Blogs are back, right?

I have no idea, but I miss mine, so I’m bringing it back. New name (sort of) & domain for the new decade, but the old posts are all still in the archive and searchable, all the way back to 2007. When I started the blog back then, it was meant to accompany my printed zine, do stuff!, and then it evolved into a place to talk about my knitting patterns, and sometimes review books and stuff… and then when I switched careers I wanted it to kind of keep going as what it used to be (just posting stuff I do, basically) but that just kinda never happened.

Around the beginning of this year, I started thinking about it again, wanting to use it again, but different. I’d started dropping the old leethal name sometime last year, switching to LeeDoesStuff (or some variation of that) on social media, and making my knitting pattern store just Knitting Patterns by Lee Meredith instead of leethal knits. So I didn’t want to start blogging on the old “leethal blog” again… I considered maybe starting a substack, but dropped that quickly once I started looking into it… I bought the domain leedoesstuff.com, and then transferred the old blog to the new domain and spent months redesigning it, only to have my server glitch out so badly that I can’t use them anymore. So in the end I wound up signing up for a wordpress.com paid blog, with the new domain, and redesigning it again, and I actually like the new new redesign better than the first redesign anyway, so yay for that. I kept it extremely similar to the old blog, with the very simple one-column style, but now searchability is good, and there’s the new header/footer and archive page, stuff like that. I’m letting my old leethal.net and leethalknits.com domains die and leaving my old server behind. So I now have my leemeredith.com website, which links to everything and includes my graphic design portfolio website, hosted by carrd, my knitting pattern website on payhip, and now this blog on wordpress, with my only two domains (that I’m keeping) being leemeredith.com and leedoesstuff.com. A little online decluttering!

So, what’s this gonna be now? I’m not totally sure, but the reason I’m reviving it is I sometimes hate how fleeting social media is with certain things; I wanted somewhere more permanent to share some stuff. For example, I made a couple of music playlists in 2021-22 that I put SO MUCH time and thought into, and then for each one, I posted them on twitter and instagram, and if people saw them cool, and if not, they were basically gone in a day. So I plan to put those up as blog posts soon now. And other stuff like that, that I want to exist as more than a twitter thread, or whatever.

For this “oh hai I’m back” post I thought about what to post, or what to show, what photos to include, and since it’s been so damn long since I’ve been here, it’s kinda overwhelming. So I decided, let’s stick with today, basically. I started this Sunday morning with a hike in Forest Park, where I wore some pants I recently(ish) sewed, as well as a new bucket hat. We snapped a few photos of those, which I’ll post on instagram at some point, where I still attempt to post every single thing I sew (eventually).

I’m working on sewing some new flannel pants. The fall weather kicked in this weekend and I’m wanting to wear flannel pants at home every day now. I’m using the Luna Pants pattern and a couple of thrifted flannel sheets to make two pairs.

In a short while, I’ll be cooking dinner, which will be like a pasta e fagioli hack with soy chorizo, plus lots of peppers, tomatoes, and kale from my backyard garden. It’ll be kind of a mashup of the Pasta Fazool recipe from the Rancho Gordo beans cookbook and this Off-Script with Sohla Any Green, Any Bean, Any Pasta video/post.

Later tonight, I plan to watch a movie while knitting on my current cardigan project. I’ve been watching a lot of 2023 movies lately so yesterday I started putting together my work-in-progress faves of the year list (on Letterboxd) which I’ll keep adjusting as the year goes on of course. I’ve always been into movies but I’ve been more obsessively into movies since the end of last year, so I’ll for sure be putting some top lists here in the blog at some point.

I thought what I’m up to today was a good little glimpse at the stuff I might talk about here on the blog… cooking, gardening, sewing, knitting, movies… I’ll be trying to keep things useful, like recipes you can try, patterns that I liked using, playlists you can check out, etc. This’ll be a place for things that I want to give a bit more long-lasting life to than the insta grid, so hopefully it’ll be posts worth checking out.

If you got this in your email inbox, it’s because you’re still subscribed to my old leethal knits mailing list. I set up the new blog to go out as emails for anyone who wants that. If you already got it and you want to keep getting it, do nothing; if you want to stop getting it, there should be an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email. If you’re reading this on the blog site and you want posts in your email inbox in the future, there’s a subscribe link at the bottom of the blog.

I honestly don’t know if anyone will be interested in this resurrected little personal project, but let’s give it a shot and see what it becomes! As always, since it started in 2007, there will be no ads or monetization (of the blog itself; my knitting patterns still exist for sale, but all sales are donated now), just me sharing stuff with you. Maybe blogs are indeed having a comeback and you will actually be on the other side reading this. If so, hi! Feel free to comment. So happy to be here with you!