Month: July 2023

Sexy Produce, anyone?

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Ooooh, lala, tis the season for the sexiest of produce to hit the farmer’s markets and tables, and we are here for it! Wondering what, exactly, Sexy Produce is? Well, as with many things Knitted Wit, it started with lots of in-house laughs and ended with some pretty special colorways.

Color development is a collaborative thing here at Knitted Wit, and as we were developing some of our new Fall and Winter colors, a beautifully watercolory orange color was created and added to the Fall line. Lorajean being Lorajean, she dubbed the colorway Sexy Pumpkin, because it was so damned delicious. 

Fast forward a few weeks, and Claire and Lorajean were chatting as Claire photographed and labeled some of the new Fall colorways. Chatting while writing always has the potential of interesting results, so Claire guffawed when she realized that instead of writing “Sexy Pumpkin,” she wrote “Sexy Produce.” This started a whole thing in the studio, which Lorajean quickly took to Instagram, with the post, “If Sexy Produce was a color…what would it be?”

Y’ALL CAME THROUGH! We had so much fun reading your suggestions, and those in turn inspired so many new ideas, and we ran to the dye book and dye pots to start playing around. The result is the most lovely basket full of the sexiest produce colors you’ve ever seen!  Check them all out below, and start making the sexiest produce-inspired knits the summer has ever seen! (You can order any of these colorways on any base you’d like; all yarn is dyed to order, and will ship as soon as possible, within 2 weeks).

Big Waffle Energy, the story

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When we (ShannaJean) were at the Red Alder Fiber Retreat in Tacoma, Washington in 2020, we got matching heart waffle tattoos, to celebrate our friendship with each other and mutual love of sweet treats. Inspired by Leslie Knope (from Parks & Rec) and her waffle obsession and unflinching friend energy, we talked (and ate) waffles a lot on that trip. We wanted to harness some big loving energy, and turn some existing phrases on their heads. We truly believe that language has power, and, to quote Glennon Doyle, “Intentional speech is such a lovely way to love.”

Lorajean and Shannon showing off matching heart waffle tattoos while holding heart-shaped waffles


To that end, you may have heard the phrase “big d*ck energy”, which is a sexist and misogynistic metaphor for swagger or having an aura of confidence, without the cockiness. That is the phrase we wanted to turn on its head, and by doing so, harness a sweeter, less male-anatomy-centered energy, which we gleefully call Big Waffle Energy. What Big Waffle Energy means to us is this: big friendship energy, big uplifting others energy, big loving energy. Sweet and fluffy energy.

heart waffle shaped sticker and pin with Big Waffle Energy printed

If you want to embody this Big Waffle Energy alongside us, check out our website, where we have Big Waffle Energy enamel pins, needle minders, and stickers!

HerStory July 2023: Talia Hibbert

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We’ve been waiting for this one! Talia Hibbert, our July HerStory recipient, is so good, y’all! Her books are definitely steamy, so if you don’t enjoy spice, they might not be for you. But if you do, and if you love witty banter and lots of representation, oh wow, are these books for you (and, she just published her first YA book, so if you are not a spice lover, check out Highly Suspicious and Fairly Cute, which is just the sweetest and cutest book ever!)

Talia Hibbert herself identifies across multiple spectrums of marginalization: she’s a Black woman, queer, disabled, and on the autism spectrum, so her books and characters are filled with representation and inclusion. As she said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly when Get a Life, Chloe Brown was coming out (fyi, the main character in this book is Black, fat, and has fibromyalgia, and thus chronic pain):

“Who you choose to star in your romance novels and the happy ending that you give them and the love that you show them being worthy of can be very political. Especially because I write about Black women. Black women are often dehumanized and shown as unworthy of love, unworthy of care and delicacy – we’re presented as the ones who care for everyone else, so I do think it’s very political and an act of resistance to center black women and femininity in romance novels.”

