rdy2di

Another day, another week.

Now working my way into February, I did 7 rows today and my hands are CRAMPING 😫

I managed to do another 7 rows today, very light shades of white and red. I’m gonna have to take a break for a few days to give my hands a rest, but I’m eager to keep up with this project. So far that’s 45 rows and about 365 half double stitches per row.

Since I’m halfway through February now, I’ll go ahead and introduce the concept for this blanket!

This blanket is like an art piece in the style of a temperature blanket, each row represents a day this year (as you may have guessed) and each color has a corresponding number. From 0-10, light to dark as I have them laid out in the first photo of the first post.

But this blanket is not tracking the daily temperature. This blanket represents the lives lost to mass shootings in America. Every day.

You might be wondering what that black and white mix is in the center; that’s January 21 when 11 people passed away from a uniquely American problem. Mass shootings.

This blanket is to remember the hundreds of lives lost, and to condemn the legislators who offer us only their condolences. That’s why I call this blanket “Thoughts & Prayers.”

February started and ended with zero deaths, but while it is distinctly less violent than January, it is not our best month to date.

January saw a total of 89 deaths due to mass shootings, February saw 46. Almost every day in America there is a mass shooting.

IM BACK!

I started this blanket while I was between jobs with fewer hours, but NOW I have a union job! The holidays have been very busy, but since I’ve last posted, I’ve completed the month of March and started April. I almost forgot to get a picture of the last few days, and when I laid out the part I hadn’t gotten to yet, the cat made himself comfortable 😅

As things are calming down, I hope I’ll be able to crochet more consistently and post more regularly. And now that we’re in a new year, I have all the numbers from 2023! There’s a lot left to do.

March started with 4 mass shooting deaths and ended with a total of 56; the last 2 days of the month fortunately saw no deaths.

I’m glad that by this point, I’ve only used the black yarn (10) twice. One of those times surpassed my color scale, and I had to combine ivory (1) with the black, creating that zebra looking pattern from the January portion of the blanket. It is not the last time I will have to do this, sadly.

So at the beginning of this year, my sister had her baby and I did 7 rows in one sitting while waiting to welcome my nephew into the world. A lot was going on, and for a while I just focused on making steady progress, a row or two at a time.

This is the month of April 2023, a total of 62 people passed away due to mass shootings, ending on a hefty 16 deaths. An absolute tragedy, these people could still have been with us if our representatives had proactively put forth legislation to protect these people from preventable deaths.

62 families lost loved ones.

By this point in the year, I was making really steady progress. I was doing at least 2 rows on work days, and about 4 on off days. At that pace, I was able to finish the month of May 2023 in good time.

A total of 82 people lost their lives in mass shooting events in May. January saw 89 deaths, landing the spot for the deadliest month in 2023, May makes a close second.

After May came June 2023 and I finally reached the halfway point! It was already quite large and it was getting harder for me to take pictures of it laying across my bed. But knowing that I was already halfway done gave me the push I needed to keep going.

I will say that making it wasn’t hard so much as finding the time to keep up with it. Every row is 365 stitches in half double crochet, it takes me about 30 minutes to do each row, and I was trying to maintain doing multiple rows a day. It got to be exhausting sometimes, mostly just because I was pushing myself to do more and more.

But the month of June saw 58 deaths. Relative to other months, this was better than May, but worse than either February or March.

On average, almost 2 people die every day due to mass shootings alone. Like I said previously, that’s not the only type of gun related fatality. According to the data on gunviolencearchive.org, 18,854 people DIED as a result of gun violence in 2023.

That’s actually down from the past 2 years.

Nearly 19,000 people that aren’t with us anymore as of last year. I have yet to look at the numbers for 2024, but we all know these incidents keep coming and keep getting swept under the rug with broad “Thoughts & Prayers.”

He didn't do it.

The cops very clearly planted evidence on him because they had to make an arrest because all eyes were on them and whoever actually did the deed was making them look stupid.

Why would the real killer hero have kept the weapon on his person and traveled two states over while carrying it and a manifesto in his bag, conveniently turning the crime into a federal matter? The same guy whose bag they found in a park, filled with monopoly money? Why did the police turn off their bodycams, take Luigi's stuff, drive a block away, turn their bodycams back on, go back into the restaurant, and then arrest him?

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

For years after 9/11 we were constantly told “NEVER FORGET” and the idea was basically “keep feeling sad and afraid and especially ANGRY forever; don’t let time dull your emotional response like it’s naturally supposed to; continue to justify the injustices by feeling this way all the time.” And the 3000 deaths were constantly pointed to as this huge deal that justified any lengths to go to.

And then Covid hit. And there were several points during the height of the pandemic (because fun fact, according to the actual definitions of a pandemic, *it’s not technically over yet!* ) where we were having a 9/11’s worth of deaths every week or so. And suddenly 3000 deaths were not a big deal at all. Instead of being enough reason to go to war far away and strip us at home of many rights too, they weren’t even enough justification to make people wear a damn piece of fabric over their face.

3000 people died once and now the government can legally wiretap anyone without a warrant, and hold people at Gitmo under suspicion of terrorism (no need for due process)… 3000 people dying every week but we should all still be going out to brunch and concerts and who cares about the disabled and immunocompromised?