Hello Friends,
May is behind us already. How did that happen? Here in Toronto, where it seems that we often go straight from winter into summer, many of the days were cool and temperate, and actually felt like Spring. A welcome respite to the expected higher temperatures of climate change.
And as time speeds forward, we get closer and closer to the installation of the Patchwork Pride Project Pride flag. In every spare moment, Claire and I have been madly knitting 6” x 6” squares. Here I am squeezing a square into a TTC ride to a family function with our son, Emmett, who is home from the UK for a month. Great to have him here, and really happy that he and our eldest, Fin, will be present to see the Pride Flag raised on June 15th at Morningside-High Park.
The squares have been arriving fast and furiously from all over the continent. They have come in from all over the GTA, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, and even California. We originally planned for a flag 23 squares long by 12 squares high, or 276 squares, but we blew past that number pretty quickly. So, we increased things to 23 by 18, or 414 squares total. Sure enough, the response to the project has been so strong that 414 faded in the rearview mirror. Now we are aiming for 30 by 18, which is 540 squares. I am happy to report that we have surpassed that number as well. Here I am with somewhere around 450 of those squares:
If you’ve still got squares to send, please, by all means, DO send them in by June 8! We’d love to have as many as possible to choose from. And those that aren’t used in the flag will be sewn together in a small pyramids and then attached to some cord and hung as pennants.
The Pride flag is presently expected to be approximately 15 feet long by 9 feet wide. Yowza! The trick now becomes figuring out how to hang it. This is the question that wakes me up in the middle of the night for what Claire and I call “The Four AM Fret.” A well-known phenomenon in our house, given all the projects we juggle.
The flag will need to be mounted on a backing so that it doesn’t stretch out of shape. One of our prolific Patchwork Pride Project contributors, Phyllis, suggested rip-stop nylon, which she had used in the past to make kites (Phyllis, we think, can do anything). We touched base with Ada Hopkins, the textile conservator who mounted the Stitched Glass tapestries for The Knitting Pilgrim, and she agreed with Phyllis’ recommendation. I have now become the proud owner of an entire 12-yard bolt of black rip-stop nylon, purchased from Len’s Mill Stores. Claire’s cousin Mary will be bringing her sewing machine to the piecing party, and once the size of the flag is finalized, we’ll start in on the backing.
But how to actually fly the flag? We had picked the tower of Morningside-High Park as the best site: a neighbourhood landmark, nice and tall, and right at the top of Ellis Avenue.
Trouble is the flat section of the tower that extends from its base to its apex is only 12 feet wide, and our flag will be at least 15. I was puzzling out how to account for this when my good friend and fellow Elder at MHP, Alex Fensham, suggested we hang the flag lengthwise. Great solution. I purchased some PVC tubing from Home Depot, and we decided we could hang it from that. Next came a site visit inside the tower to see if we could suspend the flag through the windows of the Belfry. Here’s a shot of Alex checking it out.
And of course, seeing as we made the effort to climb three different ladders to access the tower, we HAD to take in the view from the top. Here’s how the neighbourhood of Swansea looks from the top of MHP:
The Village of Swansea, as seen from the tower of MHP
Needless to say, all of this is moot until we put the Pride Flag together. We have (at least) 540 squares to sew together, so we could use some help! We will be holding our piecing party at 12:00 noon, Sunday June 9th at Morningside-High Park Presbyterian Church, 4 Morningside Avenue, Toronto, ON, M6S 1C2. Lunch and refreshments will be served, and if you can make it, we’d love to have you. Kindly RSVP to www.kirkdunn.com to help us prepare to host you.
Until then, Happy Pride Month!