When Kate at A Playful Day issued her ‘Love Your Blog’ challenge last week I felt compelled to join in. This poor neglected space really needs a kick start and what better way than to take inspiration from another super talented blogger!
Kate’s first ‘prompt’ – Interaction & Community – got me thinking about how and where I exist within this crazy crafty world of knitting & yarn. Of course, running an on-line yarn store it might seem that I’m fairly central but it often doesn’t feel like that. We don’t do ‘shows’… we’re tucked away in rural Suffolk, with a young family and that makes it logistically just too complicated. We’re not physically open to the public so all our lovely customers are at ‘arms length’ via the web site and often pretty anonymous. So, I have to grab opportunities to interact with this amazing community when they arise and that’s where my knitting comes in handy…
I just finished knitting myself a new cardigan.
Many evenings spent creating, stitch by stitch a garment just for me. I chose the pattern, the yarn, the shade and knit each and every stitch myself. Knitting isn’t generally a team sport, it might even be considered by some around here to be quite anti-social 😉 Questions directed at a knitter in this house might possibly elicit a sharp response… “Shhhh, I’m counting”, “Hang on, just let me finish this row…” you know how it goes…
But this cardigan wasn’t a solo effort, it involved a huge community and lots of interaction 😉
A quick snap to show early progress… Sharing love for the yarn and the pattern along the way and receiving lots of lovely encouragement via Instagram…
Celebrating my lovely little local haberdashery (where I chatted with a fellow knitter while choosing buttons and thread)…
A sneak peak of the finished garment while we wait for an opportunity to capture it ‘in action’ going down well on Facebook…
And the final reveal (documented, of course, on our beloved Ravelry)…
I’m not a ‘natural’ model but the urge to show off a finished cardigan outweighs the instinct to avoid the camera and gives me a very good reason to blow the cobwebs off the blog 😉
And the final cherry on the cake… while enduring the local ‘panic’ chocolate egg buying in my local supermarket on ‘Easter Saturday’ (goodness, the shops are only going to be closed for ONE day!!!) a fellow shopper tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘I love your cardigan, do you mind me asking where you got it?’ Well… thanks for asking, I made it myself 😉
This solitary hobby sure involves a lot of far-flung community and a fair bit of interaction. Now, what to cast on next?
making things with beautiful yarn 
Wow! your cardigan is beautiful! Lovely pictures as well 🙂
I had heard of Meadow Yarn and seen some gorgeous project pics made with this yarn. Now I’m glad to have found your blog too through the challenge. Looking forward to next week’s post:)
Gorgeous cardigan, and lovely to read about all the interactions that went into it.
Lovely post and a beautiful cardi too 🙂
It’s a beautiful cardigan! I love the idea of a knitted object being the result of community – this is definitely true for many of my own FOs, but I’ve never really thought about it that way.
I’m definately one of your community, or at least some of my projects/ stash are. Knitting is a team pursuit… find the pattern on Ravelry, track down the yarn from an online store, create a project page, maybe join in a KAL, take the project to knit night.
It IS a gorgeous cardigan!!! Funny, I was thinking too, that I knit and crochet most of the time, while I’m on my own yet yarn crafts have connected me with so many all over the world!
The Cardi is lovely, but it’s your poly tunnel and hens that I’m really envious of.
What a lovely cardigan! I do like being able to share my progress on projects with all my friends on the internet, and get advice and cheerleading when I need a bit of a push to finish!
Beautiful cardigan in a lovely colour! Its great to share & be inspired by others! 🙂
Lovely cardigan, a great colour that I want to knit in some time when I have nothing else on the needles.
It is so lovely and encouraging to get feedback on our projects! And like everyone’s said, that is a beautiful cardigan.
What a beautiful cardigan! I loved your chronicle of its social media journey! Isn’t it funny how we share in all kinds of different ways now and how when we finish something now, a fair few people helped along the way. 🙂 x
What a beautiful, sunny cardigan 🙂 I love the perspective you have on sharing and being part of an online community. I can relate. I hope it brings the life back to this wonderful space that you’ve been hoping for.
Anj, I LOVE your shop and, from my perspective, you never seem at arms length because of the lovely details you obviously work so hard over (THANK YOU for helping me find my favourite Earl Grey!). And that is a beautiful sunshiny cardigan, I am envious 😉