[I’m hijacking Jillian’s Spinning Tuesday for a time-sensitive post. She’ll return next week!]
…And I had come home from another day of proofreading stuff like this.
At my day job, there was also fun stuff to proofread, but the majority of it was this kind of brain-suckingly boring bank stuff. I had been doing this kind of work for almost 20 years. And so during the dull summer of 2002, I began dreaming of a way to escape proofreading…to become a copy editor.
At the same time, knitting blogs were few, and just starting to get interesting, and I had found tons of patterns being given away for free by their designers on blogs all over the place, held together by the most delicate of things: a blogring. Which often didn’t work. RSS was in its infancy, and we didn’t know how to keep in touch with each other without having links to our friends’ blogs on our blogs.
It hit me, sometime in the afternoon of June 19th, 2002, that I could actually start my own magazine, and thereby bypass the annoying process of applying for a job and getting hired by someone else. And wouldn’t this be good for my resume? Most importantly, after 20 years of proofreading things on paper, dealing with the stress created by the smallest typo I might miss after whatever-it-was had gone to print, my magazine had to be hosted online.
So after work that day, I was sitting on the couch with my little white iBook on my lap, and said, “I want to start an online knitting magazine. What should I call it?” Almost instantly, he said, “Knitty”. I looked it up, and no one had taken the Knitty.com URL. And so I did.
And that night, this appeared on what soon became the KnittyBlog:
I still love that blog template…I designed it myself. Note the list of other knitblogs on the right.
Not sure what I thought being “the polar opposite of Vogue Knitting” meant, but hey, I was young and didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I also wrote “young and funky” in a non-ironic sense, so perhaps one could just chalk it up to noob enthusiasm and let it go. Note the mention of my new camera with accompanying bloggy hysteria. My first digital. This was a big deal 10 years ago, when most of us still used film in our cameras. Don’t you feel old now? Anyway, I digress…
We’ll be recounting Knitty’s history on the blog, and starting with the Deep Fall issue, which goes live in September, you can expect a lot of celebratory Knitty-based fun for the next 12 months. Exactly what, you’ll have to wait and see. But we’re excited, and we hope you are, too. 10 years is a pretty huge milestone, and we’re going to celebrate the heck out of it!
I’ll see you back here on Thursday, when I get to introduce you to our brand-new 10th Anniversary Logo!
Congrats!!! What a wonderfully fun ten years it’s been, too. Here’s to another adventures-in-knitting-filled decade!
Amy, it’s a big day! Congratulations my friend!
Super excited! Don’t know what is coming, but Hey! It’s Knitty! It’s going to be super and super fun!
Thanks for the past ten years, and here’s to the next.
Congrats on 10 awesome years! I’ve knit many patterns from Knitty.com and have a few more lined up in my queue. Cheers!
I have to tell you: I ALWAYS expect/have lots of Knitty-related fun!
Congratulations on the anniversary – it’s been quite a ride!
Congratulations!!! And many, many thanks for making your wonderful idea come to life!
Congrats on a wonderful 10 years. And, here’s to many more. Love the mag.
Knitty has always been such a source of inspiration for me. I look forward to every issue!!
And you’re still “young and funky.” Hard to believe it’s been ten years!
Oh a decade ago….I had had my first blog for over four years by that point (and it has now been shut down completely in favor of my newer one).
And a digital camera. I was still using film at that point but a digital camera came soon after 🙂
Congratulations! I have loved Knitty for 10 years. Thank you so much for what you have created! And here’s to another decade!
I’m curious, though. What is “the book that caused all the hoopla”?
Congrats & best of luck in the next ten years!
We will be forever grateful for Knitty.com!!
Congrats on 10 terrific years!
Congratulations on 10 years!! I have only been reading your blog for about 2 years!! Thanks for the work that you put into this blog and Knitty online magazine. Here’s to 10+more years to come.
Amy, I have been following knitty for about 5 years steady. Many thanks for sharing your passion with us and for constantly making it fresh. You are very much appreciated.
Happy 10th Anniversary! You’ve made a huge impact on my knitting life. Thank you for your vision.
