Rip It Up & Start Again, Again

Some stuff about knitting, growing up, writing. And links.

This was supposed to be a link roundup—the newsletter equivalent of a layup—of various knitting-related things I’m especially excited about right now. But then, I started to tell the whole story and, well, instead of a link roundup, looks like you’re getting a personal essay (decidedly not a layup). Rather than punctuating the end of this entry with the promised links, I’ve added them throughout the story—each image (and caption) should be clickable, give it a try!

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In the past four years, I’ve barely picked up knitting needles at all. I did a fun lil’ two-person knit-a-long with my friend Janelle (we made this easy and easily-customizable top down raglan, if anyone is curious). I’ve strung together a small handful of bonnets for new babies. These statistics are really pretty unremarkable, unless, of course, you founded, edited, and ran a magazine primarily about knitting for five years.

I stopped Knit Wit in the Spring of 2019, having thrown everything I could possibly think of at it. If nothing else, it was an education (my co-founder Gigi and I would often look at each other, after something had gone wrong, and say “Well, we learned a lot!”). Small business classes! Events! Partnerships! Advertisers! Marketing! Wholesale! Trade shows! There was so much that *wasn’t* making a magazine that I had to figure out. And I did—we raised nearly $25k on Kickstarter, put out eight issues, hosted events, published patterns, eventually switched to online and galvanized an entire, boisterous community of readers and subscribers there (which, I believe is now self-governing as Knit Wits Worldwide on Facebook). I also personally met some really, really special people.

Misha and Puff’s new Responsible Wool Standard yarns, available for the first time.

The only thing powerful enough to shock you into looking up, and around, and convincing you to walk away from all that, the only thing like that I’ve ever experienced, at least, is new motherhood. (Stay with me here—I promise this isn’t about parenting!)

I had my second child in November of 2018 and felt pretty lost at sea thereafter. A close friend handed me The Artist’s Way, a perfect, weird, and woo-woo life raft. (For those keeping track, I’ve been writing daily pages with about 80% consistency since exactly then. They will change your life, ready or not.) The process helped me sit down, put together a declarative Goodbye! and finally fold the magazine; it also gave me the courage to step away from writing and editing as a vocation. This was big, because, since my teens, they were an outsized share of how I defined myself. I said, “Actually, I don’t do that anymore,” and it felt great. It felt like I was not only closing a chapter, but slamming the book shut, too.

I listened to this song a lot at the time:

So, I stopped writing and I started thrifting for children’s clothes and selling them online. I put all those skills I had from before and decided to use them for a greater good: The clothes would encourage people to buy used; they’d keep clothes from ultimately landing in the garbage; and I’d send a portion of proceeds to environmental justice organizations. (And, again, for those keeping track: I still do this.)

But, slowly, things started to shift. What was a pretty standard marketing email pattern morphed into an essay, a link round-up, and usually a few other treats. My focus very clearly magnetized to this part of the business, I started uploading fewer and fewer actual articles of clothing to the site. At the beginning of this year, I recognized that I was spending almost all of my time around content marketing, rather than the nuts and bolts of running an online retail store. Evidently, I hadn’t shut the book as tightly as I meant to.

Very Lindsey Degen knitting tools from DEGEN.

I hate it, but almost all good ideas appear in the middle of the night. I wish I could sleep, but then… when would the ideas come?¹ So, this January, while lying awake and thinking about all of the above, I admitted that I missed writing, that I missed having a title and building stories and talking to people about what they are doing. Missed making my art, really.

I have absolutely no idea about other people, other mothers. For me, both times, there has been a period of losing myself—in the interim, finding something new about myself—then returning back, coming to, with both. That night of sleeplessness, I guess I returned. I don’t know where ideas come from, but I thought, I have to start writing again and I have print things on paper. And so it was, so it has been, so it always was. I woke up, signed up for Substack, and here we are together.

The knitting came back more recently, just in the past couple of weeks. One friend reposted a pattern that got me excited; I have a new friend who knits only very chic things and is making a strong case about everything being mohair. Suddenly, inspiration is everywhere again.

Ruffled balaclava from Milena Pauliina

I do tend to make declarative statements, as you can probably tell by now. It feels good to make a change, to make a break, to start over again. Admittedly, it can also be a little overdramatic. Yet, one of the best things about having said, “I don’t do that anymore,” is that it created space for returning.

And returning with more energy, more ideas, and more dynamism than I would have without making that space for over four years. I’ve put the needles down many times before and always pick them up again. A cycle, after all; a practice.

I still meet people who say, ‘Wow, you’re Knit Wit?’ Speaking of self identifying. Yes, I am. Was Knit Wit. Or more accurately—every so often.

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Listings

Sorta knocked-around looking, but I still want this geodesic greenhouse. (LINK)

Bonita Domes, featured in the first-ever installment of Treehouse (!), is for sale! (LINK)

Excited about the new world of paint that’s coming out these days. Myland Olive Stone Emulsion, whose based is made primarily from olive pits, uses plant-based pigments. (LINK) Alkemis is formulated with clear quartz and earth pigments. (LINK)

1. OK, fine. The other ideas come in the daily pages, with surprising regularity.