The modular knitting book was published in April/May (dependent on country) and was an immediate hit with fans of modular knitting but its effect was dwarfed by another occurrence. At around the same time we got four or five requests, within a couple of days, for our Curve of Pursuit booklet. It seemed strange as it had never been our most popular. This kind of thing happens when we have been mentioned on an internet list somewhere and it dies down again in a very short space of time. That is not what happened this time.
We received an email with a photo attached. (Another miracle of twenty-first century technology that had become a common occurrence) It was a photograph of a page in a book showing Curve of Pursuit worked in shades of purple. The book was Mason-Dixon Knitting by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne.
We were told that a person named Ann Buechner had bought an instruction booklet from us some years before and made the purple version. The Mason-Dixon authors borrowed it for their book, gave it a full page and mentioned our web site. Apparently they had long been fans of our work. In the fullness of time we received a copy of the book with a lovely inscription from Ann Shayne.
It is very flattering to be told that we have inspired other people to create their own works and even more flattering when a book is published and actually refers to us as a source of inspiration. This wasn’t the only time it happened in 2006.
Mason-Dixon Knitting became extremely popular, especially in US. Many versions of Curve of Pursuit started to appear on web sites and its fame spread. We were inundated with requests. These came from all round the world. Not surprisingly there were a large number from US but there were a disproportionate number from Norway. I believe this was the result of one lady initially singing our praises but I now have a vision of every Norwegian snuggling down under a Curve of Pursuit for the long winter nights. After two holidays in Norway, it is our favourite country so maybe we should take a trip to seek them out. (At the end of 2006 requests for this booklet are still arriving regularly.)
This pushed us onto another path. It was time for more technology. The internet was awash with groups of people on lists that were getting more and more specialised. A mere ten years ago knitting had been sharing a list with every other craft you could imagine. Now the number of purely knitting lists was running into thousands, some with thousands of members.
You might remember that it was a knitting list that prompted the writing of this story!
It was time we had an internet area, as a place where like-minded people could exchange ideas about knitting, crochet and other crafts. The most difficult decision was whether it would be a group list or a blog (or web log). Blogs are another invention made possible by the internet. They are generally produced by one person who decides whether others should have the freedom to add to the blog or just to read what is written. Some blogs are run by a group of people sharing a common interest and, in recent months, large organisations and even multi-national companies have started to use them as a way to distribute information in a more informal manner.
There are as many kinds of blogs as there are people. They range from the hilarious, passionate and very well-informed to the downright mundane and boring. They are obviously the way the world is moving but we finally decided that a more chatty group list, with access to photos and links to other sites, was the route we wanted to take. The decision was made and a woollythoughts Yahoo group was founded. We had email addresses of old friends and everyone who had bought booklets in the past months so it was easy to find people who might be interested in joining. The membership shot up to 300 in the first few weeks and there has been a trickle of new members ever since.
It has been fascinating. We make the rules and, basically, there are none. The chat can be about anything vaguely related to craft /maths/science. I suppose it could be considered to be more intellectual than many knitting groups but it is not intended to be. It certainly isn’t just for mathematicians and scientists. Members might be discussing anything from dishcloths and scarves to anatomically correct crochet brains, hyperbolic curves or the inspiration gained from a work of art. It is intriguing to see the different ways people interpret the same idea.
We are lucky enough to have several well-known designers, writers, artists and scientists on the list. They are friends we have ‘met’ before (some in real life and some through the magic of the internet). I am sure their presence is the real attraction for some of the members and we are glad to have them all - ‘famous’, ‘non-famous’ and even ‘infamous’. A few people joined believing they would be out of their depth but wanting to know what was going on anyway. Most have been pleasantly surprised and stayed though a handful have left.
