and knitting

gift wrap up, new year's knit failure, and random links

I received some lovely knit-related gifts in the past couple weeks:
Napoleon sent me the most adorable little cards to give out with any hand knits that I gift.

Yahaira sent me a sweet card and some yarn she had tried to use for a Tubular Camisole. I had long admired this yarn and can't wait to make something with it.

From my sister -- Vintage Knits (which I think is identical to Vintage Style) and a Cram Cream Wallet (OK, the wallet isn't knit-related, but it's too cute not to include). There are so many amazing patterns in this book! I fear my to knit list has now grown to be infinitely too long.

I also received many wonderful non-knit gifts this year. Two that stand out are my rice cooker and crock pot. It rather scares me that I'm so excited about appliances. Luckily my brother got me the Dazed and Confused DVD to save me from my impending dotage.

I had hoped that I would FINALLY finish the sweater with frills before the end of the year. The pieces are nearly complete, but yesterday's cleaning frenzy, which led to a mini wine frenzy, rather cut into my knitting time. I'm still a bit skeptical about how this sweater is going to turn out. The gauge seems spot on, but the pieces are shaped very strangely. I know this is due to the gathered frill, but it still seems too long.

The mystery project is coming along splendidly, but it too won't be finished this year. I figure that I'm golden if I get it done by the original due date!

It will be a relief when I finish these two projects, so I can get going with the sweater I'm designing for myself. The first swatches were a bit disappointing, so I decided to upgrade the yarn. I got a great deal on a bag of Rowan Cashsoft DK off eBay. Woo hoo!

Here are some random links that I've been hoarding. It's been too long since I've done this and I'll probably keep adding to these throughout the day, so don't get freaked out if this post seems to reappear in your feed reader.
• Flour Power

  A Bryn Mawr student gets caught at an airport with condoms filled with flour. She and her dorm mates made them as gag squeeze-toy stress relievers during finals. A field test -- conducted twice -- indicates that the condoms are filled with opium, cocaine, and amphetamines. The girl spends the next three weeks in jail on drug charges that could bring 20 years in prison.

• Sorting your email with GMail [via]

  I came across a great way of using Google's GMail to create disposable/sortable email addresses that let you duck spam and find out who is sharing your address and with whom.

• Snack Nails! Now, I have been known to indulge in tacky ironic nail art, but this is a bit much!
• cute lil gal [video] - This little songstress rivals my previous favorite, Mo Kin in the battle for cutest kid ever.
• 250 lbs. of Silly Putty! My favorite part is the shot of the full size imprint of a newspaper.
• "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job." [via] - The best quotations of 2005.
• Does anyone know anything about the Harajuku Protestant Church? I have seen other modernist churches, but this one is incredible!
• I wish these CDs were real. Dance of the Large Breasted Skank - Music for your Beer Commercial and March of the Tampons - and other feminine hygiene tunes. [via]
• Extreme Customer Evangelism

  When Star Trek (original series) first began, the USS Enterprise set out on a five-year mission. However, NBC cut the mission short cancelling the series after only three years (seasons).

  Now a crew of Star Trek evangelists ranging from an urologist to an Elvis Presley impersonator are resurrecting the original series and completing the mission by filming new episodes playing off the original timeline. Yep … these extreme Star Trek evangelists are filming new episodes under the name STAR TREK NEW VOYAGES. They've filmed two episodes and the third episode is to be released in the Summer of 2006.

  I have to try downloading these!
• final fashion [via]

  I am a Fashion Design student in my final year. This blog records the development of my graduate collection. I am manufacturing Final Fashion on a small scale and it will be available Summer 2006.

• T-Wolves Fans Drink Up For The Environment [via]

Minnesota Timberwolves fans are drinking an all-new cup of beer at the Target Center.
The Timberwolves stopped using oil-based plastic drink cups this weekend and began using cups made from biodegradable corn.
The cups are environmentally friendly, using 68 percent fewer fossil fuel resources than oil-based cups.

Happy Holidays! Season's Greetings! Happy Chanukah! Merry Christmas!

...and knitting's Year in Review

It's that time of the year again, when all publishers look for a lazy way to get some content out there before the new year. I am no different, so I bring you my year in review. Yeah, this is somewhat redundant with what I posted in response to that meme that went around a couple of months ago. Oh well.

Favorite Knitting News Headline:
Baptist women knit scarves, bake cookies for exotic dancers
Now I know where to send that Bernat Disco! Sadly the link to the full story appears to be dead, but you get the idea.

