As we get into the Northern Hemisphere’s “knitting season” it feels only natural that I should come out of apparent hibernation and get a little more active. I’d like to say that’s going to happen but if past is prologue, I can’t guarantee anything. But I have a few things to mention, and we’re going to start with the big picture and get more granular as we go:
Where I stand
I don’t like to talk about my personal politics here very often — and those who’ve followed me for a while probably already know where I stand. I’m still not going to get deeply into my stances on the issues of the day, but speaking generally, I identify as a progressive. I believe that government should exist to help the most vulnerable first, not enrich the already powerful. It’s a lot more complex than that, but it’s a good place to start. I believe the system we have here in the US (and to some degree, globally) is both inadequate and functioning as intended — which is to say that it is not “broken,” because it was built to be this unfair, always has been, and the way it is currently “working” is its inevitable conclusion. If you can legitimately say the system has not been unfair to you throughout your life, congratulations, you’re in the demographic for whom the system was written. If all this rubs you the wrong way, you may feel free to leave the way you came in.
Now to get into an issue that is near and dear to my heart as an artist: the rise of generative AI. If you haven’t heard the arguments against it, you’re in a pretty robust bubble. GenAI wastes our precious non-renewable resources on frivolous stuff, makes its users less intelligent and self-sufficient by outsourcing things we used to be able to do ourselves to a machine that does them worse in most cases, causes a lot of things to cost more, and is currently propping up our global economy with the flimsiest supports.
Bottom line: I don’t use it. Aside from a single image I generated way back when the output was designed to be hallucinogenic, not aping reality, I’ve never willingly used a single AI system. I’ve never used ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, etc to create images or help me “think”. I don’t even know how, and I don’t plan to learn. I am blessed to have a day job that AI can’t steal and isn’t necessary for, but the output of my creative job has almost certainly already been scraped, as every published book and every image on the web has probably been fed to these ravenous machines so they can generate more slop.
I cannot stop that, but I don’t have to make it easy. At the end of October, I will be deleting my Fallingblox Designs Facebook page in solidarity with a number of other creative businesses doing the same thing. Knitty has made a great case for this; I recommend you check it out before it’s removed along with the rest of their content. I’d love to remove myself from Meta’s platforms entirely, but for now it’s going to have to be enough to remove my business presence from it.
If you want to find me online, you’re already halfway there since you’re reading this. I’ll continue to post here, as well as on my Patreon, Ravelry, and my email list. The old ways were best, and I know I’ll be limiting my engagement but people will find me eventually.
Books!
I still have books for sale; the discount remains in place and the stock is … well, higher than I’d prefer but slowly dwindling. Here’s the current count of what’s left. As you’ll see, I’m almost entirely out of the Parallax collection, so that will be the first to run out unless a miracle occurs.
- Extreme Double-knitting: 136 copies left
- Double or Nothing: 324 copies left
- Parallax: 6 copies left
As before, I mostly ship these on Fridays, which is the day I have the most free time when the post office is open, so keep that in mind as you order. Also, the day after Thanksgiving I will be turning off Media Mail in favor of Priority Mail only for the holiday season, so if you want slower, lower-cost shipping this year, make sure to order in the next month. Don’t forget that these are great gifts for the adventurous knitter in your life.
Workshops!
Surprise — I do have a couple coming up, although they have been flagged as likely to be cancelled for low enrollment. Virtual Knitting Live’s November show has me teaching an Intro workshop and an Advanced Beginner workshop — and most people reading this already have all those skills under their belts. But if you know anyone who’s been meaning to learn, please consider forwarding this info to them.
My live and virtual workshops have been slowing down lately; I knew this might happen if I started releasing all my video workshops for free (and stopped engaging with social media for regular promotion), but this was a calculated risk. For those waiting on my next installment of YouTube workshop recordings, thank you for your interest and your patience; they are coming, it’s just been a much busier summer than expected and the time it takes to process these videos has just not been as available to me as I’d hoped. Again, as we enter “knitting season” I will be getting a few more videos out soon. Patreon patrons will also see them show up in their downloadable repository (so they can watch them offline if they choose).
Patterns!
I have a new pattern coming out in the next month or so! My test knitters have offered their feedback and I have a photoshoot with a new model next weekend, so it’s coming together. I’m also working on another (nominally simpler) pattern in the same vein which will not require test knitters and will probably come out early next year. After those are done, my plan is to start working on a new Magnum Opus — a pattern that will appeal to the truly adventurous and also turn an entire segment of general knitting knowledge on its ear with a technique modification that, as far as I can tell, has never been used even in single-layer knitting. I’m very excited to show it off but I need to wait until the pattern is done, which is going to take some time. So get excited with me, but be patient! As ever, Patreon patrons will get free copies of all the new patterns whenever they come out.