Why I Broke Up With Social Media.

Hello, Gentle Folk of the knitting community, and welcome back to The Knitted Wardrobe. 

The doors have been unexpectedly closed for the past few months, but today I would like to gently step back through them with you and explore a softer adventure that is to come. 

As the leaves fall down in the autumn breeze outside, and as my candle gently flickers on my writing desk, I find myself relaxed and happy to be here with you again. I have missed you; missed our Saturdays together over hot cups of coffee and warm cinnamon rolls. Seasons have  passed since our last meeting, and so today I wanted to share with you what happened, as I write about why I have broken up with social media and how my creative life has changed for the better.

The ‘Enough’ Moment.

In the late spring I was standing in my bedroom reading a comment from a post about my lovely cat, Finchley, who had only passed away a few weeks before. Someone was asking why I just didn’t get another cat to get over him, and my reaction was physical as I hurled my phone across the room. (I can now highly recommend Castify phone and screen protectors.)

The message came at a time when I was getting really fed up with the ‘knit-fluencer’ craze, the incoming of A.I generated slop on Instagram, and one comment too many on my personal style of knitting. I had also started to get emails from companies in Australia wanting to connect with me so that I could promote their products; they clearly hadn’t read a thing I had ever written about sustainable British wool. I realised that my teeny-tiny Instagram page was growing shackles. I was constantly getting unwanted opinions about my yarn choices, my design choices, my lifestyle choices, and my political choices, even the way I drank my coffee. It all just got to me over the spring-time.

Then I fully cracked when someone from America said I was culturally misappropriating the game of cricket with a new cardigan I was designing based off my Dad’s old sweater that my Nan had knitted him. He loved cricket. I loved him. I just wanted to knit a hug that reminded me of him. That was my ‘Enough’ moment.

 ‘Enough! Enough of this never ending cycle of pressure to create in an arena that is no longer kind. Enough of the algorithms. Enough of the wasted time. Enough. I want my life back.’

At this point in the blog, I do want to acknowledge the absolutely adorable humans I have met through social media, and their friendships have been life changing. Sadly, the passive aggressive negativity just wasn't worth it on the platforms any more, so I switched to private group chats on What's App instead to stay connected.

Over the past year I had noticed a few things that I didn’t like about how social media had seeped into my life, and for simplicity's sake, I am going to just stick to three reasons here to set the theme that we will no doubt go back to over the coming months. 

I missed my brain. 

I was always the person with a handbag big enough to fit a hardback in. I was never without a book to read. I read at bus stops, in trains, in coffee shops, at other people’s houses (reading with friends at the weekend is just one of the best ways to share time), and just about everywhere else. When I wasn’t reading, I was writing, or sewing, or knitting. I enjoyed it all. 

My creative habits rolled with the seasons. Writing and knitting found me in the autumn and winter, whereas sewing and reading were spring and summer’s charm. The Knitted Wardrobe flowed from all these passions, and it didn’t need artificial interpretation. 

When I started The Knitted Wardrobe I did what everyone thinks is the best idea when starting a new creative endeavour that is to be published; I went on Instagram and started the page. For a good while, I absolutely loved it. But it came at a price, and I decided that the price was too high as it took my brain away. 

By the end of 2024 I found that I couldn’t knit for more than a few minutes without picking up my phone, and my reading had gone down from four or five books a month to just shy of one. I got fidgety when I listened to audiobooks, and my deep thinking skills were rusted over and creaky. This, I knew, was not who I normally was and the only thing that had changed was my phone usage and screen time. 

To regain my writing skills, my love for reading, and rediscover my passion for sewing a project over days has taken a few months, but it has been completely worth it. The first six weeks were as freeing as when I went sober 3 ½ years ago. My brain was doing cartwheels of joy, and I had to tell everyone I met how incredible this thing called ‘sleep’ was. I was getting a straight nine hours of rest each night, and that is now my norm. My body and mind feel so much healthier, and I can sit for an hour in a sauna and feel as if only five minutes have gone by. I have not felt this mentally and physically connected in years… years! 