Favorite Project:
The tubular camisole (pattern by Glampyre Knits - Stefanie Japel). I loved loved loved knitting this project, and I actually wear it.

Most Annoying Project:
I'm going to have to go with the Pulli mit Rüsche from Rebecca. Who knows what my problem is? I like the yarn, the pattern isn't difficult; I just can't seem to finish it.

Favorite Knit I Didn't Get to Knit:
The Circular Shrug. Luckily I found it on the clearance rack at Urban Outfitters yesterday.

Most Useful New Skill:
Knitting with double pointed needles. I'm very glad I got over my neurotic fear of these, because it's really fun to knit mittens. Will 2006 be the year I decide to go against my earlier vow to never knit socks?

Favorite Yarn:
As I said in that meme, it would be Brown Sheep Co.'s Lamb's Pride (worsted). The colors are great and the price is right.

Worst Yarn:
I know a lot of people love their yarn, but I have to say Knit Picks' Merino Style. I just don't think this yarn feels that nice. If I'm going to spend a lot of time knitting something I want to use a yarn that really appeals to me. This just isn't it.

Favorite Knitting Store (online):
This is a tie between kpixie and Knit Happens. They both ship amazingly fast and have great product selections.

Favorite Knitting Store (LYS):
Can't say I have one. There are a couple of stores near me that I frequent, but they both leave a lot to be desired in terms of their staff and ambience. I honestly have to say that I never look forward to a trip to the LYS.

Favorite Knitting Book:
Loop-d-Loop. I haven't knit anything from it yet, but there are at least a couple projects from it on my to knit list.

Favorite Knitting Reference Site:
KnittingHelp is great to visit when you need to refresh your memory about a knitting technique. I especially like the increases and decreases pages.

Favorite Group Blog:
Crafting Japanese
I quite like Japanese knitting and crafting books and Crafting Japanese lets you see what is inside before you buy. Or, you can just use it for a vicarious shopping thrill like I do.

Favorite Knit Blog-Related Tool(s):
How did I keep up with everyone before RSS feeds? I suppose I was using these before this year, but 2005 was the year that almost all knit bloggers seemed to enable them.

Favorite Knit Blog-Related Site:
Technorati overcame some of the issues they had earlier in the year and has become incredibly useful to my knit blog browsing. Their recent improvements are well designed and they have some interesting things in development (though unfortunately, the tag for knitting no longer seems to appear in the latter. Perhaps that is because knit bloggers linking and tagging habits seem to be quite different from that of the rest of the blog world).

Goal for the rest of 2005:
Finish the mystery knit and the frilled sweater.

Goals for 2006:
1. Stop being angsty about learning new techniques.
2. Knit a sweater of my own design.

I guess that's it for now because I have to go finish my Christmas shopping. Happy Holidays everyone!

outage angst

Last week's Typepad outage was frustrating to many, myself included. Some Six Apart cheerleaders have compared Typepad's problems to those of Bloglines, del.icio.us and Technorati, and implied that users have their expectations set too high. I don't like that comparison because though practically essential to me, I don't yet pay a fee for those sites. With Typepad I do expect that it will work because I pay for it and at least some of the subscription fees should go toward improving the infrastructure.

That said, Bloglines is a tool that I use quite heavily* and I'm hoping that their maintenance today will fix some of the issues with missing and slow updates. If it doesn't, I am going to follow Enchanting Juno's example and switch using Subway Knitter's great step by step instructions on exporting your feeds from Bloglines and importing them into NewsGator.

12/20/2005 Update: Woo hoo! Bloglines and del.icio.us are back. Here's a good post on the Typepad situation.

*Yes, I know I probably should have switched long ago. Blame it on inertia.

project #30: mystery project that shall not be fully described until later

I woke up this morning with a strange sense of urgency to work on a mystery knitting project that I cast on for the other day. My plan was to be rather coy when I posted, but a call this morning changed my plans a wee bit. It seems the wee human this project is for has arrived ever so slightly ahead of schedule and I let it slip that I had been knitting for said baby right before I picked up the telephone. So, I will reveal that this knit is for a certain wee little man whose birthday is today (the actual details of just what this knit is will remain a mystery for now).

The Project: mystery project that shall not be fully described until later
The Yarn: Blue Sky Organic Cotton in Sage purchased from Depth of Field
The Needles: 5mm
Started: December 16 2005

Wow!!!

