I was worried that this swatching pun would be a common blog post title, but I just googled it and I didn’t find anything. Eve: 1, Ylogosphere: 0.

I’m working on a gauge swatch for my Spectator Grand. Just a few more rows and I’ll be casting off and pressing, yay! I feel like such a slow knitter, but it’s only slow going because I have a kabillion web projects on the go. Soon I will cast on the REAL THING!

In the mean time, here is a picture of a cat knitting.

The picture is funniest if you say “I’ve caught the knitting craze” in a baritone English accent.

I’ve seen lots of progress bars on various knitting blogs, and I’ve always really wanted one. I didn’t really like any of the ones I found on the net, so I decided to make my own. They’re dynamically-generated [[PNG]] files. I’ve never used [[PHP]] to generate images before, so it was really cool to learn how to do it. I introduced a neat little colour scale, too; it goes from purple to green to orange to pink! * Girl power! *

I’m planning on offering this as a WordPress plugin to any other knitters who want to include it on their blog. There’ll be a Dashboard interface where you can input your WIPs and edit their percentage finished, and maybe some other features once I think about it more.

If you’d like to have this on your blog, leave me a comment or send me an email and I’ll hack something together quickly. The more responses I get, the bigger the push will be to get this plugin finished!

Those sex-crazed Scandinavians are at it again.

“Looped linings can also be knitted in using a ‘John Thomas,’ a short, thick length of dowelling, round which the yarn is wound at every stitch.”

From Traditional Scandinavian Knitting by Sheila McGregor (ISBN: 0486433005).

The looped linings are (of course) to provide more insulation against the cold Scandinavian winters. The amusement I get from reading about the tool they use to make that insulation: that’s just a fortunate byproduct.

I’ve spent the past few days trying to figure out what kind of a knitting blogger I want to be. I’ve been exploring the knitblog scene for a while now, and I think I’ve learned a few things about what it takes to be a good ylogger. (That’s short for “yarn blogger.” I’m trying to coin a phrase.)

The interesting part is that success in knitbloggery isn’t dependent on the same things that decide success for a regular blog. People don’t go around saying “knit bloggers like reading about knit blogging,” as they do for the regular blogosphere. The great thing about knit blogging is that the most successful folks are the people who actually have talent and engage in the things they’re talking about, rather than just writing about them. I think that’s why I’ve been so enamored with the ylog scene these past few months.

Read the rest »

To all those who are viewing my site in Internet Explorer, I apologize. The site isn’t displaying perfectly in IE yet, but I’ll be working on solving that today. I’ll also be taking pictures of my One Skein Wonder, which I finished a few days ago and which I’ll be blocking this afternoon. Stay Tuned!

I’ll be playing around with the site over the next few days, so bear with me. It’ll look great soon, I promise!

My goal is to become part of the thriving knitblog scene. I’ve finally taken my first step with a brand new, fully dedicated blog. But how will I break into the coveted inner circle? Maybe I need to make friends with Cosmicpluto (she lives in Toronto!) and then she can fantastically introduce me to the WORLD OF YARN-LOGGING. This appears to be the best option, because I hear this Eunny girl is a real jerk.* (If I don’t make friends with Cosmicpluto, I plan to start a knitting blogtroversy and become infamous.) That goes double for you, Grumperina. You and your fantastically stylish hat and socks. Grr.

To become popular, I think I’ll need some sort of gimmick. Anyone can start a yarn blog, but it takes real internet muscle to get to the top of the ylog charts. I can’t do a podcast anymore because of this new Guido fellow, so I’ll have to go with something more drastic. My ideas are as follows:

