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.

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork.

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn.

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look.

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me.

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round.

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.

Have you read?