Laura blew me away today with the package she sent me in exchange for some lamb's pride worsted I sent to her. I knew she was going to send me some Christmas Crackers and Jaffa cakes, but she also sent a bunch of other goodies (the crisps are already in my tummy), including some Rowan Polar in a gorgeous color. Most notably, she also sent me a beautiful, chunky scarf. I'm overwhelmed by her generosity.

Laura, thank you very much!

battle of the blog search

You all know this, but one of the most useful things about the knit blog scene is the ability to read about other knitter's experiences with a pattern. For example, I often search for a pattern name and "sucks" when I'm trying to decide on a new project, just to avoid any hellish knitting experiences. Whether you are looking for errata, a yarn substitution or an explanation of something confusing, it's quite likely that someone has already blogged about it. The trick is finding the posts.

Luckily there are now search engines optimized specifically for blog content. I'm sure this isn't new information to a lot of you, but in this post I'm going to give a mini review of three of the blog search tools I use: Technorati, IceRocket and Google Blog Search.

I decided to just do a simple comparison of search results using five of the patterns from the new Winter 2005 issue of Knitty: Forecast, Creatures, Tubey, Mrs Beeton and Tempting II.

In each case I searched for knitty AND nameofpattern (I used quotes around the pattern names that contained more than word) and recorded the number of posts I found in each search engine.

Here's a chart of the results (click it to enlarge) I found this morning. [Lest ye think I'm a total dork with too much time on my hands, this silly chart took just a few minutes and relates to something else I'm working on.]

On average, it looks like Technorati returns the most posts, with Google having a slight edge over IceRocket. However, the number of posts found doesn't necessarily mean the best results, because there are certainly posts that show up that may have contained those keywords in a context other than the Knitty pattern.

All of the search engines give you the ability to do more advanced searches so you can do things like exclude certain words. For example, if you are searching for people posting about Stefanie's new pattern Forecast, you might end up with a bunch of knitters posting about a blizzard heading in their direction. To avoid this you can use advanced search options to make sure you are searching for knitty AND forecast, but making sure to leave out posts containing the word weather. Each search engine gives you additional tools to refine your results further to make them more relevant to you.

In Technorati, you can restrict your search to blogs that have tagged themselves as being about knitting, rather than the entire blogosphere. They also let you quickly paste in a URL and see who is linking back to it (you can do this in other search engines, but it's often not as intuitive). And, if you create an account, you can easily add a search to a watchlist so you can keep an eye on new, relevant posts as they are published.

IceRocket makes it really simple to refine your search to a specific timeframe by giving you links for "Today Only", "Past Week", "Past Month" and "Custom". This is especially useful when a pattern has just been released and you know that any older posts using those keywords are likely using them in a different context. IceRocket's blog trend tool could also be fun if you are a designer who wants to check on how many bloggers are posting about your pattern over time.

Google Blog Search offers the same advanced search tools you know from their regular search engine. It's in beta right now, so who knows what extra enhancements they might add to it. I think Google's biggest strength is their familiar interface and reliability.

In terms of freshness, I'd say that Technorati and IceRocket have a bit of an edge. This is because they both encourage bloggers to ping them when they publish a new post. When the sites are working properly you'll often see posts show up in the search only minutes after they were published. For this reason, I use these two sites quite frequently. Google uses their crawler, and doesn't seem to accept pings, which means they are a wee bit behind.

I wrote this review from the perspective of my experiences with the blog searches I discussed. You can find more authoritative information about blog search tools at Napsterization. For additional blog search information from the point of view of another knit blogger, check out Lucia's blogging category on The Knitting Fiend.

road to the runway

I happily planted myself in front of the television for last night's premiere of Project Runway. I forgot just how much I loved that Tim Gunn, but if Kirsten hadn't got the "Auf Wiedersehen!" after she showed that straight out of Sturgis monstrosity, I'm not certain I could have continued to watch the show. Aside from her lack of design skills in that challenge, her personality was so obnoxious. I really wasn't surprised to read this morning that she was a part of that creepy Landmark Education group.

Let us pray that they will build upon last year's season by focusing more on the talented designers, and less on the annoyingly aggressive personalities. One thing that has improved (well content-wise anyway), is the Project Runway website (except for the annoying fact that Tim Gunn's blog doesn't appear to have a RSS feed). My favorite new feature is Tim Gunn's podcast.