Congratulations on 10 wonderful years, and wishing you many many more than that to come.
I’ve not been knitting 10 years but I often knit patterns from current and previous knitty issues. What a great idea and such a successful implementation. Thank you!
Thanks for making Knitty for all of us. And what was that book that caused all the hoopla? Stitch and Bitch?
I don’t know a knitter out there that hasn’t knit something from knitty, or was helped by an article, etc. Knitty.com definitely helped me become a better knitter, and exposed me to the world of brave new knitting patterns! Thank you Amy!!
Congratulations on 10 wonderful years!! Can’t wait to see the new logo and what you have in store for the next 12 months 🙂 Here’s to many more awesome year of Knitty!
Happy Anniversary!
Happy anniversary Knitty! It’s been a great 10 years!
10 fantastic years! May there be many more. I understand the desire to be the opposite of Vogue. You have real patterns for real people living real lives that are actually knittable as written. That has real appeal (go figure).
Penblwydd Hapus, Knitty! And thank you for being there through all the ups and downs of the last ten years, giving me a virtual knitting place to retreat to xx
Ten years – blimey! Knitty is awesome – I’ve met some of my best friends because of Knitty – so a big thank you Amy.
Congratulations Amy. You have achieved something really wonderful for all of us in knit-land. Thank you.
Happy anniversary! Big congratulations and just wow, really! You should be so very proud of yourself and your team, for getting out there and creating an awesome magazine, keeping it going for so long (and it just seems to evolve and get better all the time), and for just how much you’ve brought to so many people. Here’s to Knitty.com!
Can I thank you? Over and over and over again? I love Knitty and the patterns. Congratulations on 10 years!
Happy birthday, wow! I need to know the name of TBTCATH (The Book That Caused All The Hoopla).
COngrats, because I love Knitty. Every new Knitty is always kind of feast for me! Thank you very much for making my days – literally – nicer:-)
That’s just wonderful! Happy Ten!!
This made me cryyyyy!!!!! thank goodness for your smarts, chutzpah, guts, smarts, gangbusters and all the other great words.
Knitty is one of the greatest “inventions”, past i-this or that.
Thank you………….
OH!!! and I remember when it came out! was so curious…. yeehaaa….again, thank you and that time certainly FLEW!
Congratulations! The genius behind the inception of Knitty and subsequent 10 years is an amazing accomplishment. I know I am not alone in feeling enormously grateful for your creation.
Thanks and again, Mazel Tov
And with it, Amy, you changed my life and a lot of other people’s, too. Thank you.
Happy Birthday, Knitty!! This magazine is brilliant! I can’t wait to see what goodies you’ve got planned to celebrate 10 years. Congratulations!
Happy Birthday Knitty. I really love your magazine and am so excited when each new issue comes out. I always find something interesting to knit and love reading the small bios of the designers at the bottom. Thank you so much for taking the jump 10 years ago.
Congrats, Amy, and Happy Birthday Knitty! What an awesome accomplishment!!! We love you!
Happy Birthday Knitty! You are a knitting treasure trove and we all love you 🙂
Wow, can’t believe its been 10 years. Congrats on a job well done!
Happy Birthday/Anniversary and heres to the next 10 x
Happy Knitty-versary! And thanks – I’m not only a better knitter because of Knitty, but a wilder and crazier one, too. (Maybe I mean bolder and braver… probably all those things.)
WOW…as ‘they’ say…”Time flies when you’re having fun!”
One of my fave memories – is the post where you talked about being contacted by “Libraries & Archives Canada”…which caused you much trepidation, until you learned that they only wanted to catalogue KNITTY for the LAC-BAC Catalogue. [Yes, this is a “librarian nerd” moment, here…!]
May there be many, MANY more anniversaries for KNITTY – it’s always delightful, interesting and an education.
All best wishes for the future! Keep Calm and Knit ON!!!
Happy anniversary! I love knitty.com very much and am very clad you took the leap and did it. Thank you for the wonderful patterns, reviews, tech articals and just plain fun.
