Knitting women unite to keep Navy dolphins warm
Story Updated: Mar 2, 2007 at 5:50 PM PST By Bryan Johnson A group of women gathered Friday at the Bainbridge Island Senior Center.
They are part of a knitting group growing across the United States. It only It looks like a knitting club. This is much more than knit one, purl two. This is politics. "The whole problem of putting them on the dolphins is one of the things we have to consider in the future. It's an interesting thought," said Jan Bailey, one of the knitters. The women are knitting sweaters for warm-water bottlenose dolphins. The Navy wants to put them on Homeland Security patrol here. One of the knitters Karin Beran says that's cruel, but says the dolphins will know what to do with the sweaters. "Well, I guess the dolphins are so smart, so they can figure it out, if and how and when. I'm just happy to knit for them," Beran said. They've thought of everything. Susan Scheirman showed me a multi-colored yarn. "We've imported camouflage yarn for these local dolphins," she said, "so they don't become subject to any kind of terrorism." Jan Bailey even went to a button store and bought regulation Navy buttons. She sewed the regulation 13 buttons on what could be called the bathroom flap. But dolphins don't have arms: "That is the dolphins problem. No, that's the Navy's problem," Bailey said. "I think if they have divers in the water, and the dolphins signal. The whole problem of putting them on the dolphins is one of the things we have to consider in the future. Then the divers can go over and unfasten the 13 buttons, one at a time." They even have a knitting song. Oh so why do I swim through seas so arctical," one of the lines asks. The women say they'll keep on knitting as long as the Navy plans to put dolphins in the frigid waters of the Northwest. The women plan to present the sweaters to Navy officials at a hearing on the plan to put bottlenose dolphin into guard service locally. |