For so long, I’ve longed to (comically? ironically?) wear a piece of [[Elegant Gothic Lolita]] fashion. Just now, I was looking through the catalogue for Baby, the Stars Shine Bright and I happened across their Knit section. And then I had a Brainwave: why not knit myself something?

I don’t think I have the design understanding yet to come up with something so intricate, but I may be able to figure out something small. The larger items I am leaving up to the rest of the knit blogging world. To whomever designs an Elegant Gothic Lolita-styled garment to knit: I will post a link to you every single day for the next 3+ years, because I will spend at least three years knitting your pattern over and over and over until I have it in every colour of the rainbow. I will wear my Elegant Gothic Lolita knits until they are in tatters, and then I will knit new ones again.

This is no idle promise. You underestimate how much I love how crazy Japan is.

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This is part one of a Choose Your Own Adventure series for the Amazing Lace KAL.

We’ve been on the train for 5 hours, our knitting needles click-clacking as the train shifts back and forth on its metal haunches. A yawn escapes from my mouth. Another row of garter stitch. I glance over to see how you’re doing; faster than I. Harumph.

A man with a dark hat and small, round glasses enters our car. “Excuse me. Are you ze famous Eva Katamari, international spice merchant… and illegal yarns dealer?” He lets his voice lower with those last four words. I glance about to ensure noone heard him.

“You’re looking in the wrong place, stranger. I sell mercerized cotton. Nothing illegal about that.”

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UPDATE: there is a new WordPress plugin available that allows you to manage your projects and displays these progress bars in your sidebar.

All of the responses that I’ve gotten on my progress bars have been from blogspot bloggers, so for now I’ll be putting off making a WordPress plugin out of it and simply offering it as a bit of php code. If you don’t have a place to host the php file, you can get free hosting from Ning, which you may recognize as the site that hosts Cute Overload‘s voting system. (If you come across a cute little caramel bunny, vote for it above all others! It’s one of my submissions. Represent.)

Download!

To use the bars:

1. Download and unzip the progress.zip file.
2. Upload the “progress” folder to wherever you’ll be hosting it.
3. To display the image, use the following code:
   <img title="25% Progress" src="your_host.com/progress/progress.php?percent=25" />
   Replace the 25 with whichever number you wish and replace your_host.com with your host path.
4. If you have any questions, just ask! I’d be delighted to help.

If you want to provide a link to this post below your bars so other folks can use them as well, I’d appreciate it. Just copy and paste this code:

<a href="http://needles.guzzlingcakes.com/progress-bars/" title="Get these progress bars!">Get these progress bars!</a>

I guess that should be “of which to be afraid” or something but really, that’s stupid.

I really should be knitting because I’m on a roll and making good time, but I’m just so excited I had to share! If I weren’t a grammar fiend, I would use multiple exclamation marks!

Otherwise, I wouldn’t have nearly as many hair-taming devices to stand in place of lost knitting equipment.

Stitch markers: mini hair ties
Cable needle: bobby pins
Needles: well, still needles.

And no, I’m not knitting with human hair.

Although… I have had success dying it…

I’ve tried so hard every day to start this Spectator Grand, but there’s always been something to get in my way, I’ve lost needles, found them again, gotten vastly improper gauges, lost stitch markers, switched yarns, changed needles again, forgotten waste yarn for a provisional cast on at home, lost needles again, etc etc etc. And now I’ve attempted it finally with 3mm needles (but without stitch markers). And now I’m only on my third row and already I’ve dropped a stitch. I don’t know where!

It’s times like this when I turn to the knit blogger community for comfort. Fortunately, there’s always someone out there who’s having a vaguely similar experience. I will not let this lace break me. I know where the problem is, I just have to walk through and correct it. I REFUSE TO FROG! Much.

I’ve made the World Cup Soccer Ball pattern into a pdf. Get it here! The PDF also contains various colour schemes for each of the countries partaking, as well as Canada.

What’s this?

I’ve just created a frappr map to locate the world’s knitbloggers! I’m curious to see where most of us are. I’m also hoping there are lots in Canada! I’m feelin’ kinda lonely up here

As many other knit bloggers have noticed, it seems like there’s been a lag in knitting and knit blogging recently. Many of us have fallen back on memes to keep our posting steady. Hopefully this can be another meme that people will take part in for the greater good. If this gets big, people can use this to organize get togethers (check out the map, find everyone nearby) or just to stalk.

If you’re reading this and you’re a knit blogger, add yourself to the map! And if you’re especially nice, you’ll post a link on your own blog to frappr.com/knitbloggers so that your readers can add themselves as well!
Let’s populate this map!

I’ve been doing a bit of development on this site lately. A little bit of knitting, but certainly more developing. I finished writing a script today that lets me track my favourite blog posts with the click of a button. Based on the recency and frequency of posts I deem awesome, the script produces a custom feed of my favourite blogs. While doing this, I learned:

• How to deal with date and time functions in PHP
• How to generate an RSS feed
• How to make bookmarklets
• I have too much time on my hands.

Just FYI, I only recently implemented this and barely any times have been recorded, so don’t be offended if you have a zero next to your blog.

My knitted soccer ball was posted on the MAKE: blog! This is fairly exciting. To those who are visiting via MAKE: welcome! Take a look around while I rustle up some tea. I wasn’t expecting company! I’m not sure if I have crackers in the pantry, but I’ll go check. Do you like cheese? This house is a mess!