As you know, I was banned for 10 days over a week ago. I have not been able to post anything at Ravelry. This morning, I received an email from them, banning me for 30 days! What this means is that I am being banned for posts on the internet and on my own websites. I feel certain I can go on Discus and be told this is perfectly acceptable.

But this is not acceptable. My posts on the internet are not under their control and violate nothing (unless they are unhappy that I’ve called them liars over their new policy. I think this pretty much proves that.) I have other things to do right now, so I’m going wait and see if they decide to perma-ban me, based on my online posts at my own site and others.

The internet is full of dead links. Make Ravelry one of them.

I’m not ready to go yet, but this site is: https://ourunraveled.com

I’ve been asked a few times, so will respond here. I haven’t deleted my Ravelry account yet. I have removed all my projects, stash pictures, etc. Here’s why I haven’t deleted my account yet:  I have been mentoring a new spinner on one of the forums. She’s making great progress! I don’t think she lives in the US and I do not have any way to reach her, other than through Ravelry. It’s probably silly of me, but I wanted to give her one last word of encouragement before I delete the account. I did read one of the new forums Ravelry allows, which exists for people to say how much  they like the new policy. It convinced me that I really don’t want to be on the same website with those folks. And the forums that I did follow seem to be trying to pretend none of this happened. I guess that’s all they can do.

In case you think that this is just a decision on the part of Ravelry, Reddit shut down The_Donald subreddit. I knew nothing about this site or the group until the run up to the election. They were responsible for a lot of the funny pro-Trump memes you saw. It was just a lot of young guys having fun. The timing of it seems to add to the illusion this is a coordinated event. It will be interesting to see if there are other, unrelated sites that decide it’s time to suppress pro-Trump support.

More on the new project after the weekend. I think I’m making progress but won’t know for sure until I get everything set up.

There was a link to an article, on another blog I read. I was struck by how spot on this is:

“The day cannot be far off, one imagines, when people will viscerally understand the danger to themselves of saying certain things on social media and will censor themselves automatically. If this continues long enough, certain things will not only become unsayable but unthinkable, for habit eventually is transformed into character. This is the whole point of political correctness: It aims at the most radical of dictatorships, that which requires the enforcement of no police because everyone is incapable of breaking the rules.”

The article is at https://www.takimag.com/article/the-bland-leading-the-bland/.

I read an article about Cuba that mentioned this same thing. People internalize these rules and restrictions, to the point where it does become unthinkable.

Update: I want to post this link as I think it’s important info: http://www.bookwormroom.com/2019/06/24/this-is-not-the-first-time-ravelry-has-banned-conservatives/

I’ve received a 10 day suspension on Ravelry. My offense is calling BS on slandering people as “white supremists”. And it is in fact bullshit. Casey and company are liars. I suspect that they cribbed their little manifesto, with an eye towards California’s laws on the Internet. They claim this is not about purging conservatives. That is exactly what they are doing. And they are doing it in support of the Democratic party. They claim that they don’t want conservatives goaded into posting political items, which would result in a ban. That is not only what they want, it is exactly what they are working for. These people are not the gatekeepers of the craft community. And we cannot allow them to politicize our craft and profit from our participation.

If you are a vendor, I want you to know I am heartsick over this. You have your little business that you’ve put heart and soul into building. You know full well that the Internet mobs love nothing more than to shut your business down, should you get out of line. You would be wise to keep your head down, stay neutral and look for other places to advertise. We still buy patterns, yarns and other items and we want to support your business. I have some ideas on reaching the larger vendors, which I will share here in the next week.

If you are on Ravelry, it is time to leave. I know that you would like for this to blow over and continue enjoying the conversations over there. The site you knew is gone. They have temporarily shut down new members. I can assure you, from what I’ve seen on Twitter, that the site will be hit with a crop of social justice warriors, ready to support them. They don’t know how to knit and they don’t care anything about our crafts. It’s political and the site will become even more political over the next few weeks. If you continue to support Ravelry, you support libeling people over their political point of view. And do not think for a minute that the folks that run Ravelry give a damn about people of color or the LGBT community. They care about you only as long as you support their politics. Stray from the party line and you will be purged too.

