called for,” Malone said. “Some people are just going for purple,” Malone said, adding that people are improvising and branching out to colors as close to pink as possible to ensure they get their hats in time.