a little link library for me and maybe for you

Yes, this is another textile post. No, I’m not sorry.

Maybe you’re seeing a theme here. I fell head over heels into my first knitting project (now FINISHED, blocked, and almost dry on the kitchen table), and now I’m all fired up. Excited, encouraged, energized, ready to stitch everything in sight and line up projects like ducks behind me. Amazing how such a simple project, an idea from another idea from somewhere, became so empowering, how it unlocked something in me, gave me ideas and agency in a time of feeling sad and powerless. Things are not mended, no, but I have things I’m excited about, and that’s something. That’s a real something. So, you bet I’m going to keep making things and talking about making things. How could I not?

I must give a giant thank you to Karen from Fringe Association. She linked to my post about discovering and practicing slow fashion on her blog which generated more readership for that one post than I’ve seen in the past year combined. I woke up in the morning with hundreds of views to my blog and I laid in bed grinning. The comments were not only encouraging but empathetic. They gave me a sense that this community is one that is full of kindred spirits young and old, people tapping into a long-held tradition of women carrying each other by making things and talking about the things they make. I got a glimpse of an incredibly beautiful community, a glimpse that I want to pursue further, press into. This is really, truly, only the beginning. Thank you all, all readers of that post, for making me feel surrounded and upheld, seen and considered, remembered by the universe and by God.

In the midst of all the excitement and inspiration and wonder and such, I’ve been doing research, collecting thoughts and ideas and techniques, wandering the long halls of the internet as I tend to do. This collection, I’ll admit, is more for me than for you. I am putting all these links here because I don’t want to lose them. But maybe you’re thinking about making something too. Maybe you already make things and you’re looking around for new resources. Maybe you already knew about all these links and this is all old news and you think I’m cute and small. No matter. I’m glad you’re here. I’m putting these things here for me, and also for you if you want them. A little library. Pull something off the shelf, click through some yarn colors, consider a sweater, try something you haven’t tried before. It may unlock something in you. It may give you new ways to feel, a window into a new community, a string of excitement.

You may not care at all about making things out of fiber (yarn, cloth, thread, etc.), and that’s okay. That’s not all this blog will be about from henceforth. But I am going to talk about it sometimes and think about it and add things to this library when I happen upon them. Because I want to remember. Because I’ll be making things, quietly, steadily. And writing about it and not. I’ll keep writing what I know, what I think, what I feel, collecting odds and ends of what looks shiny, trying to remember, trying to share. It’s all I can do, for me and for you.

[This library will also appear as a tab next to the “Neverending Bookshelf” at the top of the web page for quick reference purposes. I’ll add things to it as I find them. I’ll use it myself. I hope you’ll use it too.