The tagline on Hibbert’s website is “Sexy, Diverse, Romance,” and we can attest to the fact that this is the case. In each of her Brown Sisters books, themes such as neurodiversity, chronic pain, sexuality, mental health, and body positivity are all part and parcel of who the main characters are. Hibbert works hard to create worlds in which deeply real characters, fully formed and realized, get their Happily Ever Afters with fully formed and realized partners that love and respect them, not in spite of these things, but because, added up, they create an amazing person. 

Our colorway honoring Talia Hibbert is called Take a Hint, which is the name of book 2 in the Brown Sisters series (Lorajean’s favorite for sure!). We hope you’ll take a hint from us and deep-dive into Hibbert’s wonderful writing. 

Books by Talia Hibbert:

  • The Brown Sisters books (Get a Life, Chloe Brown; Take a Hint, Dani Brown; Act Your Age, Eve Brown)
  • The Ravenswood books
  • The Princess Trap
  • Highly Suspicious and Fairly Cute

Want more like this? Here are some other authors we suggest you read/listen to:

  • Kennedy Ryan
  • Rebekah Witherspoon
  • Tia Williams
  • Denise Williams
  • Farrah Rochon
  • Alexa Martin

We hope you enjoy this HerStory Book Club as much as we have enjoyed putting it together. We envision an open-ended Book Club, with folks reading or listening to whichever book they’d like from each author’s If you’d like a spoiler of all of the authors we’ll be showcasing this year, check out our website: https://knittedwit.com/herstory-2023-authors/

National Parks 2023: Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club! Find out information about participating shops, Vacay Bingo, the KAL, and more here.

Where is it located?

Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, at Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama, commemorates the contributions of African-American airmen in World War II.

Whose land does it reside upon?

The Tuskegee Indians were a civilized people that had their own customs and ways of life. They lived not to far from were the Tuskegee Army Airfield was constructed. The Creek nations along with the Tuskegee Indians were forced from their homeland during the white man’s expansion in the 1830’s and 1840’s

When was it established?

1998

About this park:

The Tuskegee Airmen gained notice and respect as the result of a test conducted by the U.S. Army Air Corps (Army Air Forces) to determine if African Americans had the mental and physical abilities to lead, fly military aircraft, and courage to fight in war.

The Airmen were not just pilots. They were technicians, radio operators, medical personnel, quartermasters, parachute riggers, mechanics, bombardiers, navigators, meteorologists, control tower operators, dispatchers, cooks, and others. Also included were Caucasian officers, Native Americans, Caribbean islanders, Latinos, and people of mixed racial heritage.

The women of the “Tuskegee Experience” worked alongside male counterparts as mechanics, gate guards, control tower operators, aircraft fuselage technicians, secretaries, and clerks. There were three permanent female parachute riggers who were responsible for training hundreds of cadets in the correct procedures for packing and maintaining parachutes. Gertrude Anderson served as assistant to G.L. Washington at Kennedy Field where Tuskegee’s Civilian Pilot Training Program was based. She assumed responsibility for continued operation of the airfield when Washington was transferred to Tuskegee Army Air Field.

Why did we choose these colors?

The Tuskegee Airmen’s planes had red tails, and our colorway is inspired by photos and videos of these planes.

For more information:

NPS website: https://www.nps.gov/tuai/index.htm

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tuskegeeairmennhs/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TuskegeeAirmenNHS/

National Parks 2023: San Juan Island National Historic Park

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club! Find out information about participating shops, Vacay Bingo, the KAL, and more here.

Where is it located?

San Juan Island National Historical Park, also known as American and English Camps, San Juan Island, is a U.S. National Historical Park owned and operated by the National Park Service on San Juan Island in the state of Washington.

Whose land does it reside upon?

For thousands of years, the Northern Straits region has been home to Coast Salish peoples. The temperate climate, rich soil, abundant timber, and the bounty of the sea fostered an advanced civilization that continues to thrive in our region. These resources and the way the Tribes transformed our landscape to be even more abundant is what also attracted Europeans to the islands

When was it established?

