Back to blogging

Some of you who follow me on other social media know that the last few years have been tumultuous for me in many ways. Blogging was simply not possible for a while. Even after the worst of the stress settled down, I found myself turning inward to cope and reflect. And honestly, even before that, I was feeling burned out. (I’ve been blogging since — gasp — 2005!).

I’ve been working hard to get my groove back. One thing that I came to understand during this period of self-reflection — and when I realized how strong this feeling was, I was a little surprised — was that I missed writing. I missed the ability to share things I care about. I felt hampered by the fact that knitting was my primary source of income. I used to call out things I thought were ridiculous and make suggestions for how things could be better, or play around with concepts I thought were just plain funny, but once I was asking people to hire me or publish a pattern or article, it became much harder to be honest. I was frustrated when magazines and publishers rejected ideas that I thought were terrific. I also felt conflicted by commercialization. I felt like so many of my posts were focused on things I was asking people to buy. Nothing wrong with that — but that wasn’t why I started blogging or why I found it so satisfying.

So I’ve decided to blog again. It took a while to figure out how to log back into WordPress and I’m not still not sure exactly where this will go, but I miss the old days. I saw a Tweet this week reminiscing about the days when knitting was more substance than superficial. Before there were “influencers,” before people who’ve never designed a thing in their lives were hailed as teachers, before big companies bought out the small producers and made everything look the same. When Patternwerx had a catalog that was like the Sears Wishbook, with every shade of multiple lines of yarn (they put a little rainbow by the shade box to show this) and when it was absolutely thrilling to go to a fiber show because you knew you would find things you’d otherwise never see. When I subscribed to all the knitting magazines and when TNNA was a really big deal. DOES ANYONE REMEMBER DANGEROUS CHUNKY? HOW ABOUT THE GIRL FROM AUNTIE?

I know that some of this is just nostalgia. (Cue the Boss: “well time slips away And leaves you with nothing mister but Boring stories of glory days.”) I know that we can’t put the Plymouth Jeannee back in the bottle (see what I did there?). Instead of wanking about how things have changed, I’ve decided to try to recapture some of the fun of blogging.

What will I write about? Knitting — duh. Books, too. Boris (about to celebrate his 7th birthday next month!). I want to focus on things that make me happy, that put some joy into my life (even if it’s just a teeny bit of fleeting joy). If you’ve hung in this long, thank you. Now let’s start having fun again.