Congrats on your first awesome decade, Knitty! Loads of grateful thanks to all the wonderful people who put it together – providing us with 10 years of amazing patterns, articles and inspiration! 😀 Wishing you several more decades of yarny goodness and joyous prosperity! XXXooo
Congratulations! I love Knitty!
And it is so great how many other folks have had great ideas germinated by yours!
Looking forward to more Knitty!
Congratulations! Knitty has been such a core source of inspiration as I’ve learned to knit… from my first Sox On 2 Stix back in 2006 (my first-ever knitted socks) to this issue’s piquant Norma blanket I’ve added to my queue. New-Knitty day is still such a thrill, and I hope we’ll still keep pouncing your servers for years and years to come!
Congratulations! You’re clearly doing something really, really right in my book…your site is the first place I go when looking for a pattern.
Happy anniversary Amy – I’m so glad you began what you did. Hooray for Knitty!!
Congrats – the trouble getting onto your site whenever a new Knitty comes up shows how loved it is. Thanks. And thanks for introducing me to so many designers and writers. (I have knit a number of patterns, and read the features, and often reread them)
Woo-hoo! Congratulations and thank you! I feel that you took the best of having a knitting community and expanded it to be easily accessible online. Cheers to past accomplishments and whatever the future holds!
Happy birthday! I’m so glad that Knitty exists.
Happy birthday, Knitty! And thank-you, thank-you, thank-you för all the work which has gone into making Knitty the wonderful resource that it is.
Congratulations and thank you!
So exciting!!!! I can’t believe it’s really been ten years! Congratulations!!!! (Have now used up yearly quota of exclamation points. But it was worth it).
Happy birthday, Knitty! If not for Knitty (and AMY!) I would not be doing what I am doing today, and I am equal parts grateful, joyous and jumping up and down excited about that.
All my love from…
Shannon
(as first appeared in the 2nd Knitty, winter ’02)
http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter02/FEATfiberfest.html
Happy birthday and congratulations. I read both the blog and the magazine regularly, although I’m not much of a comments person. Many of my favorite knits are from Knitty. Thanks for thinking it up, keeping it going, and doing such a great job!
I first discovered Knitty with the Sally the Eco Fairy pattern. I was so excited to find such a fun toy pattern to make for my niece, and absolutely amazed it was free. Ever since I’ve been a fan of your site and eagerly await each issue. Thanks for all the hard work you do and Happy 10th!!
Happy Birthday!
Can’t imagine a knitting world without Knitty!
I discovered Knitty shortly after I learned to knit, and have been thrilled and excited with every issue. Always something new and exciting to learn, and such smart and talented people willing to teach and share. I’m so grateful for the work that all of you do, and am glad to be part of what you do!
Happy birthday Knitty! Your site has inspired me and countless other knitters to greatness. Thank you, and here’s to another ten years. 🙂
So thankful Visa terms and conditions weren’t fascinating to you! A lot of people owe their livelihoods to your boredom! Thanks for Knitty!!! (And, yes, I have actually knit other things from Knitty that you didn’t design since my apparent stalking of you at the first Sock Summit!) 😉
I remember that first post! Has it really been ten years?? That happened fast, but wow! I know you are so very proud of what your idea has grown into.
Congratulations! It’s a wonderful magazine. Where would we all be without Clapotis?
Congratulations!! and thanks for all your hard work over the years!
10 years! Gosh, time has flown… Happy Birthday, Bonne Fête à KNitty!
Congratulations on Ten Years of Amazing.
Happy, Happy Birthday!!! You have changed the knitting world forever and my world as well. So glad for you! Here is to a hundred years more!!!
Wow-ten years! But then, a big part of me says, only ten years? It feels like Knitty and especially the Knittyboard has been part of my life forever! Thanks for the great community, and I’m thrilled to discover that Knitty shares a birthday with my mom!
Knitty was my intruduction to knitting beyond the garter stitch scarf, and it really fuelled my budding obsession with knitting.
Tridactyl and Spirogyra were among my first Truly Awesome knitted projects back in 2009, and I still wear them!
♥
Happy Birthday Knitty and thank you Amy for having the vision and the courage to start this wonderful adventure.
