Summary: I wanted to take a minute to revisit the close knit podcast mission. The close knit podcast aims to hold space for conversation to be had about the ways we use fiber to process life and world events.What I meant when I wrote that was that this podcast is the vessel, and the guest brings the story - the connecting thread between all guests is fiber in some form. Intentionally broad, this enabled me to speak to all kinds of people about all manner of things.In practical terms, it has looked like a majority white, majority women-identified line up. When it was entirely this - early on, I paused, readjusted, and tried to publicly challenge myself to do better. I shared this process publicly because I believe in transparency of process, whenever possible. Owning mistakes, instead of letting them own you, and moving forward. Over the course of the life of this podcast, I hope to speak to as many people from as many backgrounds as possible - whose stories may be connected only insofar as their interest in fiber, and I hope that each listener finds themselves represented here, in some way. Whether that is a person whose ethnic identity resembles your own, or gender identity, or approach to making, or ethics on living their lives. I hope that you find someone who feels like ‘home’ to you here. I know that I can always do better - and though I spend more time than your average person researching people in the fiber community to interview, those interviews don’t always pull through, or they don’t happen in the way I imagine they will. I am constantly learning the process of letting go of the outcome as a podcast maker - I can only ask the guest in, and hold as safe a space as I am able - I cannot falsely create stories or force a conversation in a direction it’s not able to go. More so, I cannot expect a certain type of conversation to happen simply because of a common narrative around assumptions I’m no doubt making about my guest.I want to keep at this. I want to make this podcast for a long ass time - maybe even for the entire time I’m on this planet. so it’s gonna take time, and the guest list will evolve. and I hope, as the knitting and wider fiber community begins to take more seriously issues of representation - we may more easily be able to find a diverse body of people to speak to and hear from.This being said, know that I am always scouring the internet for new stories, following along on instagram and trying to track down the voices of people who don’t look like me. Sometimes, I do okay it, and other times, not as much. I don’t expect anyone to do that work for me, but I am open to suggestions - I am open to feedback. If there’s someone that you love or YOU are that someone - who is doing interesting work with fiber, who maybe doesn’t have the type of stage that makes it easy to find them, by all means - please let me know. I’m here to listen, to keep working on creating a really safe space for people to share. I’m processing - in my own private life, sometimes quietly - through hours of conversation with people that I know, and hours of knitting. I’m working on a sock right now - which of course, what else would I be working on, and I don’t know if I’m doing it ‘right’ this whole thing, but I know that I’m giving it what I’ve got. & at the very least, I feel hopeful that we have this vessel - our making, our place for quiet internal reflection, and our connection of fiber. Our place to find each other - our thing to connect over. I’m glad that there is this soft vessel to perhaps help us find each other.
