I finished the back of my sweater! Well, I did about two weeks ago. I finished one of the pockets, and started one of the fronts. I have not gotten very far as my daughter became very insistent that I make HER a sweater. As I am not averse to having two projects going at the same time, I did start hers. We went to the crafts store this Friday past, and she chose a really soft, pink (soft Victorian rose) yarn, and I am about 16 rows along. The bottom edge is a moss stitch pattern and it is taking some time to sort out what the instructions mean. I have only 5 more pattern rows before I am into the main part of the sweater, and switch over to stockinette stitch for the rest of it.
In short, progress! Yay!
It's not that blogging is a hard thing to do. It's just writing, after all. The problem, for me, is the who. Who do I want to be in this space. I can be anyone, as can everybody else. It is rare for virtual identity fraud to be perpetrated at such a scale that it matters in the non-virtual world--although there are cases of it happening, see here, and here. And the reality is that so few people pay attention to the blogs of others that most such sockpuppetry (or, possibly, cases of Munchausen by Internet as some think of it) is likely to go unremarked, or if noticed, not cared about, anyway.
So, the who we (bloggers) want to construct in these spaces is up to us--unless we know we are being watched by those who know us IRL (hi, AEIODREW!). And there are many who choose to be someone they can not be in IRL, because they fear ridicule or economic/workplace reaction/retaliation. I have have never been good at the multiple personalities game. Oh, I might hide aspects of myself or interests from others, but, generally with me? What you see is what you get. With one huge caveat. I have another blog out there, and I have decided to keep these instantiations of me separate. There are aspects of me that are in that space that I am not sure I want to come out to play over here. We'll see.
Having said all that, I've decided to talk about my knitting. I decided a few months ago that I wanted a new cardigan, and I didn't see any I liked in the stores or in catalogs. So, I decided to make one myself--knowing full well that it would cost more than one from a store. I found a pattern I liked, then I found a yarn I liked. I had to play around with the number of stitches and the needle size because the yarn was a different size than the pattern called for, and the gauge was going to be off.
The thing is, I have never knitted before, and decided that this sweater, which is a really simple pattern, would make a great first project. I have been a crocheter for 30-odd years; I first learned when I was 7, but didn't really the hang of using my fingers that way until a few years later. Anyway, the hardest part of learning to knit was finding instructions that worked for me. I finally found knittinghelp.com which had videos of knitting Continental style as well and English. Being a crocheter, I have always held the yarn in my left hand. That's what the left hand is for: dealing with yarn. The right hand is the one that moves the hook around.
Well, a couple of months on (what?! I work and have kids; I'm lucky to get a few rows a day.) and the back is 5" from being done. Then just the pockets, the fronts (adding in the pockets), the sleeves and putting it all together. Yay! Just about a quarter done!
It's not that the basic interface isn't easy to use, it's fine in that respect. What seems to be lacking is the 'community' ability that livejournal has. Other than that, it seems....fine. I think I need to do more work in finding folks by interest and wandering around, but is just seems like more of an effort here.
Hmmm. Some things I like about this blog, but some I don't. Feels more...restrictive than LJ, oddly. Still, I have to poke about a bit and get the feel of the place. So far, the look and feel is like to blogging tool I used for the class last summer. I forget the name of if, and it was okay, just not...like LJ. Lots more to discover, though.
ETA: The fact that it made me insert a subject just about freaked me out. I guess I could have blanked the suggested subject and it might have accepted it, but that was just...way to Big Brother, there folks!
