The response last week to my offer of postcards has been so lovely! I printed until I was out of paper, and then I ordered more, which has arrived just in time for another weekend weekend printing, along with my slightly fancier dark blue ink. I pulled a few test prints with the new ink last night, and I really love the results!
The prints I made last weekend went into the mail at the end of the week. If you ordered prints they should be in your mailbox early this week. I should have done little more research before I packaged them for shipping however: it turns out that bundles of 10 can be sent as regular mail, but bundles of 20 are thick enough that they become "packages” which cost way more to ship. So, this batch will be packaged in bundles of 10, but please order as many bundles of 10 as you think you can write.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but my best cure for anxiety is action. Keep writing postcards!
I’m dusting off the block print and turning my shop over to make “vote” postcards. Request a set here.
If you would like to know where to send postcards, Postcards to Voters is a great organization, though I have heard of people sending postcards through other groups. To be clear, I am creating these postcards to support greater equality, environmental protections, and a stronger social safety net. Black Lives Matter. Climate changes is real. Women are full human beings. Health care is a human right. If you are planning to send postcards via an organization that disagrees with any of those statements, please do not request my postcards.
Cards are free, though donations are always appreciated, and will go towards more printing and shipping supplies.
Early voting has already started in many states, and from now until November 12 as a small thank you to those who vote in the Midterms I’m offering a 5% discount on all orders (use the code IVOTED at checkout). Obviously I have no way of knowing if you actually voted, but knitters by and large are honest folks.
Like many people I have been fighting a grinding sense of doom when it comes to current events. Scrolling through my Instagram feed a few weeks ago I came across Thea Colman’s post about writing postcards for postcardstovoters.com . The traditional forms of political engagement are either ill-suited to my personality (like most people I hate getting political phone calls; phone banking is not for me) or just impractical given my current situation (door to door canvassing is a lot harder with an infant) so finding something that I could actually do in my spare moments made me really happy. I like having a way to quietly remind people to vote without interrupting their dinner. And who doesn’t like getting handwritten mail? So I signed up to volunteer and set to carving a simple block print for faster postcard production.
Via Instagram I’ve been offering to send postcard writers sets of my postcards, and the response has been heartening. Sending out my neat little packets of postcards feels like send out bundles of hope; a visible reminder that I a not alone in my fears, that other people care too.
And when I read something in the news that makes me think grim thoughts I can sit down and convert that feeling to ink. In my experience, the salve for anxiety is action, however small.
I am addicted to the simplicity of Instagram, while my blog has become the thing I hide from in shame for not writing all the things I should have written by now, so I’ve been remiss in not making the same offer of postcards to my blog readers. If you would like a batch of my postcards please send me an email. The “price” is that you will promise to use them to remind others to vote.
