Ay, Lads and Lassies!

Allen and I desperately want to go on vacation this year. Anywhere would be nice, but I would especially love to go to Europe. I definitely never thought I would get to be this old and have never made it out of the country - except for that one weekend in Montreal.

I was trolling along on several sites and came across this description of a project called The Knitting Map by a group calling themselves half/angel (www.knitting.ie) :

"Above the earth there is a satellite which looks down at Cork and watches the movements of people and cars around the city. Down in the hub, small cameras watch the city in detail and meteorological equipment tastes the weather. Through a strange technical alchemy, this information is transformed into a knitting pattern, which constantly shifts – some hefty cabling during rush hour; quiet lulls of stocking stitch on Sunday mornings; bobbles of blackberry stitches for the un-quotidian gatherings of Cork mortals. Down in the city there is a long empty room, with a semi-circle of chairs, where dozens of people knit for a year. They work in relay, their knitting moving slowly into the space between them, the strips sewn together to form a single vast document of the city. The hue of yarn shifts with the weather and the descent of the year. There is a quiet chatter and the occasional comings and goings of people arriving and leaving their knitting stations like genteel relay runners. Before each of them, a small digital screen details the next few lines of knitting and they lean forward to advance the pattern. During the day, people arrive to view the installation. They hear low voices and the tapping of knitting needles. Before them this great knitted cartography moves steadily along the warehouse floor and begins to pile up in the half-light."

It sounds a little nuts, but I absolutely HAVE to see this. There is even a spot on the website where they tell you what the knitters are working on at this moment in time.

Currently, the weather has a "value" of 53, which is "represented by colour 134 Biscuit".

The website says that the installation should have been open in January, but it looks like things are running late. Hopefully, I will be able to take a peek if we travel next fall....