I just finished reading Becky Chambers’s A Psalm for the Wild-Built. I’ve been a fan of the author since her first book came out, but I’ve been saving her books because they are so precious and I don’t want to exhaust them. But I wish I’d read this one sooner.

A tea monk becomes the first human in living memory to meet a robot, generations after they became conscious and free, and their interactions are very cute. All very cozy and solarpunk (like Star Trek without the colonization). I could nit-pick if I wanted to, but perfection is unnecessary.

My favorite aspect of the book is the monks’ dedication to comfort, care, and connection. Their tea ceremony is simple and all about human kindness. It really connected with me about my own vocation.

Elizabeth and I got started in the world of yarn retailing because we needed something to pay the bills that would be flexible enough to allow for the kind of parenting we wanted to do. It seemed like a good creative job we could shape how we wanted. But it’s taken a while to really understand how the job has shaped us, too.

One thing I have learned is that people never craft for evil reasons. The biggest potential pitfall in knitting and crocheting is buying too much yarn, and we do our best to advise people to avoid that when we can, while allowing people their full dignity and agency. The other pitfall is spending too much time alone, and we have plenty of offerings to help with that too.

At my best, when someone comes into the shop, I am a tea monk, holding their needs and concerns with care. Allowing them to express themselves while not being intrusive. I can’t say I always succeed–there are times I don’t ask enough questions, or I don’t have what is needed. And there are times I’m distracted or tired or impatient. Capitalism is not the best context for human connection.

Which is why we are spinning the Craft Underground off as a semi-independent entity. The Craft Underground and its stitch groups, demonstrations, pot lucks, and other events will be managed collaboratively by the community that has gathered with Purl’s as the center. It will still be part of the Purl’s family, but there’s no pressure to monetize things, and the burden of organizing is shared beyond Elizabeth and I.

This is the most exciting thing we’ve done yet, like when Dex decides to leave their previous life and set out into the wild. But I’m doing it not because of an empty feeling inside, but because of a full one. We’ve helped foster a third-space that feels like home, and we want to give it space to grow, and space to slip further out of capitalist concerns.

Some of our stitch groups have grown to a size where they don’t feel like a chill space to slip in and out, and slowly warm up to strangers. We know that’s a need, so we’re trying to work out how to offer multiple kinds of experiences for multiple needs. The Craft Underground is going to make more things possible than we could do just with Purl’s. We think they will fit together well, even if it’s a little clunky and experimental at first, like a tea monk and a robot.

Okay, it’s not exactly a summer yarn, but when colors are available we have to snatch them up. This is the most durable yarn I know, and the colors are incredible. We love small-batch yarns from independent producers, and Peace Fleece has led the way for decades!

Kelbourne is our favorite new-to-us vendor, and we are excited to be carrying more and more of their yarns. For instance, we put what’s left of Berroco Pima Soft on sale and are replacing it with Kelbourne Skipper, a sustainably grown Peruvian cotton. Since Berroco got bought by a private equity firm, we are much happier working with small companies, especially a woman-owned politically outspoken company like Kelbourne Woolens.

Another new yarn is Keystone, a washable worsted made from deadstock acrylic and US wool. It keeps fiber out of the wastestream and provides a sturdy and affordable US made yarn, only $9 per 100g ball!

We’ve also expanded our color offerings and quantities of Germantown, a US made feltable wool yarn. It’s great to crochet or knit with yarns you can feel great about!

We’ve also expanded Harmony, Kelbourne’s mohair and silk yarn. The last bits of Berroco Aerial are in the sale bin.

The Craft Underground has a Launch Team! For the next 6 months we’ll work on startup tasks, like crafting a mission statement and core values, working on renovations to the space, and figuring out how programming and scheduling will work. The Launch Team will work out the rules for the Crundercorps team that will replace it for long term leadership.

If you want to be involved, you absolutely can! We’ll have work parties and plenty of other ways to participate. Hop on the Discord, or email us at [email protected]. It’s really exciting to have this be a collaborative process from the outset, and to share a vision with a whole community of people who are happy to be working together.

We’re cleaning and organizing in preparation for a variety of work: electric to make room for ductwork, moving ducts and replacing HVAC in order to make room for stairs. The Craft Underground won’t be open for at least a couple of months yet, but we are making way for it. And it always feels good to get all the supplies contained and controlled.

