Episode 10: Knitting ethics
Welcome to episode 10 of The Ordinary Knitter. This week: knitting ethics, dropping stitches all over the place, happy yarn events and an interview with friend and fellow knitter Caroline. As usual I’m struggling with sound issues – this time it’s the voice recorder I used for the interview – but I think unplugging my computer’s speakers has solved the general background hum and hiss.
Ft knitting patterns:
Ft yarn
Ft knitting podcasts:
Knitting ethics
This is a slightly tongue-in-cheek title, but it does have a serious element. Helen Stewart of Curious Handmade discussed in episode 125 of her podcast the People Tree book Slow Fashion the ethics of the projects we knit. As I listened I realised that although I’m very aware of the ethics of many elements of my life and business and base many of my choices on a desire to do the best by everyone involved, I hadn’t considered the ethics of the yarn I buy. It put me in mind of an article I read on the ethics of encouraging knitters to knit such ultimately useless items as the Innocent smoothie bottle hats. Read this from My Life in Knitwear and let me know what you think. Personally I think it makes a great deal of sense.
Here’s a quick shufty at what’s on the needles:
These are the socks I’m knitting for my husband. They look very long but that’s just accentuated because the leg hasn’t got very far in that photo. The heel looks pointy in the photo but fits nicely IRL. Fortunately in this photo you can’t see the dropped stitches I’ve bodged on the sole!
I’m wondering if I took this failure to lose weight thing a bit far when I chose which size to make. I wanted a relaxed fit and I do indeed have one – I particularly dislike tight sleeves – but it isn’t quite as ridiculously too big as it looks in the photo. I think perspective is shoving its oar in. The two stripes are lifelines. I particularly love the turquoise one and am now plotting something nice to wear in an eye-popping orange-and-turquoise combination. I don’t usually do loud or clashing colours but I just love these two together.
Music credit:
“Carpe Diem” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/