Knitting & Crochet Blog Week 2011 - Day Seven: Your knitting and crochet time

In my book, ALL time is knitting and crochet time.  Well maybe I should amend that to "crafting time".    Crafting is my life, I think about it, dream about it, sketch notes about it and am constantly carting around big hanks of yarn and pointy sticks.  All my handbags have to be big enough to contain at least a small yarn based project.  Without crafting most of my time would be empty.

Knitting started as a hobby, a means of filling the wide gaping hours of the day, waiting for my OH to come home from work.  When I first became ill, and stopped working, I would sit on the sofa and watch tv.  I would do cross stitch patterns, which became more and more complex but never really changed.  All the stitches and materials were the same, it was just the colours, and the order in which they were stitched that was different.  I knew I needed to find something else to distract me, something pretty, but useful, and I took up with the sticks and string.

Within weeks of starting to knit I was knitting for big chunks of each day.  I would sit on the sofa and half watch tv while I muddled through tricky new techniques.  I would surf the net looking for tutorials and study books and magazines. 

After a period of knitting on my own at home, I decided to come out as a knitter and went to my first knitting group.  I was so nervous and gabbled so quickly I must have impressed on the other knitters as having only a tenuous grip on sanity.  My only defense is that I didn't get out much.  After trying my first knitting group, I joined another.  I loved having an excuse to get out of the house, but more than that, I made friends.   I met other people who were as obsessed as I was with knitting and crochet.  Those first trips of knitting in the wild encouraged me to try knitting out of the house, but on my own!  I now knit in hospital waiting rooms, on trains, at my friends houses, in the car, any where there is enough light and low risk of spillage on my knitting.  I draw the line at knitting in a pub with drunk people.

My disability is pretty severe and my partner chooses to do the household chores so that I can preserve what little energy I have for nice things, like seeing friends occasionally.  I have no daily responsibilities, nothing that must be done each day to create a framework.  The week days feel like a pain-filled shapeless mass, out of which I must carve and shape my activities.

Knitting helps me give shape to each day.  Each stitch I make, marks the time I have taken to make it.  Before I started to knit, each second that passed seemed to be wasted and empty.  I felt like the days were slipping through my fingers.  There was nothing I could point to and say, "that is what I did today".  Knitting is my measure of how I pass my days.  The things that I can point to and say "I made that today, yesterday, last week, this year."  It marks my time and the things that I can create in it. I not only have the finished product to mark my time, but I have the photographs I take of it and the blog posts I write about it.  All of these activities help build a framework out of knitting upon which I hang my life.

Now my knitting fills my week days, evening and weekends.  It travels with me everywhere and my friends and family would probably be surprised if I didn't dig out my current project within minutes of sitting down.  I believe, and I think my loved ones agree, that it is better to concentrate on each stitch while I talk to them, than focusing on the pain I am experiencing.  It is much better to count the rows than the twinges and stabs, don't you think?

Time is no longer set aside for knitting, knitting is part of all of my time.  I knit when I watch my nephews run around the garden, I knit when I am being driven home to see my parents, I knit when I am waiting to see the doctors and I knit when I am thinking.  Knitting helps me to accept that I am always going to spend a lot of time watching other people taking part in life, and waiting for them to come back to me.  Knitting gives me something to do while I watch them do it.

Today's posts for this topic in Knitting and Crochet Blog Week can be found here.  This has been a challenging and interesting week for me.  I'm so pleased that I managed to take part.

Knitting & Crochet Blog Week 2011 - Day six - Something to aspire to

Phew - this week has been a blur of amazing blogs and fascinating insights into the myriad ways of crafting.  If you want to look at today's posts from the participants, click here and you'll get a list in Google.  That list isn't going anywhere so you can spend as long as you like going over the amazing entries (especially yesterday's which were incredible).

This last year has been more about practicing existing techniques to become more confident.  This happened mainly because I was learning to sew and most of my learning energies were being plowed into that.  Now I feel more comfortable with sewing I will probably start pushing myself a bit more on the knitting front again.

In particular I was to push myself on the design front.  I still have not created a fully designed garment from scratch that fits right.  I am determined to get this right this year.  Speaking of which, this garment which I designed myself,

Hateful Huge Tunic

(good grief I'd forgotten how awful it was) is going to be frogged and made into something else.  It is hopefully going to be made into this:

Image from Interweave Knits

This is Betty's Tee from Interweave Knits - Spring 2010.  This tee, is made using entrelac, a technique I have been fascinated with since I started to knit, and still have not tried.  Having the yarn for this pattern, and the magazine, I plan on knitting this particular garment to learn entrelac and also to get a nice tee!