Craft is the thing that we do when our lives are falling apart. It is what helps us hold it together when the money runs out, when a loved one is in the hospital, when our marriage fails or our children are in a mess. Craft is the thing we do when we celebrate. It is the baby sweater or the wedding shawl we make by hand. It is a way that we show people that we care about them. It is too important to allow people to politicize it. We should link arms and support each other and insist that all voices be heard. We should not be demonizing or purging people from our ranks. It is wrong and you know it.

I’ll be adding more to the site as I work on this. Feel free to contact me if you want to share your thoughts. I moderate comments, so don’t think that you will be able to slander me on my own site.

The internet is full of dead links. Make Ravelry one of them.

https://www.ravelry.com/content/no-trump

I am tired of businesses thinking they get a free pass to slander me. And I am extremely tired of tech companies censoring speech. I can’t tell you how angry this makes me. I have always felt that the knitting and spinning community could come together and share their knowledge, regardless of their political point of view. It seems that is no longer true. I got along without Ravelry for years and I can get along without them again. I would still like to support designers and businesses that are interested in my business. But I would suggest that they find other venues to advertise from.

I think this is working again. I just wanted to talk about the new Ply magazine. The focus is supported spindles, which means all spindles. It’s just wonderful. I think there must be three or four articles on Jenkins spindles. There was a time when I subscribed to SpinOff two years at a time. I’d devour each new issue. They changed the format, so they didn’t feature the readers’ projects. They featured “experts” instead. And I lost interest. I subscribed this year, because they gave me a cheap price, but I’ve yet to see anything interesting. I’ve been buying up back issues of Ply too. To me, a good spinning magazine should make you pick up a spindle and start spinning. I’m having problems getting myself to stop. I’ve started taking a spindle outside with me, when I take the dogs out back. And I”m determined to finish off the East Friesian wool as I’d like to knit a sweater with it.

I have a new pulmonologist at OSHU. I like him and I probably spent close to an hour talking to him. My lungs are worse and we have to get rid of all the birds, including my chickens. We think we’ve found a relative of Lon’s that can take them in. We are working on shipping the cockatoo out first. It’s going to be hard for Lon as he really loves Dewey, the blue and gold. But bird fancier’s can cause enough damage that your lungs don’t function and that’s deadly. I’m on a high dose of prednisone and have felt great. It’s so nice to have good oxygen levels. I was really struggling when I was trying to stay off prednisone. He said it’s likely I’ll have to take it the rest of my life.

No real progress on the house. I’m going to try and start working on packing this weekend. I picked up a new chair:

I had been thinking about getting a wingback chair, for knitting. I just was taken by this chair. I could tell it still had the horsehair padding. The seat is worn but it’s still very solid. It is a heavy chair and handmade, from the looks of the carvings. When I went get it, I was set to try and dicker for a lower price. It was in the second story bedroom. To get it down, the woman had to lower it down a step, while I caught it from the bottom. There were about twelve steps. I decided I was just going to pay full price, as I couldn’t have done it on my own. I really like the chair. I’m trying not to buy a bunch of stuff, but of course, I keep buying stuff. I have too many things packed up that I could use and it’s taking way too long to finish up the house.

The grandson will be a year old next month. I have a baby sweater to knit and also planned to do a teddy bear. I haven’t been knitting a lot, as I have a pair of socks with commercial yarn going and the Perfect Process scarf, which is handspun. I want to knit handspun socks, but am waiting until I finish something else. I think I am going to enjoy my handspun sock project. And I have my first Bosworth spindle arriving this week! I love the new wheel and I have plans to use it for some big projects. But it is so nice to be using my spindles again. My shoulder muscles would cramp, because my oxygen levels were too low. Now that I’m back to normal, I can just keep going.

It looks like I will be going to Black Sheep and I can probably spend some time there. Last time I went, I just wasn’t up to walking around and couldn’t get Lon to do much either. I don’t know yet if he wants to go with me. He hasn’t been walking that well. I have one of those roller seats and am trying to get him to use it. I am going to start taking a few days off as I really could use the rest.

I am trying to come up with a way to keep track of my spinning projects. I’d like to start doing sample cards. I’ve picked up a few odds and ends to try out. I’d like to be more consistent with my spinning. It’s so easy to lose track of your project when you don’t finish it quickly.