A Bouquet of Poppies

One of the possible ideas I came up with for a Remembrance Day post was to put together a selection of poppy-themed patterns. The concept didn't seem to have the right tone for Remembrance Day, so I didn't use it, but I think I can do it today now that Remembrance Day has been observed and we're still in a poppy kind of mood. I am, at any rate. I love poppies, largely because they're a prevalent theme in Art Nouveau design, which I really love. I'm planning to do a poppy-themed kitchen reno sometime in 2014.

The above design is the sharply graphic Poppy Pillow, designed by Denny Gould. This pattern is available for £2.99(GBP).

This is the Poppy Field Shawl, designed by Natalie Servant. This pattern is available for $6.00(USD).

This is the Poppy Lace Scarf, designed by Susan Springett. This pattern is available as a free Ravelry download.

The Poppies mittens, designed by Natalia Moreva. This pattern is available for $4.99(USD).

This of course is Kaffe Fassett's classic Persian Poppy Waistcoat, which was originally published in his classic book Glorious Knits: Designs for Knitting Sweaters, Dresses, Vests and Shawls, but the pattern has been included in a number of his collections since then.

These are the Poppy Fields Socks, designed by Sarah Wilson. I don't think I could knit these in any other colour but poppy red. This pattern is available for $4.00(USD).

The Poppies in a Mirror socks, designed by Barb Brown. This pattern is available for C$5.00(CAD).

This is the Masai Shawl, designed Christel Seyfarth. This pattern is available as part of a kit from Christel Seyfarth's website. Seyfarth often employs a poppy motif in her work, so you might like to take a look at the rest of her patterns on Ravelry.

Knit n' Style February 2014: A Review

Knit n' Style has just published their February 2014 issue. Shall we have a look at it?

The Knit Darla Tunic. I wasn't sure about this one when I first saw it, but it's grown on me. It has nice clean lines and could be worn with leggings, jeans, or a skirt. Good use of garter stitch to add a bit of textural interest.

The Crochet Darla Tunic. This is also a nice piece, though I like the knitted version better. But then I would, wouldn't I? I don't think it's just my bias towards knitting talking here, though. The solid texture of the knitted piece is more pleasing than this more openwork look.

The Stone Soup Hat may have been called what it is because you can make it out of odds and ends of yarn in a frugal, making-ends-meet kind of way, and I'm totally on board with that kind of crafting. It is a nice basic hat, and I very much like the colours used here.

The Weather Tunic reminds me so much of the woven Mexican hoodies that were in during the nineties. It's an interesting and original effect in a knitted sweater, and I hope it's not just the nostalgia talking when I say I kind of like it.

The Irish Tweed Tunic is a good classic design.

The Summer Shawl is a pretty little piece.

This is the Diamond-Edged Sweater. It's a decent piece. You may want to lengthen or shorten the sleeves to whatever length suits you personally.

The On the Town Set is quite pretty too. There's nothing like a touch of angora when it's used in the right way.

This is the Silverlace Scarf. Knit n' Style certainly does love its novelty yarn skinny scarves. I don't — they tend to look chintzy. Here, for instance, the model is wearing a nice outfit that would have looked better finished off with a long silver pendant necklace than with this scarf.

The Swan Song Set is something different: a sweater set composed of a spencer worn over a tunic. Much as I tend to be a soft sell on all things swan, I think I'd tweak this by either making the tunic about four inches shorter, or turning it into a dress.

The Cabled Tunic. I wouldn't put anything but full-length sleeves on this design. Otherwise it's fine, with interesting texture. Good idea to set up the front panels the way it's been done here, because those side pieces seem to recede and it makes this heavy sweater visually more flattering.

The Cable Blocks Cardi is another nineties-looking piece. I love the colours used here, but this sweater is more than a little on the too-big and shapeless side. I'd make it in a standard fit.

The Felicity Vest. This is a useful piece that could be worn styled a number of different ways. I like the texture in the bodice area.

The Twister Scarf is another novelty yarn scarf. I'm inclined to be kind to it though, because the colours are gorgeous and the lacy edges make it look like a decent quality piece.

The Angel Cardi. It's never a good sign when a piece isn't even sitting well on the model. However, this could be pretty with some tweaking: lengthen the body a bit, button it all the way down the front, and you'll probably also want to shorten or lengthen the sleeves.

The Heritage Shawl is really pretty. It hangs impressively well.

