Tuesday, April 12, 2016

A Fond Farewell

Does anyone not know that the Knitting Community is closing? It's so sad, but there is life after the Knitting Community. You can find us over on Ravelry at The Frog Prince and his Knitting Community Orphans, a Ravelry group/forum. We have been transferring tips and tricks posted here to that location and have threads for most of the things we discussed here. We will be adding more. Many of you have found us there. (We're now almost up to 60 members!) If you haven't yet, please feel free to stop by and join us if you like.
I would like to extend an invitation to the Knit Picks Staff to come and join us there as well. We got to see you from time to time here, and the new "Community" won't be the same without you. I'll never forget my live visit to you in July, 2011, when I brought along my brand-new daughter-in-law. That visit made it possible for me to imagine you and where you work.


This will probably be my last blog post on this site, but you can continue to follow my blog on Blogspot and leave your comments with Mr. Frog Prince, in the "Peggy's Blog" thread. This week's blog post is up. If you're a quilter and visit Quilt With Us, you can find it there as well.
In May, 2008, I participated in Sock Wars III. I had never used the computer before for anything other than email and occasionally looking something up. The Sock Wars website was pretty primitive by today's standards, but I found I enjoyed comparing notes on knitting with others. I was killed off pretty quickly, the same day as my victim received her socks, and spent the rest of the competition chatting with other "dead" participants.
The earliest post of mine on this website that I could find was in June, 2008. I think someone must have mentioned the site to me. Before the end of the year, I had written my first blog post. By November, 2009, I was such a fixture in the site that I was picked, along with Cheryl (cherylbwaters) and Susan (Susan the Blue Lake Knitter), to be interviewed for the Knit Picks Podcast. (It's Podcast 122, Comfort While Knitting, still available on iTunes.) That was the beginning of almost daily PMs between the three of us, as we tried to guess what Kelley would ask us in the interviews.
I participated in the Speed-knitting contest in May, 2010 and came in third after Ruthmci and the first-place finisher, Cristi-Lael. 
The PMs between Cheryl, Susan and me (soon dubbed the "Fairy Godknitters" by Mrs. K), sometimes with others, especially Knit4Many, continued until Susan passed away in September, 2014. I still think of her almost every day. Cheryl and I still communicate frequently, often with Knit4Many, Wendy and others, but not quite as often without Susan. I think she was good at keeping the conversation going. Cherylbwaters, Knit4Many, Mrs. K, AngelKarhu, Wendy, cellogirl, KnitWhich, Buffy Joseph, Christina | AlohaBlu, EmilyVictoria, PickleSue, Beverly Roberts, typhoonyoon, Carol Meissner, cherubhmm, HavetomuchYarn, especially Blue lake knitter's daughter, and more have become special friends over the years. I'm still in touch with them.
This Community has changed my life for the better. Those changes won't go away because this social website is gone. 
I want to remind everyone that the Knit Picks website is NOT going away. All the yummy yarns, spinning fibers, notions, dyes, books and other fiber stuff we love will still be there. 
Please come see us on Ravelry. You'll be glad you did.


Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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