Like bubbles in a fish tank

Little thoughts keep rising to the surface. I'm a bit scattered, I've got a festival on Saturday and I'm behind schedule!

*bubble*
If you happen to be in the Montgomery NJ area on November 13th, swing by Montgomery Made by Hand at the high school (1016 Route 601, Skillman, NJ). 10am-3pm, it's a holiday craft fair hosted by the honors society, and there will be 45 vendors in attendance.  Free admission!  Raffles!

*bubble*
One of my yarns was in an Etsy front page Treasury last night. That was a very pleasant bump in views and hearts. Statsy screenshot. I really like the coy little bird print in the top row.

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Someone asked a question on the Rav forums yesterday about whether garter stitch or seed stitch uses less yarn.  My gut reaction is to say seed stitch, both from experience and from considering the mechanics of both stitches.  But in a bit of procrastinatory rebellion I also decided to swatch.

Cast on with the backwards loop co, slipped the first stitch of every row, and bound off in pattern. The total number of rows included the co and bo. Each swatch was made with exactly the same length of yarn on the same needles.  Tension differences are sure to influence this, of course.

Now if I can just avoid getting sucked in to figuring out how to adjust for giant holes in one's knitting, like those Swiss cheese holes at the start of the hemlock ring.  For some reason these puzzles are always more interesting to me when I've got a massive pile of other things to do.

*bubble*
In another bit of procrastinatory rebellion, I put together a clip for This Is Handmade.  If you haven't heard about this blog, it collects tedium.  Specifically it collects the tedium of handcrafting (an explanation of the project).  So here is slightly more than 5min of me making stitch markers last night.  It's not a tutorial and it's hard to see exactly what I'm doing, and it's quite dull. But that's kind of the point. YouTube link


*bubble*
And now for something completely different. Some ruminating about cake after the jump.

Fiber Co-op

I'm busy busy busy trying to get things done in the ridiculously sweltering heat, but I'm very excited about something so I'm dashing in to post. What is it, you say? It's The Fiber Cooperative, which will go live in July.

Basically, it's like an online fiber festival, with yarnies and other such folk presenting their "vendor tables" with the best and most representative of their wares each month. It's not a shopping venue, but rather a browsing venue. If you see something you like or are intrigued by the shop, you can click through to the shop and browse everything the shop has to offer.

It should be fun and informative and full of eye candy all collected handily into one location.

It actually reminds me a little bit of the Etsy Promotional Tool someone posted about on the Etsy forums last week, but on a much grander scale.  The EPT is a simple tool that collects the 5 most recent items in one's shop (or the top of one's 'featured' list) and displays them linked back to the shop.  It's very new and very simple as of yet, but it's fun to scroll through.

And in something completely unrelated, I leave you with a YouTube video gleaned from my cousin. Lenny Kravitz crashed a choir performing one of his songs (none of them minded!). It's a delight. Can you imagine being one of those kids? Event of a lifetime, truly.  It goes a little out of sync by the end, but it's still eminently watchable.


Now I've got to go back to editing yarn pictures. I'm planning a big shop update starting tomorrow since it's too hot to dye. Mostly Jackalope (merino/nylon sock yarn) and March Hare (light worsted superwash merino).