I've lost the Purity Spiral / knitters thread but look at this

Exactly ... because groups of women coming together always has the inherent ability to cause disruption to the partriarchial state... once women start swapping expereinces and realising they are not alone - craft and knitting groups become consciousness raising groups / mutual aid. The other thing is the great throwing around of the phrase 'knitting community' - one began to see how small and limited it was. No disent no difference really. Anyway with Brexit and Covid I'm beginning to think the Momon housewifes who plan a spare 2 years food know something we don't....

Also, having known a few women online who were ex Mormon or other similarly extreme patriarchal branches of Christianity, it felt to me they were cutting off a lifeline of commonality from vulnerable women. I don't know, it never sat right with me.

Ysolda is who I was hinting at she seems to have become over judgemental.
Shame, she has some lovely wool on special offer atm but i couldn't bring myself to click buy.
I find her designs rather derivative but she is good at styling and marketing.

let the ysoldaboycott begin!

Yes I've wondered how the indi dyers will respond to the JK stuff too. I've not checked the rav forums, but there's a big harry potter crowd on there.

Ironically part of Nathan’s cancellation involved his design being dropped from the Harry Potter knitting book.

One of the ladies in my rl craft group was so shocked by Ysolda’s nastiness she vowed never to knit anything by her again.

Interesting she’s back - though I did think the sentence was unusually harsh.

she didn't refund me but suppsedly sent a donation to a mental health charity instead... but my blood boils when I think of her... nasty on two legs while professing to be pure as the driven snow...

@RadandMad the gender stuff is already there to a certain extent on twitter. When JKR made her stand in December over Mayas court case, a number that I then followed made “twaw” statements or (and I quote) “terfs can f* right off”.
I shut down my twitter profile after that. I’d liked a number of JKRs posts and some knitter/designer made a comment about checking follows and likes.
They were policing their followers!

@fatblackcatspaw Lol-ling at you demanding money back from Ysolda. Luckily I never bought one of her patterns, but agree she's particularly noxious.

@LizA49 Yes, I think you're right about Kate Davies. She recited a few mantras to keep the wolves away. Forgiveable. Horrible to see one witch hunt follow after another. A few brave souls like standing up to it.

I was wondering the other day how long it would be before they all turned their attention to gender. I'm not on IG much any more, and purged almost everyone who got on board with the pile ons from my timeline. Also wondering how all those hand dyers with Harry Potter colourways are coping with the JKR stuff. Bet they're feeling the pressure to renounce/rename them.

goddess that must have been one ugly bag... one designer Ysolda Teague who was central to the Kate Davies pile on enraged me so much I actually demanded a refund for one of her (crap) patterns. MAY SHE ROT IN HELL.

I suspect kate Davies is just keeping her head down. A lot of people are. It was scary to see how so many people turned on her; honestly, there was also a lot of professional point scoring going on. And how Nathan taylor was thrown to the wolves..!
My final straw with the online knitting world was a knitted bag, trending on Ravelry, saying “fuck cis-heteronormativity” in trans flag colours. That in itself is unpleasant; I may not agree with people’s lifestyles, I don’t go around being rude about it. Then watching the SJWs defend it and go after those that complained? Nah. I’m off.

Kate Davies pretty much sucked up all the woke BS though, sadly.

I've never felt the same about the knitting world since watching the purity spiral rip through Instagram. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Mind you, I'm grateful now - it was a vaccine against social justice ideology cos I saw the results before I came into contact with the cult itself. Nothing that produces that kind of vicious pile on is built on solid foundations, imo.

Bloody good to see GeordieKnits getting her comeuppance - always felt she was lying through her teeth about what happened with Nathan. Like someone said upthread, grifter - she knew a bandwagon when she saw it.

Yeah that was me - I'm not naturally drawn to supporting right wing women from the gun toting states who support Trump but I had a cold shiver down my spine when it happened and i thought whose next....

That’s interesting about the owners of Ravelry possibly looking to sell. As someone said, it may be time to back up on another platform or device. I had mixed feelings about the trump support ban. I get it; I think the right wing trolls were probably making things difficult. However it felt..trying to find the right word here.. authoritarian. And I understand, it’s a private website so they can do what they want, but as someone else said, who’s next?
Ravelry has been great on so many levels, but I think it may have had its day.

Yes she is great. Ironically I stumbled across her in another context entirely, not through Ravelry at all, and more through reading about her stroke and recovery - the knitting came as a lovely bonus. A voice of sanity and good sense and I fear that will of course have been what made her a target

Kate Davies was an academic so has written intelligent blog posts on things like locality, influence of empire on crafts etc She is a treasure. I must knit something by her. Once the innumberable projects I have on the go are finished. But yes I must put her into the queue for something for the winter.

The Kate Davies book Handywoman is meant to be really good. It chronicles her experience of having a stroke and recovering from it.

I am grateful to the whole hoo hah for making me discover Kate Davies - I bought one of her patterns because I wanted to support her for standing up to the demands to join in the bullying and it was so good I have bought more of her patterns and even one of her books since.
Honestly she is a genius. Owls is sheer joy to knit.

I ignore all the forums on Ravelry. If I want knitting advice my online actual friends and rl craft group ladies are the best.

I knew that something bad had happened to Sockmatician and Kate Davies but not exactly what until I found this thread earlier in the year, so the whole purity spiral thing clearly went straight over my head - but then I never read the homilies on Ravelry (they seem aimed at the US users anyway), I just use it for pattern-browsing/buying and as a storage medium.

On the back of your update, Flavia, I did find someone's blogpost discussing all this and some users saying you can export your Ravelry library to a site called Lovecrafts (slightly unfortunate name but hey ho) if you get their app. Their desktop site is laid out virtually identically to Ravelry's so they're clearly hoping to hoover up some of the disaffected.

I just make sure all my data and patterns are backed up in case the site goes AWOL now.

I backed all of my patterns up too for the same reason. I honestly was a little worried at the time that the site might suddenly vanish given how many people were criticizing the changes instead of fawning over them like the owner no doubt expected.

I don't think you need to steer clear, but make sure you take note of where (who!) your info is coming from.

For the most part my insta feed is yarn, knitting, crochet, gardening, cats, dogs, or a mix of the above! There are also plenty of discussions on equality. Whether that's about race, LGBTQ+ rights, ableism, poverty etc. The discussions are there. And this year they have been more like discussions than the mud-slinging of 2019. I read what I can when I feel up to it, but I don't feel like I have to. We're a friendly bunch really

yes I'd heard the fattening it up to sell ru mor as well. Made me wonder if Trans founder can't remember their name is also planning to divorce the other founder and needs money to do it....