SciShow Pulls Segment about Knitting After Complaints

Back in September I told you about knitters complaining about a SciShow episode narrated by Hank Green in which obvious mistakes in terminology and illustration of points were made, not to mention saying “we” don’t really know how knitting works while also calling it simple to knit a sock and saying that most of what we know about knitting has come through the intuition of knitters as well as trial and error.

You can imagine how well that went down with knitters, who mostly tried to be nice but called out the errors and the way this all sounds like the usual no one noticed this was cool until a man started paying attention kind of thing.

While a producer who is also a knitter left a comment on the post after knitters started criticizing it, they also did a deeper review of the episode and have since pulled it from their channel.

In a statement on YouTube attributed to executive producer Nicole Sweeney, the show says the were “certainly not trying to be dismissive of knitting and knitters” with the episode but they understand how it could be interpreted that way.

They said they were “really excited” to share about the physics of knitting but were “overwhelmed” by the response.

Our biggest miss was how some of the language we used in the video fit into a very long history of diminishing the work and innovation of people who have made, and continue to make, textiles. We are really sorry for that. Ultimately, fabric is one of the foundational technologies of human civilization and the reason it is treated as less exciting or important than other technologies is because it has traditionally been the work of women.

Well, they go that right.

The statement goes on to say that they have no plans to rework the video by “have learned a lot from this experience.” (Namely, don’t mess with knitters.) They mention having “tremendous respect” for the legacy of fiber arts and the intensity of the knitting corner of YouTube. Yes, we were here before you and will be here when you’re gone.

All joking aside, I don’t know if the episode needed to be pulled, but the statement shows that they took criticisms seriously and were thoughtful about what to do next. Which is the best we can hope from anyone who does us wrong. The apology seems sincere and we hope they’ve learned an important lesson about contacting experts for fact checking before publishing videos that cover worlds they don’t know anything about.

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn.

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small.

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches.

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come.

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you.

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?).

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry.

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns.

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]

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