Anyway back to the designing, which is the area I want to improve on.  As well as designing a garment from start to finish (that doesn't look the monstrosity above) I want to design my very first lace shawl.  I have knit many shawls over the past year and I think I now have my head around how they work, so I really want to design one for myself.  I have some great lace weight and sock weight yarns to play with so I am sure that will push me into following through with this particular aspiration.

Other than those two aspirations for the coming year, I think my main one has to be to knit some of my lovely stash.  I spent a couple of hours last night looking at my Spring/Summer weight yarns and matching them up with patterns I really wanted to knit.  I've got around 5 that are now in my queue.  I really want to try and knit at least 2 of them over the next few months.   I have lovely yarn and I'm going to use it!

Other than these simple plans (which I may, or not, stick to) I just want to carry on knitting with pretty yarns and making nice things that are useful and beautiful.

Knitting & Crochet Blog Week 2011 - Day Four: Where are they now?

When I saw this topic I knew exactly what I had to write about.  I give quite a lot of my knits away as gifts and two of the my most grateful recipients are my friends Martin and Rachael.  These two people are a big part of the reason why my life is as good as it is.  They are supportive and helpful without being patronising or smothering.  They are fantastic and loyal friends.  They also like wool (especially Martin who adores it!).

Martin and Rachael have a dog called Charlie (who also likes wool and tries to steal it off me when I visit) who needs lots of walking.  Several hours a day are spent in the great outdoors, come rain or shine, frost or baking sun.  They also like camping and hill walking.  In order to contribute towards protecting them in colder times I have knit them both hats, in fact I think Martin now has 2!  However, for the purposes of this blog, I am only going to share with you these two specific hats - you'll understand why in a few moments.

This Christmas, Martin got to open this gift:

This hat was designed especially for Martin, and is available as the Knotted Cap pattern, either from here, or from direct from Ravelry here.  I blogged about this gift here.

The hat for Rachael, was a test knit I did back in January 2010 and is the Little Windows Hat by Kristle Chester, which I blogged about here.

Whilst I was knitting it, Rachael saw the hat and really wanted it, which meant one less present to worry about in December 2010!  I think she forgot about it until she opened her present this Christmas.

When I started planning presents for these two dear friends I thought these hats would keep them warm while walking their hound, little did I realise where they would end up - they only went to the Arctic Circle, didn't they!!!

Martin and Rachael got married this January in Finland, in an igloo in the middle of a frozen lake.  Did I mention they like the outdoors?  To my delight they took their new hats with them.  Admittedly they weren't quite enough on their own, but layered up with a fleece hat underneath, apparently they were toasty warm.

Here they are posing with the dog team that took them off after the ceremony - do you see Rachael's dress?  I helped her pick it, even if you can't see it very well against the snow, and under the extra layers of warmth.  Helping Rach pick her dress and seeing the photos of her and Martin, in my hats, really made me feel like I was part of the wedding, even though I couldn't be there in person.

Here are the hats, being worn later, on the sled safari they experienced.  They also had a day of adventures on a skidoo.

It looked, and sounded like an amazing experience for them both and what an incredible way to get married.  They even got to see the Northern Lights!  When Martin and Rachael got back from their wedding/honeymoon I was so touched to see the photos with my hats in them.  Martin said that I ought to advertise my hats as "Arctic Tested".  I'm not sure if I can quite make that claim, but I can certainly say my knits have really travelled!

If you want to check out all the other blog posts with this topic, you can click here.  The Google Search shows links to all the posts with today's tag.  I can't believe how many great new blogs I am finding during this week.

Knitting & Crochet Blog Week 2011 - Day Three: Tidy mind, tidy stitches.

I haven't been knitting all that long in the grand scheme of things, since 2008.  I was very fortunate to find Ravelry after only knitting a few months.  I jumped in feet first and started photographing all of my yarn and recording it under the Stash button. This was a very useful habit to get into.  I have ALL of my yarn on Ravelry.

At first my yarn all fit inside one tote bag.  It sat inside a cupboard in my lounge and I knew where it all was.  Then as I started to collect more yarn, I bought a couple of fabric boxes.  I still knew where all my yarn was, as it was either in my cupboard or in the fabric boxes in my bedroom.

Then, as I got more and more stash, I bought a couple of huge zip up bags that fit under the spare bed.  I basically had no idea where any of my yarn was, despite always knowing what yarn I have because of the Stash tab of Ravelry.  Look how much I have now.

