Hi there!

Although I’ve been knitting since 2012, I haven’t actually focused very much on improving the quality of my craft recently. I learned fair isle a few years ago, but other than that, I think my ability is basically the same as it was 8 years ago - despite being fairly prolific in my output.

I consider myself fairly advanced - I can knit lace, fair isle, cables - and ladder down to fix a mistake many rows back too. I’ve made blankets, socks, soft toys, scarves, and jumpers galore. But my ribbing is sloppy, and you can plainly see where I’ve woven in my ends. I’m noticing uneven tension and fit issues - garments too big, too small, or too imperfect. Knitting doesn’t have to be perfect, I know - but I feel like my skills have stagnated, and I could be better than this if I just applied myself a little better.

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I just added tags to all my blog posts and gallery projects that I consider “incentivised”, i.e. I received the pattern or fabric for free in exchange for pattern testing or content creation.

This all made me think very hard about why I do it, and whether creating this sort of content is at odds with my views about the web (marketing makes the web bad, etc.), so to think it through, I wrote out a piece on the topic of incentivised content.

I’ve published it as a page, rather than a blog post, as I’m using pages to present my stance on something. Blog posts are a point in time. But my stance might change, and if so, I’ll update the page.

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I usually make a few new year’s resolutions, and forget them by the end of January. This year, I’ve decided to go all in on one really difficult target: I’m going to try to read 52 books this year.

This is a crazy target for me. My highest ever book count was 37, and that was years ago, when I was hyperfixated on the very concept of reading. I’ve not been like that in recent years. Last year, I read 10 books, and two of them I had to finish in audiobook form because my concentration was so shot. (No slight on audiobooks as a form of reading - but personally it’s a last resort.)

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