• Needle Exchange: I blog about the ravages of knitting addiction. Every once in a while I relapse, to make things interesting. This is when I get the most comments, and also when people find my site by googling “Knit One, Methadone Forever.”
• Cast On 24 (26, 28): Every week, you can watch me live out an hour of knitting IN REAL TIME. That’s 24 hours (16 hours + commercials) of pure knitting. My name is Eve, and this is the longest pattern repeat of my life.
• Skein & Bones: Based on archeological evidence, I theorize about whether the Dinosaurs knitted continental or English style.
• At The Purls: A political blog where I discuss the stances of popular political figures on the latest important knitting issues. (Fear not, I’d be intartial.)
• Blanket Statements: I make sweeping generalizations about afghans.
• 10 Rows to the Head and Neck: I blog from prison.
• K2, P2, U2: I follow Bono across Africa and knit toys out of objects close at hand (e.g. strips of fabric, grass, lions). Then, much like Bono, I go on television telling people to donate money to the cause, after which I go home to bathe in liquid gold and powdered bear teeth in my mansion.
• Stash of the Champions: I face off two kinds of yarn against each other each week, with sassy commentary and reader input. All the sex and gory bits are censored out so I can get a PG rating.
• Fingering Weight: I blog about fad knitting diets (net carbs = knits – purls, frogging burns calories) and shill weightloss drugs through Google Ads.
• Purl Harbour: I blog about the latest designs from Japan.
• Kirkuk Knits! I blog about knitting from Iraq, where I am working for a project I call Operation Enduring Cardigan.

* Of course I’m kidding. That girl could charm the pants off a zebra.

I finally figured out how to photograph red (sort of)! The trick is to add a green photographic filter. Neat!

I know I should be working on the Spectator Grand, but this was calling out to me. The need for a shrug to round out my dress was too much. I swatched it last night and I’m knitting it on 4.5mm instead of 5mm needles because cotton stretches a bit. Hopefully it’ll work out, this will be a yarn test for the real thing!

I bought a set of 3.75mm needles less than a week ago to knit my Spectator Grand hat for The Amazing Lace, and I’ve already lost them! Eek! I blame congress, rising gas prices and to a lesser degree the messiness of my room.

I managed to pull out my 5mm needles (the next-smallest size I have, as my 4.25mms are occupied with a secret project) and practice a few stitches. No time to upload a photo, as I desperately need to get some work done this evening.

… Right after dinner.

EDIT, 10:27PM: Oh dear. I saw this image of Orangina and it just looks so glamorous that now I want to knit it. It’s all, “please, no paparazzi, I am too busy with my car remote to put on an undershirt.” I didn’t really like it before because I don’t do well with boat necks, but maybe I can adjust it according to my preferences.

I can’t resist blogging about a new Google Tool without discovering its applications to knitting. I did a Google Trends comparison between knitting and crochet and came across some really interesting things.

First of all, check out the sinusoidal activity. (That means “waves,” for lay-knitters.) There’s a much higher search volume in the winter than the summer, and it’s a lot more pronounced for knitting than it is for crochet. That’s probably because crochet has more year-round applications, whereas knitting tends to see a decrease in the summer months. More people need to knit with cotton! And maybe a little nylon to make it stretch. (This means you, Bernat!) There might also be an increase in interest for knitting because everyone’s cooped up inside for the winter and you can only watch The Notebook so many times.

The biggest news boom looks like it was in the beginning of 2005, when the papers suddenly discovered that ovaries aren’t required for the needle arts. The most interested regions are commonwealth countries (aside from the United States, Germany and Ireland, which left in 1949). The country most interested in crochet (aside from the US) is France. The UK has little interest in crochet because, of course, they don’t like the French.

Conclusions: the best time for blogging is during the Winter, in English, about knitting. Logically, the best time to post knitting or crochet patterns is during the last half of the year, when people are planning their upcoming winter projects.

I wish we could see more into the past and check out the rise in knitting/crochet popularity over the past few years.

I came across a really neat dyeing process at Fiber Fool. Wrap it into a ball, stick it in dye (specifically Wilton’s icing dye, as it breaks up into cool colours) and let it soak. The yarn on the outside gets dyed more than the inside (because it takes a while to creep in), creating a speckled gradient. The yarn in question was used to knit a pair of Swamp socks.

I think I’m going to try dying my own yarn at some point this summer. Back in first year I would never have imagined that at some point I would be knitting lace and dyeing yarn. But anything’s possible through the wonder of internet tutorials:

• Eunny’s self-striping yarn tutorial
• Ditto from Streets & YO’s
• Dyeing with Kool-Aid
• Knitty’s Kool-Aid tutorial

There’s also a great article at The Daily Knitter about hand exercises. I sure could have used those a week ago when I was crocheting. My hands are still aching.