I'm not so sure I'd want to hear Tim's Take on the knit project I am designing for myself. It's not really going to be anything innovative, but I am excited about it! For one thing, it will be my first knitting project with real sleeves. The pullover I am planning is going to be based on a simple top down raglan, but with a few modifications.

I am going to work it from the top down so that I can try it on as I go and adjust for fit. I really detest taking projects off the needles, but it will be worth it to ensure the end product suits me. How cool would it be if there were circulars with extra retractable cable inside the needle so that you could extend the cable a bit to enable you to try it on without going through the hassle of putting your work on waste yarn and then having to put it back on the needles? Perhaps this is an unworkable idea...

In the absence of these imaginary needles I have invented, I will be using Bryspun circular needles. They have a really nice point and are very flexible. For some reason I knit with my needles in a real death grip and, thus, have an unpleasant time with metal needles like Addis. For example, my Crystal Palace needle cable snapped when I was working on the capelet that was not to be, so I switched to a pair of Inox. My hands were aching that night! It was awful and I neurotically worried that I had injured myself with my bad knitting hygiene. Hopefully these Bryspun circs will help a bit.

The yarn I have decided on is Brown Sheep's Nature Spun Sport in simple, basic black. Since this is my first sweater of my own design, I want to make sure I use a color I am certain to wear a lot. I'm quite impressed with the quality/price ratio of this yarn. A whole sweater's worth of 100% wool was less than $40. It's even quite soft.

Now, let the swatching begin!

**Update** Here's a nice article about Tim Gunn that I found on TWoP.

He's also has a brief quote about the demographics of the student population at Parsons in a NY Times article about the prominence of gay men in the fashion industry [via]. Oh yeah, they talk about Project Runway too.

Support The American Red Cross

I just came across a wonderful fundraiser from The American Red Cross [via]. They have a new website which allows you to create your own customized calendar using vintage Red Cross images like the famous Our Boys Need Sox poster shown left.

Wouldn't this make a great gift for a knitter (or anyone)?

Here's the description from their site:

"The Vintage Red Cross calendar system lets you build a beautiful wall calendar with images from our online gallery of vintage Red Cross posters and photographs. Personalize your calendar with special dates like birthdays and anniversaries. Each calendar is professionally printed, bound, and shipped to your home or office in about 10 days.

For only $29.00 you can own one of these wonderful gifts and support the Red Cross. The proceeds help your local chapter so each dollar raised will go directly back to your local community."

pulli in the pipeline

Shock of shocks, I'm once again working on the Pulli mit Rüsche from Rebecca #25. I don't have a photo, so you are gonna have to trust me on this one.

The back was done long ago, and I'm nearly finished with the first of the two front pieces. Hopefully I won't let this last piece linger so long. The GGH Soft Kid is incredibly soft and luxurious -- I can't wait to be able to wear it. My only fear is that strangers will want to pet me!

As I type this, there is a feed from the UN Security council playing on my computer (I've loved the United Nations since I first saw Gidget Grows Up, in which she gets a job as a UN tour guide). Anyway, this will out me as a media junkie dork, but the feed is courtesy of the free trial of CNN's Pipeline. It's rather interesting to have access to the live feeds sans commentary, but some of them are of questionable value. I mean, I certainly could do without last night's ever so exciting live shot of a snowy capitol building and this morning's feed from the snowy national mall (Ooh, will the guy in the blue jacket slip and fall?). Then there were the enlightening microphone sound checks before yesterday's briefing from Jack Straw. There have also been some issues with bandwidth on some of the live feeds. I haven't yet made a decision as to whether I'll continue the service or not, but at least it (in addition to the recently extended BBC World News morning schedule) saves me from the fluff fest that is CNN's American Morning. Eww, it's now switching to a feed of some Condie speech.

In less serious, but more fun media news, Jill pointed out in the comments to my last post that the new season of Project Runway starts tomorrow night. Mr. Daniel Jazz Hands is back this season, but based purely on bio photos, I've decided that Santino is my favorite (I reserve the right to change my favorite once the show starts). Will the show be as appealing without my dear Austin Scarlett and Jay McCarroll? Also, when will we start seeing some of Jay's knit patterns in the knit mags? He would make a great feature in knit.1.

**Update**
Ok, having now watched the preview and all of the audition bios, I can't claim a favorite. However, I will say that Kirsten (shut up about your blackberry already) and Marla annoy me already.