Remember knitting before the internet? When a pattern search took place at the library? When getting stuck on a new or strange direction in a pattern meant calling your friend or asking Grandma? Remember when the arrival of a new knitting magazine brought with it loads of new inspiration? Remember when yarn shopping took place at a real live store because who would buy yarn that they hadn’t handled first (what if it was scratchy? or smelled bad?)? Remember knitting old school?

I do. And, until recently, I considered those the “dark ages” of my knitting days. So long ago. So slow the internet. So small a yarn budget.

Between our Screen Free Weeks and the loss of access to Ravelry, I feel a little like I’ve been transported back in time. And you know what? I’m actually quite happy to return to the “dark ages”. I bought a couple of sock books. I re-subscribed to some knitting magazines. I visited my local yarn store. And I am rather charmed by the simplicity of it all.

I am back to a limited supply of patterns – if you can call the thousands that I own in books, magazines, and PDFs “limited”. If I can’t find exactly what I want, I am forced to improvise, modify, or create something new.

I am back to waiting for the next issue of Interweave Knits to arrive and inspire my next, exciting project.

I am back to haunting the crafting isle in my library for new books, and rereading some old ones.

I am back to knitting only yarn that I have on hand right now (because of a New Year’s Resolution that I hastily made when I was overwhelmed with the size of my yarn stash). 

I am back to the good old days. When knitting had a lot less .coms and a lot more knitting to it.

And it feels pretty good.

Now, I am aware that there are more pattern sites than Ravelry, and I know that I still have about 23 days each month to be online, looking at knitting patterns, reading knitting articles, watching knitting youtube videos, and all of that fun stuff. And the Stash diet will come to an end in a few months (you know I’ll be filling my Eat.Sleep.Knit cart again). But, for now, I am going to enjoy a little simplicity.

I’m going to enjoy knitting old school.