Letter From The Editor

The scoop from the Editor

photo: Amy

It 'sploded.

What's "it"? My life.

My new marriage and my pup are wonderful. Knock wood, the house is standing and all systems are currently functioning. I can pay my bills and there's food on the table. I'm healthy and even my dodgy knees are manageable with annual Durolane injections.

What 'sploded was my parents' situation. Being 63, I'm of the age of eldercare, where you take on (thanks to Julia for this excellent descriptor) an unpaid part-time job with unreasonable deadlines and incommunicative coworkers. You start digging into places you've been told you have no business in the past (like bank accounts and credit cards and insurance policies that don't belong to you) except now, without your help, the elders would be in serious trouble. Even more serious trouble than they're already in, because they wouldn't let you help sooner and maybe tidy things up before it got this bad.

I have generalized anxiety on top of being auDHD, and so managing the workflow of this clusterfuck as well as the emotions that go along with it has been really tough. Without realizing it, I let some things drop just to be able to get out of bed every day.

One of those things was the Clapotisfest winner emails: one to each winner, then to the indie dyer they chose, and then back to the winner, for almost 60 people. I've made progress, but I have a bunch more people to write. One lovely winner wrote asking why she hadn't heard from me yet, and who could blame her? I didn't and I told her about my 'splosion. She understood and, it turns out, was working through her own overload. I expect many of you reading this are experiencing something similar, even if the actual elements of your clusterfuck are different.

I think "self care" is an easy buzzword to see in social media posts, but I've taken it to heart in the last 3 months. On top of letting some things just go until I had the space to attend to them again, I've gotten back in the garden. I walked away from the computer for a straight week and weeded the front of our house, planted the city's free tree (a Witch Hazel this year – a measly stick with leaves, but it's free so I took it), and some other shrubs and perennials. Someone told me it's because, in the garden, I'm in control. That makes so much sense.

I had a friend drill into the brick at the side of our house and I put up a tensioned hose reel that swivels. So now I can reach the front of the house easily, and when done, the hose gets sucked back into the reel so pretty and tidy and I feel powerful and in control. For a little while, anyway. PS The hose reel I chose is absolutely wonderful. For the Canadians, it's this one. Things are growing. Most everything has survived so far, and there are even nectarines starting on the tree I planted just last fall!

So we have an issue, despite all the overload, and I really like this one. I hope you do too.

ABOUT THE FIRST FALL ISSUE | This issue's theme is Convertible, take 2. We tried this theme last summer, and it didn't quite catch on with designers. This time, we got three great Convertible sweaters!

We also, for the first time ever, are featuring a SURPRISE pattern on the cover. That beautiful brown and white tank by Amy Gunderson with the sexy deep back, called Bongo (after the brown and white striped Bongo Antelope) will come in mid-July, along with the rest of the SURPRISE patterns. So if you're not already signed up to our Newsletter, make sure you get on the list now! I send out one email Newsletter when we publish a new issue, and another about 6 weeks later when the SURPRISE goes live. Once in a blue moon, we get a paid Newsletter from a yarny friend of Knitty to send out, but we haven't had one of those in months.

To see all the Convertible goodness, and some patterns that are just cool and pretty and stuff, check our front page.

NO AMAZON, NO AI | Another quick but important note: We no longer publish Amazon links, as the corporate mission of Amazon and its owner do not align what we stand for at Knitty. We stand for small businesses over corporations, and truth in news media rather than politically influenced lies. So no more Amazon. When there is time, I will be removing the old Amazon links from our back issues. Instead, we now point US readers to Bookshop.org to buy anything we review on our Cool Stuff page. For everyone else, worldwide, please consider buying from your Local Yarn Shop or Local Book Store. Even if they don't carry the thing, I would bet real money that they'd be glad to order whatever it is you want from their suppliers.

The other change is a policy decision, and it's an important one. As AI is starting to be pushed at us from every direction, we have decided that we will not use it. No AI-generated images, no AI-generated text. Not in our pages, not in our social media. It's hard to avoid AI, and it likely is behind the scenes in some websites and apps we use without our knowledge, but we can control things like the images and text we publish.

Clapotisfest winners are posted here, and I'll resume the process of contacting each winner down the list as soon as I can.

SOCIAL MEDIA? A reminder that you can connect with Knitty on Bluesky where I chat with readers, announce the latest Knitty news, and the usual stuff we used to do on the other place. Come find us!

BECOME A KNITTY SUPPORTER | When I started Knitty in 2002, I never imagined a world where we would be almost the last North American knitting mag standing, but here we are. Knitty Patrons have been our major support since 2015, and we would not be here without them! These folk, exactly 2,898 people as of this moment, support Knitty in whatever amount they are able to, once per issue. The money covers our operating costs like our server and all the other online services that make Knitty run, our payroll (all the folk listed on the masthead above right), and my salary. Every issue, a noticeable chunk of Patrons need to end their support, and without new Patrons, that would be the end of Knitty. So we always need new Patrons.

Knitty Patrons get rewards for their support, like early access to every new issue, and at the Tangy+ level and up, they can use our super-cool new feature, knitty+! It lets them customize Knitty patterns showing only the size they're going to knit, so the pattern text is leaner and easier to follow! There are other benefits to knitty+, and other benefits to being a Knitty Patron, too. Check it out here, and see if you'd like to join us! Patrons come and go all the time, and we need a consistant level of support to be able to continue to publish.

How can you help Knitty stay strong and stick around? Here are some suggestions:

tell your knitting and crochet friends about us!
- Tag them on our Instagram or Facebook posts
- Tell your fiber group, guild or meetup about Knitty or a Knitty pattern that you're working on
- Share your Knitty pattern WIPs and FOs on social media and let people know where to find the pattern
follow us on social media! Bluesky | Facebook | Instagram
if you are able to support us financially at any amount, check out knitty.me, which lays out all the ways you can do that (including joining our Patreon)

Thank you for being a Knitty reader! More people don't know about Knitty than those that do, so when you share us with your fiber friends, you're doing a great thing!

Here's how you can keep in touch with us:

Bluesky | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon

Amy Sig
Amy Sadler
[editor, Knitty]