The Dog Days of Summer
Since we've been having typical 3H August weather (Hazy, Hot and Humid), DH and I have been hibernating in the cool darkness of our house with the air conditioning set to 'freeze' and all the blinds and draperies tightly closed. (my sister, the sun worshipper, calls our house the Bat Cave :o)
We've just started watching another BBC series, this weekend, called The Duchess of Duke Street. The main character is Gemma Jones (the mother from Sense and Senibility and Madame Pomfrey from Harry Potter). It's been an enjoyable watch, and I've gotten a lot knitting and cross stitch done since Friday evening.
I wrapped up my week of The Prayer. Towards the end of the week, I worked on it during lunch and I got a lot done last night while watching about 4 episodes of The Duchess.
It's time to move onto another project in my rotation. This week, I'm going to work on Santa of the Forest. (Maybe working on a Christmas-themed project will offset the 90F weather forecast this coming week.)
I've also been working on my Flame Wave Sock sometimes during the commute to and from work. Is it me or does it seem that I've been working on this same sock for about the past decade? Surprisingly, I'm getting close to the toe decreases, which I consider the Home Stretch. (And I still have the second sock to do!) But, I am enjoying it, because the ride should be as enjoyable as the destination, right?
I knit and also cross stitch, so I share part of my blog time in the Knitting Realm and part in the Cross Stitch Realm. It's interesting to see the differences in overall blogging style, which I think, is partly due to the nature of each craft.
Knitting blogs seem far more competetive, where the most read blogs are those whose owners are very fast knitters and can show great progress with each post. Since cross stitch in general is a slower craft, cross stitch bloggers/readers are more laid back and are happy for any forward progress on the current project(s).
When it comes to either a knit-along or stitch-along, I think the knitters are more organized, simply because of the sheer numbers of knitters involved. It's not unusual to have a knit-along with at least a hundred participants (some have hundreds of participants). Because of this, there's typically a blog set up specifically for the knit-along and all the knitters have access to the blog to post their progress.
Because I do both, it's fun to see how different each are. Neither are better, just different.
It's been a while, but I've recently joined some Knit-alongs:
1. Knitty KAL - Knitty is a free e-mag with patterns submitted by fellow knitters (usually members of the knit blogging communitiy). This is a knit along for anyone who is knitting a pattern that has been in any issue of Knitty. For this KAL, I'm going to knit Wisp.
2. Favorite Socks KAL - A couple posts ago, I showed a sock pattern book of the same name as the KAL (and the purple Flame Wave socks are a pattern in that book).
3. Jay Walkers KAL - A knit blogger named Grumperina designed a sock pattern called Jay Walkers that were on another e-mag called MagKnits.
For my pair of Jay Walkers, I haven't decided if I'm going to use this yarn:
Or this one:
What I like about the KALs I've joined is that they're open-ended, which means there isn't any starting date or end date, and you can knit more than one project for the KAL, so if I knit another pair of socks from the Favorite Socks book, I can continue to post on that blog.
Some time around the beginning of September, someone starts a Christmas/Holiday Giftalong, which is a KAL where those of uscrazy knitters who decide to knit their holiday gifts can all stress together to encourage getting those gifts done in time so that we're not up all Christmas Eve night knitting those last stitches.
There's also KALs based around TV shows, like the Grey's Anatomy KAL, where you knit while watching the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy, and post your knitting progress (as well as thoughts about the latest episode) on the blog. I didn't participate last season, but I hope it's started up again for the season this fall.
Here's a link to all of the 2007 Knit Alongs.
We've just started watching another BBC series, this weekend, called The Duchess of Duke Street. The main character is Gemma Jones (the mother from Sense and Senibility and Madame Pomfrey from Harry Potter). It's been an enjoyable watch, and I've gotten a lot knitting and cross stitch done since Friday evening.
I wrapped up my week of The Prayer. Towards the end of the week, I worked on it during lunch and I got a lot done last night while watching about 4 episodes of The Duchess.
It's time to move onto another project in my rotation. This week, I'm going to work on Santa of the Forest. (Maybe working on a Christmas-themed project will offset the 90F weather forecast this coming week.)
I've also been working on my Flame Wave Sock sometimes during the commute to and from work. Is it me or does it seem that I've been working on this same sock for about the past decade? Surprisingly, I'm getting close to the toe decreases, which I consider the Home Stretch. (And I still have the second sock to do!) But, I am enjoying it, because the ride should be as enjoyable as the destination, right?
I knit and also cross stitch, so I share part of my blog time in the Knitting Realm and part in the Cross Stitch Realm. It's interesting to see the differences in overall blogging style, which I think, is partly due to the nature of each craft.
Knitting blogs seem far more competetive, where the most read blogs are those whose owners are very fast knitters and can show great progress with each post. Since cross stitch in general is a slower craft, cross stitch bloggers/readers are more laid back and are happy for any forward progress on the current project(s).
When it comes to either a knit-along or stitch-along, I think the knitters are more organized, simply because of the sheer numbers of knitters involved. It's not unusual to have a knit-along with at least a hundred participants (some have hundreds of participants). Because of this, there's typically a blog set up specifically for the knit-along and all the knitters have access to the blog to post their progress.
Because I do both, it's fun to see how different each are. Neither are better, just different.
It's been a while, but I've recently joined some Knit-alongs:
1. Knitty KAL - Knitty is a free e-mag with patterns submitted by fellow knitters (usually members of the knit blogging communitiy). This is a knit along for anyone who is knitting a pattern that has been in any issue of Knitty. For this KAL, I'm going to knit Wisp.
2. Favorite Socks KAL - A couple posts ago, I showed a sock pattern book of the same name as the KAL (and the purple Flame Wave socks are a pattern in that book).
3. Jay Walkers KAL - A knit blogger named Grumperina designed a sock pattern called Jay Walkers that were on another e-mag called MagKnits.
For my pair of Jay Walkers, I haven't decided if I'm going to use this yarn:
Or this one:
What I like about the KALs I've joined is that they're open-ended, which means there isn't any starting date or end date, and you can knit more than one project for the KAL, so if I knit another pair of socks from the Favorite Socks book, I can continue to post on that blog.
Some time around the beginning of September, someone starts a Christmas/Holiday Giftalong, which is a KAL where those of us
There's also KALs based around TV shows, like the Grey's Anatomy KAL, where you knit while watching the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy, and post your knitting progress (as well as thoughts about the latest episode) on the blog. I didn't participate last season, but I hope it's started up again for the season this fall.
Here's a link to all of the 2007 Knit Alongs.
posted by Singular Stitches at 8/05/2007 11:30:00 AM
3 Comments:
The Prayer is looking great. I like both of those skeins, sorry no help in making your decision.
Joanne
I agree, those that cross stitch have blogs that dont post as often, and knitters tend to try to finish as quickly as they can to they have something to post. That's why I have cats. They always have something going on!! LOL
The Prayer looks fantastic. I'm always interested to hear about the shows you're watching - they sound fantastic. I agree with you on the difference with the cross-stitching and knitting blogs. I always find it interesting to see blogs that have both. And I like to throw in a little quilting or beading just to shake it up! LOL!
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