Actually, there’s not even that much corn where I live, in the southern part of the state. But people tend to believe that all people that live here shuck corn all day with their overalls rolled up to their knees and a straw hat perched on the backs of their heads.

NOT TRUE! Sometimes we fish or hunt for mushrooms instead of shucking corn.

And sometimes, we go to museums. Specifically, we go to the Indiana State Museum, which is currently hosting the Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting show. In fact, this exhibit in Indianapolis is the first time it has been shown outside of New York. Ha! Put that in your corn cob pipe and smoke it. In order to be privy to this spectacle, orata and I nipped up there on Saturday to see what we could see.

And this is what we saw. (Please forgive the yellowy pictures. No flashes allowed, and it was kinda dark in there.)

This knitted dude was taller than I am! Although that’s not really saying much. Apparently, it’s a nod to the banning of knitting needles on airplanes. It’s kind of creepy–it’s got toes and everything. Eeesh.

I think this was my favorite piece. Beautiful crocheted doily! Kickass cool skulls! I wish they had the pattern available…

More skulls. Rock. On.

This piece was old car parts and lacy bits, made out of more car parts. I did very much like the industrial rusty-ness of it. Decomposing and delicate, all at the same time.

This stuff was knitted out of newspaper strips. Somehow, I have a feeling those socks wouldn’t be very long wearing.

A teddy bear knitted from lead. What more could a kid ask for?

Orata admiring the dollar bill dress. It was knitted out of something like $894? I don’t remember the exact number, but this piece was I think my second favorite. It was a nice dress. The train is lovely, don’t you think?

This piece was a huuuuuge sheet of latex, with the lace pattern cut out with an exacto knife. Holy crap! I get a crick in my neck just thinking about that. I wonder how long it took the artist to finish those (there were three panels).

In case you can’t read the middle of this Shetland lace shawl, it says “IT SUCKS.” The artist (who didn’t even knit the thing, by the way) was alluding to the plight of the women of the Shetland isles, who had to knit shawls to make a living however many years ago. That’s all fine and good (meaning I agree), but the placard thing on the wall said she was also referring to motherhood and having babies in general. Maybe she meant at that time, because I imagine that it DID suck, having no birth control and no way of earing your own money (excepting knitting) and basically having no control over your own life. But if she meant that it sucked now, I’ll have to disagree. Granted, I have no first hand knowledge of the thing, not having any children of my own, but I know a lot of women who believe that being a mom is just peachy friggin keen, and I also know many who think it’s the best thing that ever happened to them, my own mother included. (Hi Mom! Happy Mother’s Day yesterday! I love you!) So I really hope that it’s that former meaning, not the latter, or I’m going to be kinda pissed at that artist. Yeah, I’m sure she cares.

So that was the show. Orata and I were both disappointed on how small it was. Just one tiny room! Oh well, I guess we should be happy that there was a show in a museum about knitting at all, even though it seemed to focus on the “lace” thing more than the “knitting.” We did do some other stuff at the museum, like look at the quilt show and a bunch of kind of creepy stuffed animals (taxidermy stuffed, not cute toy stuffed). We also saw a really cool children’s choir, a scary old lady dressed up like Raggedy Ann, and a bluegrassy/old time band made up of five teen aged boys who were singing a song that went, “I like bananas, because they have no bones!” We also went to lunch in the L.S. Ayres Tea Room at the museum, which I would NOT recommend. Very long wait, very crappy food. Oh well. Onward and upward.

After we extricated ourselves from the restaurant, we popped over to the Mass Ave Knit Shop. (Just minutes from the museum!) Orata had never been there, so I said what the hell! Twist my arm. I’ll go.

I was very pleased to see that her reaction to the place was exactly the same as mine the first time I was there. She stopped just inside the door, her eyes got all wide, and she said in an awe-inspired voice, “It’s so big!” Yup, it sure is. I had vowed not to buy anything, but I simply could not pass this up.

Rowan Scottish Tweed DK, one each of Thistle and Sunset. Fifty percent off! And I only got two. I’m thinking it will make simply spiffing mittens. My only trouble will lay in choosing a pattern. I’m smitten with both Nicole’s Baske and Elli’s Herringbone patterns. (What *is* it with people in my knitting group writing mitten patterns?) On the other hand (ha!) I still haven’t knitted the Bird in Hand mittens, which I have been jonesing to do. Ah well. The decision will come later. Now, there is much squeezing and admiring of this yarn. And, very much thanks to my cool headed companion, I didn’t come home with more. There was some green there that was to die for. So somebody do me a favor and go buy it all up, k?

Cuz I don’t have so much time to be knitting, I’ve got some corn to shuck. A whole Saturday lost! What’s a Hoosier girl to do?