Book To Give Away

I have a copy of the book Lace Style extra. It is used, hence the bend corners, but I will give it away because my mother-in-law bought me a copy too.
So if you are interested leave a comment, and I will draw a name. That seems to be the fair thing to do, and I just hope that are some of you who'd like this book. Deadline is Monday, June 23 at midnight Central Time (Chicago).

Dilemma

I tried to avoid this for a long time. I came up with new excuses every time I did something on my blog, and told myself that all was good. Fact is: there comes a point where everyone has to face the fact that one's blog roll is hopelessly outdated. And not just that, the links are as well.

There is just so much wonderful stuff to discover, people who's blogs a lot of people love (such as this nice Scottish Lady , The Harlot and Chicago's Franklin to name just a few) and of course the ones that are simply liked by me (for example Mr. Transformers Mittens or my personal Lace Queen )for what or who they are.

And then there is of course the never ending collection of wonderful odd or crackling funny stuff. This story for example (please don't be offended if you live in Kentucky, I like it there...) or this critical view at one self.
Shopping... yea, I also need to mention the endless shopping one can do through the Internet. All the sudden even little places like Fowberry Alpacas in the UK are available to me... (I once bought some of the yarn on the Edinburgh Farmers Marked, it is absolutely wonderful.)

Now I feel like I did my duty a little bit... or wait: nothing has been updated yet, I'll just continue to keep my blog roll outdated. But at least I shall not forget now.

What's up with that photo you ask? Well, I hereby prove to some unbelievers that one can grow roses (and beautiful, lice free ones!) at the German north sea coast. Don't ask. It just had to be done...

Forced To Take A Break

For now I have done all my practicing. I have sorted all the stuff we already have. I have been eating like mad so I won't starve. My Husband has been spoiling me as much as humanly possible.
And now I don't have a choice, I am forced to take a break. Saturday morning I am checking myself back into hospital, following Doctors orders. There will be knitting, there will be sleeping, but there will be no blogging for at least 2 weeks. Worse, it might be quiet on this front until the Baby is born...
So wish me luck, and keep your fingers crossed. I shall return...

Going with the times

I did it! I got myself a flickr account. But I only have a few pictures on there yet, the bulk of them is still on an external hard drive, and unreachable at this time. But my dear husband and I are planning to sort that out soon, so more is to come.

And: thank you for the nice comments I have received on this blog so far! It is very cool to see how this blogging community works, how we can look, learn and talk from and with people from all over the world. Splendid.

Oh the pictures I could show you...

If my laptop was not broken and Lynix (my husbands laptop is running on that...) would accept photos from my digital camera. But unfortunately it does not, and now I'm sitting on a newly started cardigan (from what used to be the 'Best Friends Guernsey" in progress) and some very lovely socks with lacy accents... In my Mothers favorite color scheme. The yarn is from the Yarn Yard, another beautiful skein of sock heaven!

On a different note: I really like to read other knitters blogs. Some are popular, some are not very well known. But the variety of things to see and learn is just amazing! So it struck me a bit odd that there are a lot of people out there who won't even consider a blog if it does not get an appropriate amount of comments, let's say 50 at least. Why is that? Should it matter? Sure, each their own. No criticism intended, really. But there are so many wonderful blogs out there that are not popular at all, and yet the content is amazing. Ah, I should probably update my list!

Blogging and Comments

Sure, here she goes again. Rambling on about herself....
Actually I wanted to thank those few people who actually leave me nice comments and who have suggestions or experiences to share. I like to 'present' my knitting and ideas (and yes, rambling thoughts) to a broader audience, and the point being is the learning and reaction.
I remember the first real critique I got on something I knitted. A couple of years ago, when I just started to knit obsessively again I made myself a cardigan and did not follow instructions, of course. I have to mention this because at the time I was frequenting a knitting shop in town and the owner, a lovely old lady, was very keen on sharing her knowledge and always warned me to 'knit my swatches, measure etc, etc...' All things I just did not do very often at the time. (And when I say nice old lady I mean the kind that is so sweet at heart, but that could tear you to pieces in just under 4 words....) Her opinion really meant a lot to me and the day I took this cardigan there was rather intense. After all I did this not following her instructions and she was known to be harsh. To my amazement she really liked it and did indeed only give me one or two pointers, good ones at that. I doubt I would have stopped to knit had she not liked it, but the fact that she sat down with me and actually took the time to talk to me and ask me about some things she saw right and wrong was very nice.
I should mention that at the time I was very deprived of fellow knitters. Any social exchange with a knitting context just was fantastic.

Technical Issues

Let's talk about Web Browsers for a minute. I am using the one on the left, Firefox. I really like it, for a whole variety of reasons. It works well, it does not fail me, it is easy, and most of all it works with my blog. Open my blog with Firefox and all is where it should be, the size it should be and the color it should be. But then use the 'other' browser out there, Explorer (and especially bad the new version!) and you get components all over the place, missing items and all is twisted and looks shabby. Very, very upsetting. So please, if you use Explorer, there is more to my blog than you can see (apparently). Really.

Oh, and yes, I am technically challenged. It's true.

Visitors

I learned today that messing with HTML only works well if you know what you are doing... so since I did not know enough I had to replace my visitor counter.