In 2020, my New Year’s Resolution was to start a blog about knitting. I was going to write something every week. I did a pretty good job, at least, in the beginning. I carried this resolution a heck of a lot farther than most things. It was probably May by the time I stopped writing weekly for the blog.

            Emma’s Knitting Blog, as my friends affectionately called it, didn’t die there. In 2021, it turned into Tiny Desk Knitting, which I still keep up with weekly, although the channel has changed a lot, too. In the beginning, it was all fair isle all the time. I would pick something and talk about it. The videos were usually fairly short. Now, somehow, it’s turned into me just talking incessantly about all the things I’ve worked on that week. (That’s because it’s hard to focus on a new topic each week when I also have to go to work every day!)

            2022 was when I began creating digital content for The Woolly Thistle shopcasts. It was a great supplement to Tiny Desk Knitting, and I love working with the team at TWT. So, in 2023, my digital content won’t change – you’ll still see me on the shopcasts once a month as well as on my regular channel (mostly) weekly. But I’ve decided to come back to the blog, not to write every week, but to write about intentional knitting.

            A few years ago, it came to my attention that people were choosing their ‘word of the year,’ to supplement or take the place of a New Year’s Resolution. On New Year’s Eve two years ago, when I was living with the wonderful family for whom I provided childcare, the kids’ mom Brooke asked us all what our word for 2021 would be and I could not think of a thing. But for 2023, I’ve come up with one: vulnerability.

            I do not like to be a vulnerable person. On the outside, I often appear quite tough. I don’t like to wear my heart on my sleeve in most circumstances. I tend to be quite private about a lot of things. Personal details about me are reserved for a small circle of acquaintances. But I am learning, little by little, to trust other people with things that are dear to me. One of the ways in which I am planning to be vulnerable this year is by releasing knitting patterns for sale on Ravelry. I have designed thirteen pairs of socks as well as three colorwork accessories (so far!) that will be available for purchase throughout 2023, and this is a little scary to me. I don’t know if they will do well or flop. I don’t know if I will be able to get all the samples knit in time. But I have a wonderful roommate Jordan, who is a professional graphic designer, who helps me lay out my patterns (‘help’ is a strong word – she really just does all of it), and I trust Jordan very much, so this is one of the ways in which I am planning to ‘jump off a cliff,’ as you might say, in 2023.

            So for my blog this year, I plan to write about the pieces I knit and their significance. Sometimes, I get bogged down in technical details of knitting, but for me, knitting is a very significant activity. I am asked all the time by friends and acquaintances if I have an Etsy shop, which I don’t. The reason I don’t is because the pieces I knit have too much significance to be sold at an undervalued price to a stranger for the amount of time and money I have invested in a large project. I knit on commission for friends sometimes, and I am glad to do that, because if we have a significant relationship, I know that what I make will keep them warm and that they will think of me when they wear it.

            Sharing why something is significant to me, or to anyone, is a vulnerable thing. Sometimes, that will require me to share personal details that I might normally keep more private. But I have learned over the past few years that most people have lots of stories about the significance of their knitting. When I hear stories about a particular knitted item, or how somebody learned to knit, it inspires me to keep forging a path ahead with my own making. I love to tell stories, and I love to hear stories. I hope that my (hopefully regular) writing about the significance of knitted items will prompt others to share their stories with me and with others. We are connected by amazing threads, and the response of the knitting community online is something that constantly surprises me. I have had people tell me they also love church music, or that they’re from Vermont. At a time when this country is so torn apart by differences in opinion and black-and-white beliefs about the world, I want to create something that helps people find significance in what they share, even if they come from very different worlds. Fiber artists have so much to share and so many stories to tell. Let’s take some time to sit with the vulnerability of others.