Now that we have broadband at chez Knittingand, I have discovered the Photoshop TV video podcast!

See?

In the space of one little podcast I learnt to make cool retro cartoon-channel lettering and to correct the colour intensity in my photos without all the fiddling around that I usually do. My digital camera is VERY old and needs a lot of help in that respect. It uses 4mb smart cards. I can put 4 sort-of print resolution photos on each card...

Photoshop TV have a series of mini tutorials in each episode, and they're very cool stuff. And you can fast forward through the ads!

Check out Photoshoptv.com for more info, or let your itunes do the searching.

I went to add an article to the knitting wiki today and found that the number of articles had doubled overnight. How cool is that? :-)

A big thank you to everyone who has embraced the project! It's very heartwarming to see that we have had 12 people sign up already (other than myself and Mr Knittingand), and the wiki has only been open for a couple of days.

I was especially happy to receive several emails from people who said they knew nothing about editing wiki pages but they had a go and asked me to check if they'd done it right. They'd both done a brilliant job & I really appreciate their have-a-go attitude to the project.

I've started a knitwiki yahoo group for anyone who wants to add new articles. That way we'll have a very public chat community to help each other. Not only will that allow editors to share their research, but it will provide a place for people to go for help if they want to add new articles but are a bit scared of the software.

Now I just have to figure out how to add the subscribe form to the Wiki! Off to the mediawiki users forum!

Now that the knitting wiki is online it obviously needs more articles.

All of us have a favourite cast on, cast off, stitch pattern, sock toe that we can write up instructions for, a hat pattern that we've written (or any number of things related to knitting) that we could write an article on.

It could be as simple as the directions for knitting stockinette stitch, a list of knitting abbreviations (in any language), or as complex as a pattern for a shetland lace shawl. (In fact, we even need an article saying what shetland lace shawls are!)

So how about it guys? If we can get 50 or more articles into the knitting wiki then people will start hanging around long enough to think about writing more. I've written very comprehensive "how to add an article (knitting pattern, stitch pattern, yarn review)" instructions but if you have any trouble you could always send me your article in doc format and I could add it for you & list you as the writer within the article.

Don't know about the knitting wiki? It's a community run knitting encyclopedia, but like all community projects it needs a little TLC from the community it's for in order to flourish.

http://www.knitting-and.com/wiki

If you have a blog, please feel free to copy my request or link to the wiki!

I've been working on it for two months and the KnitWiki community run knitting encyclopedia is finally officially live (phew!)

Visit the KnitWiki to find out how you can contribute to world wide knitting knowledge.

While you're at it, pick up one of these for your blog:

Do you ever get the feeling that no matter how long you've been working on something, it's only ever "almost" finished?

I have the Knitting Wiki "almost" ready to open. I just need to write two help articles and make the main and community pages nice and user friendly looking.

I have "almost" finished the hat book. The hats are done, except for a little felting and blocking and a short length or icord. Then I can go on to doing the photography while I sort out the illustrations. The manuscript just needs a tweak and it'll be finished too.

OK, I admit. I write my books long hand. I find it easier and faster that way. The "tweaking" is actually copying small changes from my longhand notes into the manuscript.

And my little jumper is lying somewhere around here, just needing the neckband knit and the underarms grafted.

Sigh. I need to get these things done.

In this order.

Wiki.

Book.

Jumper.

Possibly.

My brain hurts.

I've been spending the afternoon reading up on all the changes to copyright (and how it relates to the trade agreements between Australia and the US) so I can write the copyright guidelines for the knitting wiki.

I'm in Australia but my website actually resides in California in the USA, thus making the whole thing even more complicated.

I really think the best I can do is to expand the information I was given by intellectual property rights professionals several years ago to incorporate the 20 year extension of duration put into practice in January 2005.

Only I need to write it in terms everyone can understand.

I wish I could afford to pay a lawyer to do this...

Draw a stick figure and watch it dance at http://roxik.com/pictaps/ !

Whilst reading my blog subscriptions this morning I came across http://www.zefrank.com where I've been having lots of fun playing with

the scribbler

the "make your own" kaleidescope maker and

the flower maker. Unfortunately I can't get the list of other people's flowers to load, so if you find out how to get that to work please let me know. I want to make a garden!

After much deliberation (several year's worth!) I have decided to add a "donate" page to the website so that visitors who wish to do so can contribute to the day-to-day running costs.
You can find the donation page here.

Hopefully this means that I will be able to spend more time adding new content. I want to add:

About 300 vintage knitting booklets (no, that isn't a typo. I have that many!),

Approximately 30 sheets of vintage embroidery transfers,

About 10 vintage crochet booklets

A new section dedicated to knitting for the troops (from WW1 to today),

I need to finish the Home work knitting collection once and for all (I love it but it needs to be finished) I'm deliberating on whether I should also add the Home Work crochet collection...

I have an enormous amount of information to add to the daisy looms section

And I want to get the Knitting and Spinning Wikis off the ground (and possibly a weaving wiki too).

Over the years (eleven of them!!!) many people have expressed their desire to do something for me in return for all the information I have provided. I hope this is one solution. :-)

Embroidery Stitches:
Anchor Needlework Series Book 4, c1940

And I promise that I scanned it during daylight hours.

:-)

Yep, it's true. I can't sleep.

AGAIN

It's 5:13am right now and I've been up since at least 3:30 (if not earlier).

I thought I might get a start on some website work by scanning this little booklet for the embroidery page but with no natural light I can't adjust the colours if needed.

And now I'm finally tired again and I can't go back to bed cos I have to get up at 6 anyway.

Can't work on the wiki because I had to change the dns info for the site (old server wasn't php 5, new server won't serve php until the the domain is propogated) and I'm afraid if I touch my knitting I'm going to screw it up. At 288 stitches per round on teeny tiny needles, AND it's a hat for my book I'm not willing to risk it.

Sigh. Sometimes I hate my stupid brain not wanting to sleep past 3:30 several days every week.

I think I know where to get books 1-3 of the embroidery series (that's book 4 in the pic), but I won't know until May. Maybe I can find them somewhere else before then.

As many of you may have noticed, I stuffed up the website for a few days. I am very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused for my visitors.

There are several bits of good news however:

It's fixed now!

The site is now hosted by a new company with a much better reputation than my old webhost, plus a slew of new services (I haven't figured out where to put my cool new calendar yet)!

The new web host will let me run more and larger databases, which means I can post many more photos, a lot more podsafe music and get the new Creative Commons Licenced Knitting Wiki project off the ground.

To make up for the inconvenience you get new free goodies!

Thanks to my good friend Narelle, who gave me scans of a really cool vintage embroidery transfer sheet, I have uploaded many new designs to the embroidery page. And I mean a lot!

There are sets of: squirrels, bunnies, elves, little red riding hood, dogs, kittens, birds, and a really lovely collection of flower baskets in different styles.

I've also added a few more sets from some fabric designs that I found at The Frankie Files Blog. The owner of the Frankie Files posts about expired textile related patents and I took the fabric designs from two patents, rearranged the images and made sets of embroidery designs from them. I can't wait to stitch some of the cat designs onto something!

And I've added a new design from my vintage embroidery transfer collection. This one is a really intricate floral circle that can be used in several different ways.

Just testing the new web host configuration