9 years ago, I was a newbie knitter, and I stumbled across Knitty. I was shocked and thrilled that it was relatively local, really reliable, and held super neat patterns I could actually follow. Now I teach knitting, and send my newbie knitters to you. Thank you for being absosmurfly amazing, and fundamentally fluffy.
I love your magazine and your blog. Here’s to another 10!
That is an awesome milestone, and I bet a million people told you it couldn’t be done. But you did it anyway! You go, girl! Congrats!
love, Love, LOve, LOVe, LOVE Knitty. You inspired me, encouraged me, challenged me, and made me happy. You rock! Happy Anniversary, dudettes.
Thank God for Knitty! Thanks for 10 years of awesome patterns and fascinating reading. It is really appreciated. I knitted long before the internet was the internet. I remember text-based web browsers in 1996. But now I am part of a world wide fiber arts COMMUNITY. Knitty is definitely part of that!
Knitty. I recommend your site to all of my students, it’s the first search I make when looking for a cool new pattern, and you give me inspiration as I learn and grow as a teacher and designer. Thank you so much for all you’ve done. Happiest of birthdays!
Long live knitty.com
Happy 10th Anniversary! I am so glad you started this magazine and continue to feed our happy addictions!
Thank you!
Awesome! Congratulations! I love Knitty — the blog and magazine and it seems like the majority of the things I knit come from Knitty. Thanks so much for the blog and this wonderful magazine — you guys do a great job!
Hoorah! Happy Birthday Knitty.
Amy (and team), thank you for all of your awesomeness over the past 10 years. Here’s to many more.
Happy 10 years and hopes for at least another 10!
Happy Anniversary! I’ve loved Knitty since I discovered it, lo these many years ago, and enjoy making patterns from it or just browsing through it. My Rav queue is full of potential projects from Knitty. Thanks for the wonderful idea you had and thanks for keeping it up!
Congratulations on 10 years of Knitty! And yes, it is a worthy and needed alternative voice to Vogue Knitting and the other wood-pulp or vaporous-in-the-cloud publications!
Knitty wouldn’t have started without one bored proofreader (Yay, Amy!) and the “help” of a few wascawwy wabbits. Speaking of which, how aww those wascawwy wabbits? (Elmer adds: “No, it’s not wabbit season; it’s duck season. . .I think. Maybe it’s wainbow twout season. I’d bettuh go check. . .wouldn’t want to get Mistuh Wanguw upset at me.”)
Congratulations! I’d like to tell you all that knitty has done for me over the last five or six years that I’ve been knitting, but I’d run out of space long before I ran out of words. I’ll just leave it at Thanks a million and many happy returns.
Congratulations and happy b’day to your mag!
Happy anniversary! You’ve made such an amazing addition to the knitting world, and among the people I know at least, a household name. Congratulations!
Congratulations, happy anniversary, and thank you!!!
Happy Anniversary. And wow! You took a chance on something you loved and ten years later, look at the success. I wish I had the nerve to do something like that.
I adore knitty and today’s blog entry is so fun! I am really enjoying your photo entries and photos and advice. I have a good camera, but I don’t do very good photos. You’ve inspired me to be more serious about my shots of knitting and everything else.
BTW Cookie A’s Monkey Socks from 2008(?) knitty were the first socks I ever made.
Thanks for all the great stuff and HAPPY 10TH ANNIVERSARY!!!
10 years, already?
I love Knitty, I’ve knit so many patterns from it. It’s the first place I refer people to when they tell me they’re looking for knitting patterns.
Amy, thank you so much for your dedication to the magazine – and your fans 🙂
Woo-hoo! Happy Birthday! I may not have realized it in the past, but Knitty has shepherded me through many techniques and skill sets (hard to say no when the new designs are up and you absolutely must make something). Even when I use a search engine to find new patterns or tutorials, Knitty pops up in the forefront.
And after learning how to spin…so much appreciation for Knittyspin. And your blog posts.
Thanks so much for being around and being a part of our knitting lives!
Happy Birthday, Knitty!
And I never knew, that the birthday of knitty is the same as mine… so I’ll never forget from now on. 🙂
Congratulations, all of you. Amy, you are a very inspiring person to know.