1966

About this park:

San Juan Island is well known for its splendid vistas, saltwater shores, quiet woodlands, orca whales and one of the last remaining native prairies in the Puget Sound/Northern Straits region. But it was also here in 1859 that the United States and Great Britain nearly went to war over possession of the island, the crisis ignited by the death of a pig. It was real dumb, especially since both countries were equally colonial, but cooler heads eventually prevailed. We chose this park because the islands are stunning and gorgeous, not necessarily because of the armed forces/colonial aspect of the historic site itself. 

The park website encourages folks to get “beyond the bacon” and delve into other histories of the land, as well as the abundant natural resources and beauty it contains.

Why did we choose these colors?

We used an image of the Lime Kiln Lighthouse at sunset for our colorway inspiration.

For more information:

NPS website: https://www.nps.gov/sajh/index.htm

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sanjuanislandnhp/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SanJuanIslandNHP

National Parks 2023: Ice Age National Scenic Trail 

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club! Find out information about participating shops, Vacay Bingo, the KAL, and more here.

Where is it located?

The Ice Age Trail is a National Scenic Trail stretching 1,200 miles in the state of Wisconsin.

Whose land does it reside upon?

The Menominee, Ojibwe (Chippewa), Potawatomi, and Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) peoples are among the original inhabitants of Wisconsin.

When was it established?

1980

About this park:

15,000 years ago during the Ice Age, much of North America lay under a huge glacier. Mammoths, saber tooth cats and cave lions roamed the earth. Some of the best evidence of this glacier is found in Wisconsin such as the state’s many lakes, river valleys, gently rolling hills, and ridges. The nearly 1,200 mile Ice Age National Scenic Trail, established in 1980, traces the glacier’s edge.

The Ice Age National Scenic Trail is not your ‘typical’ park. The trail is primarily built and maintained by volunteers. When completed, the trail will be more than 1,200 miles long and cross the state of Wisconsin north to south and east to west.

Why did we choose these colors?

We used the stunning photo of an opening in oak trees in the Kettle Moraine State Forest overlooking a kettle lake for our colorway inspiration.

For more information:

NPS website: https://www.nps.gov/iatr/index.htm

Instagram: n/a

Facebook: n/a

National Parks 2023: Gila Cliff Dwellings NM

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It’s time for the annual National Parks Club/KAL!

It’s time for the annual National Parks Club! Find out information about participating shops, Vacay Bingo, the KAL, and more here.

Where is it located?

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument is located on the headwaters of the Gila River in southwest New Mexico.

Whose land does it reside upon / About this park:

For thousands of years, nomadic groups of Indigenous people used the caves above Cliff Dweller Creek as temporary shelter. In the late 1200s, people of the agricultural Mogollon (Southern Ancestral Pueblo) culture made it a home. They built rooms, crafted pottery and raised children in the cliff dwellings for one or two generations. By approximately 1300, the Mogollon had moved on, leaving the walls behind.

Until white colonialism disrupted life all over what is now North America, people from the Apache tribes occasionally entered Cliff Dweller Canyon, but apparently—and for reasons not adequately developed in the anthropological literature—they did not seem inclined to disturb prehistoric pueblo site. That all changed when white folks started to move West, and within a very short period of time, the abandoned dwellings were thoroughly pilfered. Honestly, the only reason the site is as preserved as it is is because of its remoteness.

When was it established?

November 16, 1907

Why did we choose these colors?

Our inspiration for the Gila Cliff Dwellings colorway revolves around the animals that make this place a home, instead of the people that once did. We chose this image of a Photograph of a Black-tailed Rattlesnake taken near the trail to the Cliff Dwellings (https://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery-item.htm?pg=1910553&id=F20DEED8-155D-451F-67796B463DC48DFD&gid=F20DEE78-155D-451F-676515110ABF1623) as our inspiration. 

For more information:

NPS website: https://www.nps.gov/gicl/index.htm

Instagram: n/a

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GilaCliffNPS/