Smitty is knitting

Online I go by Smitty, a nickname I sort of borrowed from my dad. My pronouns are she/her but I wouldn’t be mad at they/them.

When I was talking to my friends about starting a blog and they inevitably asked “about what?” I said knitting and crochet, because of all the things I know, it’s what I know the most about. Or at least what I have the most opinions about.

What makes me ready to write about knitting? Well, I’ve been knitting and crocheting for over a decade (I learned in college when a very good friend taught me). I had always been a crafty and artistic kid; I loved drawing and painting, and making anything that came in a kit, especially if it involved lots of tiny pieces like beads. But when I learned yarn crafts, it felt like the thing my hands had always wanted to do.

I also worked in the yarn industry for about six years, and ended up living off my hobby when I found a job at a small fiber business. As I became more ingrained there, I ended up seeing more of the yarn industry at large – its trends (of which there are many), and its dramas (of which there are more). I got to travel to fiber festivals and retreats, meet designers, and touch all the different kind of sheep I could. But when you work for a small business, you end up wearing many different hats. Over those years I acquired a lot of varied skills, but not a lot of professional focus. And after a certain point, I maxed out my upward mobility at the company. There were other, more personal reasons I decided to leave, but mostly I wanted to be more proactive with my career. I also wanted to do more with the thing I studied through college and grad school: writing.

What can you expect me to write about? Knitting and crochet, sure, but every topic is more than what it is. I actually started drafting several other posts before I started this introduction, the post that should naturally come first. Those first drafts are proving fairly meandering, and full of tangents. Full of “well, I can’t talk about [topic] without talking about [political event] or [cultural philosophy] or [historical context]”. I, and a lot of other people I believe, end up discussing a lot of things when they talk about one thing.

I know – it’s knitting and crochet; it’s not that deep. Sometimes it won’t be. I expect to pepper short posts about current projects, yarns I’m enjoying, and techniques I’m learning with longer, more meandering thoughts about aesthetics and craft at large. I’m interested in who knits and why, what is being knit and in what colors, how does it intersect with fashion, art, or culture? I will rarely “stick to knitting”. This blog will constantly overlap with my politics and other worldly interests. I’m far from a critical theorist, but this blog will be a way for me to exercise a critical muscle, using my favorite hobby as a dumbbell.

I’ll get to that (I hope – I’m trying to get better at finishing my thoughts). For now, here are some other fun facts about me:

• I love playing table-top roleplaying games like D&D. My current Pathfinder character is a gnome thaumaturge named Sandy Trousers. I am a huge Dimension 20 and Naddpod fan.
• I have a crystal collection, but just because I like cool rocks.
• I watched too much Animal Planet and read too many issues of Zookids as a child, so now I’m full of useless animal facts.
• I was born without wisdom teeth.
• I’m in my 30s, but I had shingles when I was 21, so spiritually that makes me 83.

I can be found on Bluesky and Instagram as @smittyisknitting, so feel free to follow me there!