187 Stashed - 69 Used - 3 Traded/Sold/Gifted

So I now have quite a lot of yarn.  It is quite hard to find the yarn I want and with this Knit and Crochet Blog Week coming up it made me think long and hard about how my mind/stash was pretty untidy.  My current system means though I have a way of seeing what yarn I have, I don't really know where it is and it is starting to get mussed up from when I go rummaging.  I'm also a bit lazy about looking at the actual yarn and getting inspired b,y it in the same way I was inspired when I bought it.  I really have some amazing yarn and I have forgotten about most of it, because photographs don't tell the entire story.

So with this blog entry in mind I decided to have a Great Stash Sort Through (henceforth known as GSST).  I decided to think long and hard about the storage solution and thought about all the systems I'd seen and liked.  I would love to have a shelving system with drawers with clear plastic on the front, but I don't have the space for that.  But I liked the idea of clear plastic.  I knew after hearing tales of moth damage that I wanted my yarn to be sealed away.  I also knew that I wanted the yarn to be prevented from coming undone and having skeins getting lost.  I also wanted to make it easy to locate the yarn when I want to use it.  I'm often put off a quick and easy project that I have the yarn for, because I can't find the yarn in question.  I don't want that happen again.

So I went onto eBay and bought some stackable and clear plastic boxes with snap in place lids.  I bought them the right size to fit under my spare bed, which is pretty low.  I also bought a huge pack of clear ziploc bags.  Then I went into my spare room where the worst of the yarn storage was located.  Both storage bags from under the spare bed had ripped when I last when looking for yarn.  I wanted to really sort this mess out, before tackling the fabric boxes in my bedroom.

When the postie delivered my parcel I got my things together.

The purple bucket is for holding half balls of yarn or yarn I am never going to use.  I will decide what to do with that yarn when I have sorted everything out.

By the way, look at how much bubble wrap was used on these boxes.  I won't have to buy any for AGES!

The plastic bags are great for squashing out the air from the yarn.  It means the yarn takes up less volume.  The plastic bags also mean there are no solo balls of yarn rolling around getting lost.  It protects the yarn from getting knotted up, unwound or snagged, not to mention protection from dust and the dreaded moth damage.

This is one of the storage bags.  I don't have an awful lot of room to maneuver in the spare room.  It is a box room which has a double bed in it!   You can't even get the door open all the way, but we don't live near either of our families.  We need a spare room, but it doesn't get used enough to give up the larger second bedroom to hold a bed.  This huge bag was not easy to use, but it was a cheap option that lasted nearly a whole year.

Look how neat it all looks in the boxes!  I really enjoyed bagging up the yarn and squeezing out all the air.  Yarn looks very different when it is in a vacuum!  (This exercise is very good for your inner thighs as you squeeze all the air out of the bag, and hold it closed while you try desperately to fasten the ziploc.)

The lids snap shut at the ends, which mean you can squeeze a little more yarn in and not lose the lid.  I am so pleased that you can see the yarn through the lid and sides.  I managed to get all of the yarn from under the spare bed bagged up but I couldn't get it all in the four plastic boxes I ordered.  I have stacked them up until I can get some more boxes.

I have ordered 4 more boxes and I will store the rest of my yarn, that's currently in my bedroom, in the same way.  When I have everything boxed up I will take each box and mark on Ravelry what box each yarn is stored in.  I will then label the box and put it back under the bed!  That way, next time I want a yarn I own, I will be able to find it quickly and know it will be in a good state and all the skeins are in one place.  The boxes are also a great deal easier to slide out from under the bed as the plastic slides on the carpet.  Making yarn searches physically more easy is a real point in the new system's favour.

I'm really proud of setting up this new system and know that I will probably use yarn I own more frequently now.  I have to say that sorting through this yarn I found some amazing stuff.  I had forgotten how lovely most of this yarn was.  It has made me more determined to shop my stash first before buying in the future.  I'm going to try and use my yarn stash much more often and get some of this lovely stuff out of a box and out in the open air where it can be used and admired.

I hope that this GSST will improve the way that I chose projects in future and I will avoid buying yarn I don't need.  If nothing else comes of this week of blog posts, the GSST is worth all of the effort on the other posts.  My mind is feeling tidier already, I wonder if it will improve my stitches at all?

If you want to see how other bloggers have tackled today's topics, click here to see a list of posts on Google.