And the best bit is that I now not only read each day, but I am also writing every day as well. I look forward to stretching my brain as much as my body, and I have found that my conversations with people are deeper and much more meaningful because of it.

I wanted my style back.

I make my own clothes because I want to feel comfortable. I have always liked my body and I get on very well with it, and I like clothing my body in ways that are easy for me to wear. I make them in the colours that I like at the time and in fabrics that don’t cost the planet, our farmers, or the future generations. I can throw my clothing away (which happens very rarely), in the knowledge that it will be soil in a couple of months time. 

These are my choices, and I stand by them. 

An overwhelming number of people online wanted to tell me 'politely' why I was wrong for choosing linen or wool as not everyone could afford them, or that I wasn’t size inclusive enough… too white… too small… too middle class… too English… Ugh. Enough. I can feel my shoulders rise up as I type it out and remember the comments. 

Getting back to making clothes that I like, and not too many of them, is my way of life. I decided that I needed to get back to enjoying the whole process in its own slow, sweet way again and get rid of the clutter around them. 

We are worth more than a bot. 

A.I and I are never going to get along. 

With data centres that we cannot afford for our planet, that are being built with the sole intention of stealing our data so that we can be controlled by corporations who do not give a flying f**k about our environment, privacy, freedom, or psychosomatic health, meant that I decided that the best thing I could do was disengage as much as I could. I am passionately against the use of A.I for so many reasons, but the short version is that what every human-being creates is worth more than the A.I craziness. I do not for one second believe that it is worth what it is stealing from humanity right now.

The true cost of A.I cannot be underestimated, and I believe we are walking in with our eyes sewn shut. A figure skater with a cat on her head is not worth the inhumane wrecking of the planet for rare earth materials. It’s not funny. It is appalling. 

Put it this way, if we are knitting with sustainable wool from sheep we know the name of, for example Agatha from Anton’s flock at The Raw Wool Company, or from Helen's sheep at Nellie and Eve, and say that that is the right way to protect our earth, we have to be responsible for the other decisions we make along the way. 

(If you would like to save yourself an hour and your ear drums, don’t get me started on the hypocrisy of knitters buying patterns from A.I “creatives”. If you think my views on fast fashion are a bit ‘hard line’ (as one commenter told me), you haven’t heard anything yet!)

Why is The Knitted Wardrobe still ‘up’ on Instagram?

This is really simple. I need to be able to log in for work to grab links for my clients who I write for. I can only get on to the platform though my desktop, and I used it for 7 minutes in September to make sure a referral link for a blog I was writing was accurate. If I could write for my clients without it, I would delete it in a heartbeat! 

Reconfiguring The Wardrobe Doors

The result of the past four or five months has been to embrace the multi-creative being that I am. From making beeswax candles for Thanksgiving, making holiday cards at the dining room table, reading books in front of the fire, and writing before the sunrises in my pj’s, my life is a mixture of all these things and more.

I have missed sharing some of these with you, and I think that the right balance for me is to find a way of writing about them that is sustainable, with blogs and newsletters being the main contenders. There are some fun projects scheduled for next year with other creative folk as I have realised how much I love working in a team rather than on my own, and I would love to share some of that with you as well. 

Life is more than knitting, and I want to embrace it all, share some of it with you, and publish with a little more ease. 

The Knitted Wardrobe will therefore no longer be fixed to just knitting, and there may even be a name change to reflect that (do comment below if you have an idea!). There are some behind-the-keyboard things going on as well, such as web domains and such that may change, but I will let you know about them if or when they happen. 

It has been so lovely to sit here and write to you today. Thank you for still being here; the place where it matters the most, and I look forward to connecting with you again in the near future. 

May your frogging be rare and your needles always bring you joy. 

Love, 

Jenny xx