The Don't Buy List, edition 2024

Buying things brings happiness. Loving the things you have brings happiness. But which happiness is greater?

One of my most opened newsletters over the past year was my inaugural Don’t Buy list, I’m delighted to bring you a new edition, especially for 2024.

My Don’t Buy list is full of things you don’t need to buy—or buy into—and it’s spurred by the season we’ve just lived through: the Black Friday to Cyber Monday retail sprint, when everyone you’ve ever bought something from will send you an email.

As yarn lovers, it’s so easy to be tempted into over-consumption, and I want to affirm that the knitting, crochet, and yarn lover’s culture we see reflected on social media is full of lots of things you and I don’t actually need. It’s also full of lots of ideas that we don’t need to buy into.

It’s surprisingly easy to lose sight of what matters when so many beautiful images are presented to us—and especially when things in the outside world are hard (hello, election, hello feeling of existential dread).

In this spirit, I offer you my Don’t Buy List, edition no. 2024:

1. Don’t buy more yarn.*

This one, perhaps, is going to bite me because I actually sell yarn and you are among my very best customers. But, the truth is: you probably don’t need more yarn.

You probably already have a lot of yarn and a lot of yarn you love.

So, when the new yarn pictures start flowing on Instagram and in your in-box, spend a few minutes with your stash and fall back in love with the yarn you already have.

*Here’s the caveat: If you truly don’t have the yarn you need for the thing you want to knit then, by all means, buy it. If your budget says yes, buy it knowing that you’re not adding indescriminately to your stash. Do it mindfully and also with joyful abandon. I think you know what I mean. Don’t get swept away. Fall back in love with your stash. And buy the yarn if (and because) you want it, can afford it, and/or it’s needed.

2. Don’t believe there’s just one way to do things.

Knitting, crocheting and making things by hand is for all of us, not just the images of pretty, thin, youthful white women that social media and most magazines show us. We can, and should, decolonize our knitting spaces—this literally soft and gentle space where all of us should have a feeling of home and safety.

We can teach our social media feeds that we want to see more diversity, more size inclusion, more varied yarns and makers. We can learn all the different ways to love this craft of ours, from the way we knit (continental? English? combined? another way? it’s all great!), to the way we mend, to the things we like to make. (Read this article by the brilliant Anne Helen Petersen. Absolutely everything here applies to the knitting world as well. Just substitute the word “knitfluencer” for “momfluencer.”)

3. Don’t buy into the “knitting community” hype

In 2007, Ravelry, a pattern database and social networking site for yarn lovers, launched and, with it, accelerated a connection between knitters who, up until that point, had been only geographically connected or loosely connected through blog writing. I’d posit that from 2007 to around 2018/2019, knitters seemed to coalesce into one large community, centered around Ravelry, giving the impression that there was just one “knitting community.”

I think we’re now in a process of atomization, where smaller groups of folks with similar values or interests are connecting with each other. Some groups form around values (like this one), or shared passions (like for a specific designer’s work) or the intersection of knitting and a particular fandom.

Don’t buy into the idea that there is one, singular knitting community. There isn’t, at least not anymore. I used to be disappointed that we couldn’t make greater social change amongst yarn lovers, but maybe it’s gonna be okay after all. Maybe, the point is to find our people. The ones who support and bolster us in tough times. The ones who make our lives feel more whole.

What is worth buying?

Time offline

The more time I spent offline, the honest-to-goodness better I feel. Maybe this is you, too? If you need some encouragement to turn off the notifications on your phone and spend more time offline, here is a brilliant set of 100 ways to do just that, by writer Mehrit Biruk.

Greater connection

Authentic connection is fuel. It’s the friend who asks, how are you, really? It’s the hand on your shoulder to let you know you’re not alone. It’s the person who looks at your Harris/Walz t-shirt and says, me too. My advice to you, and to myself, is to slow down and notice those moments of connection, because they are fuel for the hard times and fuel for the good times, too.

Hope

I met yesterday with my “We Love Diverse Books” book club, and one of the longtime members mentioned that she’s been drawing inwards a bit, following the election. Me too. I feel like many of us are in this liminal place—knowing the outer world is about to get more chaotic, but not quite there yet. (Not unlike the sound of the drums in the deep, from the Lord of the Rings).

But here’s the thing: we can also hold onto hope. Finding hope, and joy, even in the midst of hard times is a kind of muscle. We can build it. I find myself coming back to this description of social change movement building by Deepa Iyer, over and over, as fuel for hope.

Knitting, crochet and hand-making can be part of a larger movement for social change, starting with ourselves. In the language of Iyer’s framework, we are the caregivers. We “nurture and nourish the people around us by creating and sustaining a community of care, joy, and connection.”

Most of all, with this year’s Don’t Buy List, I hope you don’t buy into the idea that you need to buy things to be more beautiful, more loved, or more appreciated.

You’re wonderful, just as you are.