Knitting & Crochet Blog Week 2011 - Day Two: Skill + 1UP

Today's blog subject is quite an interesting one.  I don't normally look at how far I have come, I look at what I want to do next.  So to fulfill the topic criteria I decided to look at a snapshot comparison between the projects I knit in March last year and March this year.

Here are the projects I completed in March 2010.

From top left to right and then bottom left to right:

Lilly by Sarah Hatton.
Argus Shawlette by Wendy D Johnson
Pink Felted Purse (improvised)
Sample Scarf in Pompom for Mary Clare
Chilko Slippers by Chrissie Day

If I do a similar collage of projects finished in March 2011 what do we see?

From top left to right and then bottom left to right:

Daybreak Shawl by Stephen West
Fuzzy Owlet (improvised)
Maile Cardigan by Nikki Van De Car
Inlaid Pennant Socks by Cat Bordhi

In March 2010 the Argus Shawlette was one of my first lace shawls.  I really enjoyed knitting it and it gave me lots more confidence to try some more lace knitting.  Now in March 2011, the Maile Cardigan with it's lace raglan decreases, really was a very simple pattern for me.  It was a different construction to those I've used before, but I understood it very easily and the pattern felt quite straightforward.  I'm now pretty comfortable knitting in 4-ply or sock weight yarn and even in lace weight yarn, which in March 2010 I hadn't even attempted yet.

In March 2010 I was in a felting phase.  I really enjoyed playing with wool and the washing machine.  I made lots of pairs of slippers during that time and the pink purse I made, was in no way as polished as one I would make now!  You certainly wouldn't find the zip visible on top of the lining fabric!  I am much more inclined to spend time and effort finishing projects off more carefully, which you can see from the owl I made this year.

In the last year I've become much more comfortable with knitting socks.  I think last year I wouldn't have attempted two at a time socks using two circular needles.  Now I'm bashing out socks like there's no tomorrow.  I think one of the main differences in my knitting now is that I knit continental style. Below is a video that shows the difference between my old style of knitting and my new style of knitting

In fact it was in March last year that I first attempted continental knitting.  Knitting in this fashion has sped up my knitting significantly, which means I am less afraid of big projects.

The Daybreak Shawl is one of my first attempts at using slip stitch in my knitting to create patterns.  I can't believe it has taken me so long as it is such a simple and effective technique.  I think this shawl is the reason I was drawn to the Heliotropic Pullover.  It seems once I find something I like, I repeat it until I get bored.  At least that is one way of making sure the technique is embedded in my mind.

One important thing I've learnt this year, is how to stretch my yarn choices a little.  A few months ago I looked at my project page on Ravelry and realised that nearly all my projects were blue, purple, pink or teal.  I decided that I needed to stop reaching instinctively for the same colours and types of yarn that caught my eye, but to carefully look at all the colour choices and select more carefully in order to expand my wardrobe.  I also need to select yarn according the the project and the recipient, be that myself or someone else.  I'm trying to be much more selective and careful in both my yarn and my project choices.

The socks I've been making over the last couple of months are an example of pushing myself to use up my yarn stash and to avoid buying on a whim when I have perfectly good yarn in my possession.  Looking at the collage for March 2010 I know that all of the yarn used was a spontaneous purchase that I couldn't resist.  The March 2011 collage is slightly different.

In March 2011, the shawl was created by buying a skein of yarn that contrasted with an existing skein that was a previous impulse buy.  That second skein was bought in order to make this particular shawl so that I could use up existing yarn and make a project that would be beautiful and useful to me.

The baby cardigan had yarn bought especially for it.  I wanted to make that particular cardigan, for a particular baby, which also meant trying a different cardigan construction.  I wanted to use this gift project to try something different.  I didn't have any yarn in 4 ply that would be suitable for a baby, which meant a purchase.  I didn't mind buying yarn for this project as I felt that not only would it be a nice gift, but I would be stretching myself a little too.

The yarn for the owl ,while being an impulse buy, was bought specifically to make this project, which also used up existing felt supplies.  All of the project this month are what I would call mindful projects that stretch my skills and use up my stash.

It is only by thinking before each purchase, "does this yarn fill a void that needs filling or is is surplus to requirements", that I am able to resist the lure of the new pretty yarn and actually knit things I need.  Mind you, that owl I made was something I couldn't resist, but in the end he went to a good purpose.

I don't want to stop all yarn purchases, I just want to think more carefully before each one.  It is making me a more mindful knitter, very slowly but surely.  I think more than any technique, this is making me a better knitter.

