I really wanted to make a blanket for my friends' new baby Anna, but time was of the essence if I was to send it with my friends who were headed to visit them in London (a five-hour drive away -- this was going to save me a lot of gas or a lot of postage). So I bought some thick, quick-knit, fuzzy, soft baby yarn in a variegated pastel colour pattern and I started to crochet like mad. But I made two fairly major errors: (1) I used an inappropriately small crochet hook, and (2) I didn't crochet into the turning stitch. Turns out you have to do that, or your piece gets less and less wide as you go.
Because of these errors, I found that I was crocheting a wedge.
Here is a photo of me and my unintentionally wedge-shaped baby blanket:
I was committed, though, so I decided to keep on rocking. I figured I could maybe crochet along the sides or something to make it rectangular when I was finished. However, it turns out I'm not really skilled enough to do that. Knowing that the couple to whom I was sending this project had a sense of humour and were more likely to be touched that I had tried to make their baby something than horrified at the bizarrely shaped result, I solved the problem the only way I could think of: I crocheted some (faintly lopsided) sleeves at the narrow end and called it a "dress-shaped baby blanket." It's a theme. Yeah?
First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!
The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.
A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.
Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.
On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.
And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!
~ daisy
As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.
The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.
When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.
It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.
Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.
As always, thanks for your patience.
Okay, so my baby blanket is trucking right along, as you can see.
Then I remembered my old family friends. Mark and Megan are expecting a baby in a couple of months. I haven't seen Mark in years, so it's not like I would normally be crocheting for their new family member. Except that Mark was recently diagnosed with CNS lymphoma. And I'm sorry, but brain cancer trumps living in San Francisco.
Bottom line? I've got a lot of baby blankets to make in a very short period of time.
Okay, so my first attempt at making a amigurumi crochet zombie doll turned out to be a wee bit ambitious, seeing as I was pretty hopeless at keeping my stitches even remotely even (see photo of Thing, below). So I decided to start with something both easier and less twisted: a baby blanket for Matt's cousin Donna and her husband Lauren, who are expecting their first child in December. (I'd like this to be a surprise, but I'm pretty sure Donna and Lauren don't know I have a blog and would be far too busy with home renos to read it if they did). My need for immediate gratification will be satisfied by making the blanket out of granny squares that I crochet together at the end. Good plan, yes? Well, I watched several very helpful YouTube granny square tutorials, but even the most helpful couldn't help me: all I was making was a big loopy mess.
Then I found out that local (relatively speaking -- you have to drive there from here, which makes it pretty much the moon for Kingston) yarn store WoolTyme has drop-in knitting classes. I emailed, and yes, they do help crocheters. So I biked the 45 minutes out to Gardiners Road and Maureen at WoolTyme showed me exactly what I was doing wrong. It turned out to be just about everything, but since I hadn't been doing it very long, it didn't take me very long to correct it. Now I can make squares with reckless abandon! And I am!
Go forth and fill your libraries with media.
Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.
I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.
I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.
Cheers,
Last Thursday sometime after midnight, I was gripped by the urge to learn to crochet. Not because I have a particularly strong interest in the fabric arts, nor because I have a burning desire to create a pair of fingerless gloves or a charming yarn poncho, but because I discovered amigurumi. Amigurumi are cute little Japanese-inspired dolls that can take many delightful anthropomorphic forms from wee frogs...
So I dashed out to the library the next morning to find some basic crochet books and then to Michael's to get myself some yarn and some crochet hooks. Matt and I were off to a friend's cottage with Sister and Brother-in-Law, so I figured there would be time to sort out this thing over the course of the weekend.
Unsurprisingly, I discovered that this shit be harder than it looks.
It's really hard to learn how to do something so tiny from a book. My sister had given crocheting a go once and tried to help me, but by the end of the weekend, I could still only make a line.
I looked at Step Two in both the books I had over and over, trying to make my Line into a Thing, but with no experienced crocheters or Interwebs to consult, I had to give up for the weekend. Very disappointing.
The minute I got home, however, I was cruising YouTube for crochet tutorials. Did you know that people have created whole channels dedicated to teaching people to crochet? It's astonishing! I mean, I knew you could learn to play the ukelele through the wonders of the internet (and I am!), but you can learn to crochet everything from flowers (bleh) to shrunken heads (hells yes!) on YouTube.
So, now I am crocheting a Thing.
Photo credits for the images on the left (top-bottom): Stefan Tell, craftninjas.com, blog.craftzine.com.
Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.
We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.
I will keep you posted.
Thank you for being so patient.
Blog Action Day is every October 15th, when blogger are asked to post something about a single issue to show our strength and conviction as an online community. It's a great way to feel connected to the greater good, and the participation of so many bloggers to support the world's leading non-profit organizations is something you can do to help, right now. By blogging today, you're supporting some of the world's leading non-profits and sharing your voice for change.
This year's topic is climate change, and we'd love to read your thoughts on the topic. If you participate, leave us a link to your post in the comments, so we know to check out your post!
Go to www.blogactionday.org to learn more, get a badge for your blog showing your participation, and see some ideas for your post on climate change.
Can't wait to read your posts!
~ daisy
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