About a week ago I posted about my finished Tegna sweater, with the sentiment that I was pretty disappointed in the designer for blocking BIPOC women for no reason on Instagram. She has since issued a seemingly sincere apology, which is a great start. I think the jury is still out about whether she will change her practices in the future by supporting BIPOC women and following through with things like moderating racist comments.
In the meantime, about a week before that post came out I was working on one more of her designs, the ubiquitously popular Soldotna Crop. I was already a good chunk of the way into this pattern, but hadn’t posted about it. I did not want to rip it, but wanted to wait and see how she responded with more time. I don’t really feel like it’s my place to decide how well she supports BIPOC women going forward, but I thought it was important to be mindful of her responses since she has such a large audience and her voice carries. We shall see. 
For now, I’m still working on this Soldotna. The yarns are all Knerd String fingering weight except for the white one. I’m not actually sure what kind of leftover fingering weight yarn that one is. The Knerd String colors are Turquawesome (the darker teal), Julep (the mint one) and Fired Up (pinkish red). The pattern is well written with some seriously addictive Fair Isle parts. My only wish would be for more detailed schematics. The yoke depth is left out and that’s an important piece to me. As I discussed in this post right before I started this baby, I am altering the gauge, and that’s a piece of info that helps make sure I get the fit I want. I opted to use fingering weight yarn rather than DK to make this more of a multi-season piece.
I have separated the sleeves and have just barely begun the body. I will probably make it a couple of inches longer than specified. This is a cute pattern and I really hope Caitlin Hunter (the designer) continues to do the self-work to be supportive of BIPOC women. It’s something I’m placing in the forefront of decisions about which designers and dyers I am supporting going forward.
I had 7 of Caitlyn Hunter’s designs in my Ravelry queue but I deleted all of them because usually when someone does something like that and then apologizes, the reason is because it suddenly dawned on them that their racism would cost them business rather than because they are sincerely trying to change their attitudes about their own racism. I can do without the knitting patterns and without the racism. She will have to do without my money.
I definitely get that. I do believe people deserve a second chance, but she definitely has to back it up with actions.
Your sweater is gorgeous! And your point well made about second chances. But I am holding out on tegna until I see how things go.
It’s looking great!
I am looking forward to making my own Soldotna after I make more of a dent in my knitting queue. I have a plan in mind to use a bunch of handspun that is lurking in my stash along with some alpaca that I still need to spin… it might be awhile. I just love yours!!
Sorry, for non-native-english-speakers: What exactly means “BIPOC”?
No problem. It’s an abbreviation meaning “black and indigenous persons of color.”