They started as a way of keeping the shop real and connected with knitters during the closed period of the pandemic, and then somehow the stories just became a part of the shop week so that now story-writing carries on, regardless of open or closed signs. There’s a day each week when I make a space for sitting down to write. Brontë and I have a blackboard for keeping track of what would be good to tell. And your visits, messages and most of all knitting, continue as a rich seam of inspiration.
But with readers coming and going, I’ve realised that people don’t necessarily know what got told before and whether their curiosity might not be answered or piqued by an old posting. Knitters write to me because they vaguely remember a pattern round-up a while back with a cardie they liked but can’t recall which message it came in. The stories have piled up but not in a way that’s always useful.
In fact it’s a pile that has been sorely in need of a sort-out for a while now. It’s one of those not quite urgent enough If-only-I-had-the-time tasks. Well it turns out that 29th February is the calendar’s gift to us serial procrastinators – an extra day in the year for the jobs that never got done – and the very best day to sort-out a messy pile of stories that’s been growing for the last 3 and half years.
So here are the fruits of the day’s long-overdue labour – a tidied up and archived pile of Knitting Stories, not (yet) organised into the Dewey Decimal System but into smaller and hopefully more readable piles which have made sense to me today. For the time being their names go like this..
Heritage
Stories with some history, both personal and textile-ish
Knitsplaining
Stories that try to explain and un-puzzle fibre, tools and technique related questions.
Knitters
From a series that happened during the pandemic, in which I profiled some of the very special knitters who’d been a part of the shop, through attending classes, buying yarn and coming back to show us what they’d made.
Life in the day of a wool shop
Overheard conversations, curious encounters and stories from the knitter-watching and listening that goes on in the shop
Meet the maker
An occasional series of profiles of wool makers, dyers, pattern designers and textile specialists whose work is available in the shop.
Pattern round-ups
An on-going series of pattern highlights from our journeys down the Ravelry rabbit warren of designs, in which we try to collect pattern suggestions which are knitable, wearable and that you may not have come across before.
Product highlights
It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes I write about the things we sell!
The shop
The stories which explain what the shop is, what goes on here and who we are.
Travels with knitting
Stories from being on the road (and also railways) with my knitting away from the shop.
What I’m thinking about when I’m knitting
These stories are all the rest really – and are too varied for one category, but also too disparate for labelling, so this rather unhelpful heading will have to be a working title until we can come up with something better :o)