How do I even begin?

Let’s get this out of the way

All Black Lives Matter, covid-19 is real and scary, people who need medication to manage or maintain symptoms that can be related to birthing a human should not have to worry that their employer will deny them that medication, trans women are women and trans men are men, and Ravelry should absolutely be more transparent about what’s happening with the site redesign.

If any of the above made you uncomfortable, I ask you to sit with that discomfort and try to understand why. Discomfort means we’re learning and learning is great.

Admittedly, that first paragraph was pretty reductive, because this is first and foremost a space for me to talk about crafting and I am not really qualified to speak on most of those subjects in an expert capacity. However, I do believe all of those things and I also believe that crafting is not anathema to social change and public health. How we intertwine those things is a personal path, and this is how I’m addressing two of them.

Ravelry’s redesign and affect on usability

There’s one major change that I’m making to this blogging space: I will no longer be linking to Ravelry for patterns when I share them out of respect for people who have difficulties using the new version of the site. When possible, I will be linking to the designer’s website or another selling platform (such as Etsy), and if you are able to use Ravelry without difficulty, you can search for the pattern names. I don’t want to deny the designers the recognition for their work by not naming the pattern, but hopefully those of you reading this are familiar enough with Google to search for things on your own if need be.

(All of this assumes I’m better able to stay on top of blogging here, and long-time readers will know that hasn’t been the case of late.)

I want to also share that I do feel for the small team at Ravelry–having worked on a variety of site redesigns on a variety of levels (ya’ll remember the mess that was Knitting Daily?), I know a fraction of the amount of work that goes into them. There are some structural level changes that were made that I really like. But I also believe that Ravelry has missed the mark on being as inclusive and transparent as possible right now and I hope they’ll work together with users to fix the problems swiftly.

Black Lives Matter

This year feels like an exercise in trying to learn how to let go of things we can’t change and the courage to change those things we can (and the wisdom to know the difference, as that old saying goes). So I’ve been focusing on the things that I can change, or trying to.

At the beginning of the year, when I was creating my “wish list” of yarn projects* that I wanted to complete over twelve months, I was strategic in making sure I included patterns by BIPOC designers. Most of these patterns are some that had been in my queue or in my library for years, some of them were new additions. I did this in an attempt to disrupt the algorithm in my own small way–I can absolutely attest to the fact that since I’ve started following more Black creators on Instagram (in the sewing and yarn communities), I’ve been getting more ads targeted at Black women while having to work to make sure those accounts show up in my feed (going to the individual pages, leaving comments, etc).

The same has been true on Ravelry, though I believe it’s less about trying to get money out of advertisers and more how we as a culture prioritize white bodies.

Before I go too much further, let me first say this: absolutely, 100%, people should make projects that they want to make, regardless of the person behind the design. If you have chosen to not make a designer’s projects for whatever reason, I support that–your time, your money, you get to choose your patterns. I don’t want this to get construed as me saying people should only knit or crochet patterns from XYZ designers.

Before the switch, did you ever look at your recommended pattern highlights? It’s based on your activities on Ravelry–your projects, your queue, designers you favorite, patterns of similar styles, etc. Did you ever look at who the designers were? Likely they were a lot of white people (and there’s likely a lot of factors for that, all of which cannot be easily addressed in one blog post).

By deliberately focusing on non-white designers in my queue, I’ve started seeing a change in my recommended pattern highlights. Is it making large, sweeping, systemic changes? No. But is it helping me to see new designers and patterns that I wouldn’t have otherwise? Yes. (Are a lot of them still modeled on thinner white or white-passing bodies? Yep. That’s a thing I can’t change.)

In directing my focus this way, I’m helping in small ways to lift up marginalized voices and highlight some patterns or designs that might otherwise be overlooked (because I don’t really think too many people were as ridiculous as me and would go back 20+ pages in the “new patterns” screens to find out where they’d left off so they didn’t miss new patterns… I’m also learning to work smarter, not harder). Making these changes in a crafting community aren’t going to change the world, but they’re changing my mindset and helping me identify places in the larger world where I can make small changes, in between doing the work that I can to help larger changes take effect.

Now what?

I’ve been wanting to blog about my progress with different projects, but I also felt that I needed to say these things, and figuring out how to say them took longer than they should have. These are my truths and my path, and I suspect and expect that they look different from others. Truth is not a constant–the sky may be blue right now but later it could also be gray with storm clouds or red with UV rays hitting refractive particles in the atmosphere differently. Paths can be diverted. There is room to be corrected, to learn to change, to grow, and I welcome those things.

My crafting motivation has been in overdrive (thanks, anxiety?), and I am excited to show you the results of my first complete Me Made May, the two sweaters I’ve knit this year, the baby-project bender I went on for my new nephew, and more. But I needed this in writing, as a reminder to myself of my goals and the things I want to see changed in the world.

I’ll be blogging about the projects that I used to break up the giant text runs (ooooorrrr, somewhat break up the giant text runs). If you want more information right now, here’s some quick details.

The photo of the green sweater is my finished Bronwyn Sweater by Melissa Wehrle, knit with Kelbourne Woolens Scout in Moss Heather and modeled at the beginning of June because I’m a masochist.

The detail photo of the red sweater is the Mado Pullover by Kiyomi Burgin, in the amirisu Spring/Summer 2020 issue. I knit this with Briggs & Little Regal in the Red RBO, and used ITO Sensai in Dark Grey and Briggs & Little Regal in Charcoal for the window sections.

The photo of the crochet project is the start of my Summertime Tee by Toni Lipsey, and I’m crocheting it with Berroco Indigo in Denim. This tee goes really fast when I can focus.

* Footnote: I haven’t had a ton of success in identify BIPOC sewing designers that have inclusive sizing and would love it if anyone knows of sewing designers I need to check out. The sizing is an issue of the entire sewing community, but I’m not at a point with my sewing skills that I can make overall changes to sewing patterns that are five sizes too small for me in the largest size.