We’ve been fundraising for the BeLoved Village since the Gnomes for Homes and Flying Pigs days back on Wall Street. At the holidays our customers have helped us raise tens of thousands of dollars for BeLoved over the years. Heck, we even named a Local Hero yarn for Amy Cantrell! So it was exciting to get invited to the ribbon cutting for the completed village.

Brass Your Heart was there, and we all sung along “We Got Them Houses, We Got Them Houses!” still running through my head the next day.

There was an indigenous blessing of all 12 homes. They are all for formerly unhoused folks.

This is not just creating new housing, it’s building a community who can support each other and thrive together.

These are beautiful furnished homes, “tiny” by American standards, but full one and two bedroom houses, with a washer and dryer in each and all the amenities.

It’s amazing to see a dream come true after so.much hard work, and they aren’t stopping! They’ve already started a second village in Swannanoa.

Not to mention getting 165 families back in their homes by making repairs after Helene. It’s really inspiring to see what community can build.

Our Purl’s family is proud to be associated with BeLoved even in a small way. The community we are working to build is going to do great things, too. Not the same things. But we can look to our siblings and see how much is possible when we dream big!

Sorry, y’all, we got pulled out to another event tonight. Soon, we’ll never have this problem. Once the Craft Underground opens, the community can take on responsibility for opening and monitoring the new space without us! Plans are in the works, both physical-space-wise (electricians, HVAC, carpenter to build the stairs, etc.) and community-organizing-wise. As we get further along, we’ll reveal more here, but if you want to be involved, show up at one of our stitch groups, or shoot us an email at [email protected]

I drew a logo!

This is a fun website, lots of inspiring material. I like art that is fun!

Look, I know bullshit. As a white man in our society, and as an English major in college, I have a TON of training on how to create truth-shaped objects regardless of factual content. I have had to work hard to train myself not to reflexively answer questions and admit, “I don’t know.”

And now we have mechanized the process. Elizabeth already posted about Kate Davies’s great article in our business. (I have to admit I find even human generated knitting podcasts dull, I can’t imagine how bad the slop must be.)

But of course the biggest bullshit generator is in the White House. We have war and runaway inflation because of his bullshit. We are losing our civil rights in its service. And the people who should be pushing back against that bullshit on the local level, our elected city council (all nominally Democrats), struck a huge blow in favor of bullshit last night.

Local hero Kim Roney (vote for her for mayor come fall) was the only holdout against an insane no-contract police surveillance system with “guardrails” that on closer inspection are made of bullshit. The community came armed with facts, details, legal expertise. Patrick Conant (another local hero whose superpower is data visualization) and Sunshine Labs spearheaded the effort, but a broad swath of the community stepped up to say no. And Esther Manheimer (who delayed and dithered so long trying to get people to tire and leave that public comment didn’t begin for SIX HOURS) cut off comments by the public after an hour, even though she let the police spew propaganda for almost that long for one speaker.

You have to understand that our city government only cares about money. They have no core beliefs, no will to do what’s best for our community. They spew slop about affordable housing and public engagement, but they take their marching orders from CIBO and the developers. And now Chuck Edwards. Every single one of our council members EXCEPT Kim Roney voted to shut down debate, to stifle factual information, to kill the democratic process, to trample Constitutional rights. Why? It’s unclear. To appear “tough on crime”? To give the cops the new toys they demand? To flex their power? Because they’re getting secret kickbacks? We may never know, but we do know they don’t respect us. Their only constituents are the hotel industry, we just live here.

We’ve been so busy with Yarn Crawl that we missed the big scandal with Stephen West going on the Blocked channel (a magazine/YouTube/Podcast hosted by a guy who calls himself “Knitler” and bullies queer, BIPOC, and fat folx). And I don’t buy that he just “didn’t do his homework.”

I like some of West’s designs, but I have never understood the cult following. It seems like it’s so much easier for cis white men to become knitting celebrities than anyone else, and that really sucks. Fame seems like a very toxic bargain and I am always happy to never be TOO popular.

Let’s all just ignore Stephen for a while. Discover some new designers, and maybe not just the ones who are pushing on social media. Ravelry makes it easy to find designs that are interesting and unique, whether they have hype or not. Maybe I’ll use this space for a while to highlight some designers I like who are not hollow rich jerks.