Raffle for Marriage Equality

My caseload was fairly manageable last night and I had no inpatients, meaning I actually had a rare shift where I was able to get in a fair amount of sleep. Where "a fair amount" means about 5 hours. So even though I wasn't completely rested this morning, I had enough energy after my shift to spend a couple hours volunteering at the No on 1 headquarters in Portland.

Polls are showing our side essentially in a dead heat with the people who don't think mine and David's marriage should be recognized. This means that this campaign will be right down to the wire, and it will all come down to whether or not the bigots and fearmongers can get more people to the polls than we can.

Anyway, I've been thinking of what I could do to help raise the money which is very badly needed. It's needed to pay for the phone banks, produce ads and get them on air, and to counter the hateful and nasty lies, which they're already recycling outright from the Prop 8 campaign in California last year. It would be nice if that money could go elsewhere, but seeing as the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland is closing down parishes and parochial schools and taking second collections to spend on attacking my family and others like it, we have to meet the fight head-on.

So I decided that since this is (primarily) a knitting blog, I should do a raffle involving knitting. I thought initially about offering to knit a sweater for the winner, but as a process knitter I tend to be a bit too slow for anyone to wait on a project of that size. That and I don't know that I've got enough of anything in my stash, which is where the yarn will need to come from given how tight money is these days. What I do have in stash is a fair selection of sock yarns, including some very nice handpaints. Some were gifted to me, but I'm going to make them all fair game because it's for a very good cause.

So here's the deal: To participate in the raffle, go make a donation to No on 1, then send me a copy of your receipt (either send a pdf copy of the receipt page or forward me a confirmatory e-mail to mel(daht)vassey(at)gmail(daht)com). For every $5 you contribute, you will get one "ticket" in the raffle. Donations can be made through November 3, Election Day. On November 4, I will use a random number generator to select a winner.

The winner will get to select a yarn from my stash of sock yarns, from which I will handknit them a pair of socks, the pattern for which will also be selected upon consultation with the winner. In addition to this, David is also offering a free pair of RedMaple Sportswear socks, winner's choice, to wear while waiting for me to knit up a pair. And as if that weren't enough, VUBOQ has offered up a piece of his lovely hand-turned pottery to sweeten the pot even more. Photos to follow, of course, once I manage to dig out my stash and assemble all my sock yarns in one place.

Oh, one more thing. Because this is a political campaign and donations are governed by campaign finance laws, No on 1 can only accept donations from US citizens or permanent resident aliens. However, so those of y'all who are "from really, really away" aren't left out, I will hold a second drawing for folks who do not meet the citizenship/residency requirements but who link back to this post to put the word out and encourage your US readers to chip in.

If you do so, just be sure to let me know you've done so and where, so that I can be sure to get your name on the list. The winner of this drawing will get second pick from my sock yarn stash, and I'll knit them a pair of socks after I finish the first pair.

Um, which means my knitting will be all booked up through next summer, I'm thinking.