Being a more mindful knitter is my Skill + 1UP.

If you want to check out all the other blog posts with this topic, you can click here.  It is so interesting to see how everyone approaches the same subject material.

Knitting & Crochet Blog Week 2011 - Day One: A Tale of Two Yarns

One of the first yarns I ever bought was Sirdar Snuggly DK.  I bought it because I was learning to knit at the Adult Education Centre (AEC).  The AEC was across the road from Fenwicks.  If you don't live in the UK, you won't know about Fenwicks.  It is an old school department store which sells cough sweets, three piece suites and everything in between.  I went into this cornucopia of all things ancient and modern and wandered around until I found the haberdashery department.  I looked at the yarn wall and gulped.  There was so much choice.  I knew I needed a double knit yarn and I knew I was broke.  My sole criteria in buying my yarn other than it's weight, was it's price.  I bought a few skeins of Sirdar Snuggly DK.

Little did I realise at the time, but this was actually a pretty good choice for a beginner.  The yarn, though acrylic, is very soft and machine washable.  It also comes in a reasonably wide range of colours.  It is a perfect yarn for baby knits, and as such it has become a bit of a "go to" yarn choice for me.  In fact I have 8 different colours in my Ravelry list.

This yarn was used in my first attempt at design.  The course at the AEC required us to try Fair Isle knitting.  The patterns that were available at the local library and on Ravelry were not what I was looking for.  In the end I tried knitting in the round and designing my own pattern for a Fair Isle messenger bag.

The bag wasn't great because the yarn was all wrong.  The softness of the yarn gave the bag no structure and the acrylic just stretched when I tried to use it.  Because it was the wrong yarn choice I ended up learning how to sew so I could line it and strengthen it.  Learning to sew is another thing for me to be grateful to Snuggly for!

I never did write the bag pattern up, but you can download the chart for free.  Having people ask about this bag pattern, was my first step on the road to publishing my own designs.  One day I intend to use the right yarn and create a new pattern and knit a Fair Isle bag I can be proud of.  This yarn may not always be the right choice, but it has been a staple of my yarn stash since the beginning.  Sirdar Snuggly DK will always have a place for knitting and crocheting for babies and the like, in my stash.

Since I started knitting in 2008, my yarn tastes have changed radically.  I now gravitate towards the bright and colourful and away from the man made fibres.  I know that synthetic fibres are great for adding strength to softer yarns, but I prefer to have nylon and acrylic making up only a fraction of my yarn content these days, rather than the entirety.

Since the days of buying cheap acrylic I now splurge on fancy hand dyed yarns, created by artisan craftspeople.  I have become a yarn snob.  I yearned to be able to afford to knit with silk.  So last year I finally dived into the flashy and expensive world of hand-dyed pure silk  yarn!  I bought two skeins of Artist's Palette Gleam Lite.

I believe this yarn is now discontinued, but you can still buy it in the sale section of the website.  It weighs 50g a skein and has a 200m length, which makes it a sock weight yarn.  My justification for buying this yarn, after I fell in love with it, was that it would look perfect with my OH's mother's colouring.  I knew that this yarn would definitely score me brownie points!  My argument with myself was won, I cracked open the wallet and splurged!  I am so glad that I did.  This yarn was everything I dreamed it would be.  The colour was elegant, the fibre soft and the drape amazing.

I loved everything about this yarn but as I had no experience of knitting with pure silk, I chose completely the wrong pattern for my first attempt with it.  I chose a really beautiful pattern, Andrea's Shawl by Kirsten Kapur.  This pattern is very beautiful, but it requires a yarn with an element of "bounce" in it,  in order to caress the shoulders and show the stitch pattern clearly.

I started with the edging, which didn't go too badly.  I really liked the faggoting stitch.  The picot edging was a bit scruffy but I thought that would be sorted out during blocking.

When I started on the main body of the shawl I started to have my doubts.  It looks very pretty laid out, but when it was picked up, all semblance of the pattern disappeared.

I went a little further before deciding this pattern and yarn were just NOT meant to go together.  I needed a pattern that wouldn't fight the drape of the silk.  I needed something that would be accentuated by the yarn, rather than be demolished by it.  A short time after I decided to pull this project apart, I got an email from KnittingDaily.  This is a daily email that comes from Interweave, that really just promotes the knitting magazines, but sometimes has really interesting tutorials or free patterns.  In this instance the free pattern was perfect for this yarn.

The Wakefield Diagonal Scarf by Melissa LaBarre, was designed to be knit with Mirasol Tupa, which is 50% silk and 50% merino wool.  I looked carefully at the pattern and decided that this could really work.  So I cast on and got to work.

As this was a scarf rather than a shawl, draping works well and the yarn isn't fighting the stitch pattern.

This scarf came out perfectly.  The yarn and the pattern were a perfect match.  This has become one of my all time favourite projects and I had a really hard time giving it away.

The look on my OH's mother's face when she unwrapped it at Christmas was worth the wrench of parting with it.  However, because I loved this combination so much, I did go back and buy some yarn just for me.

Pure silk is a delight to knit with and gorgeous to wear, but you really need to find the right pattern, or you will be disappointed.  I think this has to be the moral of this blog post; get the right pattern for your yarn.  It doesn't matter what kind of yarn it is, there will always be a pattern which it works well with, you just have to find it.  There is no perfect or horrible yarn, there is only perfect or horrible pattern choices.  The more I knit, the more I realise pattern choice is everything when trying to get the most out of your yarn, no matter how cheap or expensive it is.  Get your combination wrong and you will be tearing your hair out, but it get it right and your knitting will sing!

I got an Award!

Very exciting isn't it!  I was nominated for the Liebster Blog Award by A Girl In Winter.

 
Apparently this award was devised to reward bloggers who have less than 300 followers, which I confess I do have.  I like the idea of this award as the blogs with the smaller amounts of followers need new traffic directed towards them.  It is also a way of discovering hidden gems that you would never have come across in another way.  A Girl in Winter has informed me in this post, that you need to nominate 5 other bloggers with less than 300 followers to also receive this award, so I have scoured my feed reader and named:

Countess Ablaze

Useless Beauty

Shutterboo

52 Weeks, 52 Hats

It Might Be A Metaphor

These are all bloggers who make me smile and also inspire me.  I hope if you haven't heard of them before, or A Girl in Winter before, that you check them out.  All 6 bloggers are definitely top people who are really interesting and funny.

With all this talk of bloggers it seems as good a time as any to talk about Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, which starts on Monday 28th March and lasts a full 7 days.

I am joining in this challenge because I think it will push me a little bit more than I'm comfortable with.  I like to actually set myself achievable challenges but ones that nudge me outside my comfort zone.  With blogging, my comfort zone is approximately 2-3 posts a week.  Blogging every day is definitely something extra for me.

The other reason I am joining in with Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, is that I think it is a great way for lots of bloggers to join in something together and to inspire each other.  I know I'm going to discover new blogs during this week, especially as Eskimimi has so cleverly thought up the tagging system.  Essentially is blogger who is joining in will "tag" each post with the label listed in the graphic shown below.  That tag is a unique set of characters that will only be found on a blog post belonging to this shared endeavour.  If you want to find blog posts on each day, all you need to do is go to the search engine of your choice and type in the relevant tag.  All the posts for that tag should then be listed.  Isn't this clever?

So, for example, on Day 1 of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, I would go to my search engine and type in:

and a list of posts will appear before my eyes.  This is such a clever way of connecting everyone up together, which enables everyone to look at different blogs.

I hope that next week will bring enjoyable blog posts from myself, but I also hope that if you read my blog, you might look out for some other posts written on the same subject.  I'm sure it will be interesting to see different takes on the same subject, from around the world.

Knitting & Crochet Blog Week 2011

 
Have you heard?  There's going to be a second annual Knitting & Crochet Blog Week this year.  Last year I heard about it too late to join in, but it introduced me to the wonderful Eskimimi and The Blog Hub Group on Ravelry.  Since last year's events, I have tried to take a more active part in the online crafting community and I feel because of this I have really learnt so much and met some great people online.  This year I plan on joining in.

If you knit or crochet and blog (or plan on setting up a blog very soon) this could be a great event to participate in.  The idea is explained here.  In summary there are 7 days of blog subjects related to knitting and crochet (the two crafts are interchangeable for these purposes) plus a wildcard subject for you to use if you don't like one of the subjects.  Each day during the week of the event, 28th March - 3rd April, each participant will blog on the specified subject.  Last year I was fascinated to read lots of different bloggers writing on the same topic. 

It is unlikely that I will be able to write a blog post every day in the week, so I'm glad the subjects have been released in advance.  I can at least prepare a couple of posts ready to publish on the right day.

I hope if you don't feel like you can take part, you will enjoy observing this great event.  Last year 200 bloggers took part.  I wonder how many will join in this year, and will you be one of them?