The Petal Hat and Mitts set is rather cute in a way that isn't too juvenile for a grown woman.

The Hooded Cowl. I don't think I've seen a hooded cowl yet. It's not at all a bad piece and could be a statement accessory with the right coat, such as simple well-cut woolen one, if you're the type to be comfortable in a more exaggerated look.

This is the That's a Wrap Cowl. It's not a wrap cowl, and I wish it was a wrap cowl. I just cannot get behind the kind of cowl that looks like a sad flat tire hanging around someone's neck. Either double it up or just make a scarf.

The Draped Panels Cardi. Though I'm usually a tough customer on drape-front cardigans and modern cuts, I quite like this item. The cutaway shaping and the bias stripes make it flattering.

Heather's Cowl. This is a fairly standard piece but nice enough. It sits well and has interesting texture.

The Wear-to-Work Jacket. I like the concept and the clean lines of this piece, but think it could have been improved a little. Those lapels are a little on the skimpy and limp side and the bottom edges could have been better finished.

The North Seas Skirt. Quite like the fair isle patterns used here, but I hate the waistband on this design. Though I can see the problem — it would be difficult to make this skirt stay up without a ribbed waistband. I think the solution might be to simply style this outfit differently, by wearing it with a top that goes over the skirt rather than one that's meant to be tucked in. Knit n' Style probably knows this themselves, but needed to tuck in the top in order to show us this skirt properly.

The Soft Mist Scarf. Even the Yorganza yarn used here isn't happy about its fate, which is why it's trying to throttle its wearer.

The Soft Shoulder Shawl. Not a bad piece, and unlike a lot of the shawl patterns I see, this is one that can be worn for warmth and that won't catch on everything. It has a good texture with a bit of lace trim for a touch of prettiness.

Row on Row of Poppies

Last year on Remembrance Day I wrote a post about knitting your own poppy. But some knitters don't stop at just making a poppy for themselves, or even a dozen or so for family and friends, but simply keep going like a one-person production line. The poppies they make are used in Remembrance Day events, or sold, with the monies raised subsequently donated to an organization that will use it to benefit military veterans. Sometimes a few people will decide to organize a poppy knitting effort and put out a call for donated poppies.

The largest scale of these efforts is possibly the 5000 Poppies Project, organized by Lynn Berry and Margaret Knight as one of a number of events that are being planned to commemorate the centenary of the 1915 Anzac Gallipoli landing in Melbourne, Australia. In 2015, the 5000 Poppies project volunteers will be “planting” a field of more than 5000 poppies in Fed Square, Melbourne, and are asking for donations of handmade poppies, and my guess is that they will overshoot their goal of 5000 poppies.

This year's Remembrance Day ceremonies in Louth, England, were decorated with hundreds of poppies created and donated not only by local knitters, but knitters as far away as Brazil and the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, all organized through a group Facebook page.

Individual efforts can be quite astounding too, though. Linda Evans, from Bilston, England, has knitted 2000 poppies (she admits that "a few" were knitted by a friend), which she sells for £1 each. Last year she raised £2,827 for the Royal British Legion

Anita Wreford, of Marshfield, South Wales, has knitted 400 poppies, which she sells for £2 to raise money for the British Legion.

It would seem that poppy knitting can be just as addictive as some other poppy-related activities, but then they are small and quickly made and it must be very satisfying to know that each little poppy will be worn and serve a greater purpose.

Jimmy Kimmel Fast Forwards Through the Norwegian Knitting Show

If you're into knitting to the point that you're interested in reading this blog, you probably have heard about the Norwegian TV show, aired in early November, that live streamed an attempt to break the world record on the fastest production of a sweater. The show, which was 12.5 hours long in total, featured a sheep being sheared, its wool being carded and spun, and five hours of knitting. A third of Norwegian's population tuned in to watch the show, perhaps finding it an exciting change of pace from the 12-hour show on firewood that aired in Norway in February 2013, and which featured discussions about stacking and chopping, a debate on whether the bark should face up or down, and eight straight hours of watching a fire burn in a fireplace.

If you haven't got time to watch the show, or simply can't bear to, Jimmy Kimmel has a 2-minute, 18-second rundown on what the show was about (and a video preview of the proposed Norwegian National Knitting Evening) that you may find to be more your speed.

Looking Back at the Damage Done

A year ago today, on November 10, 2012, I wrote and posted this blog's very first post, almost on a whim, because I'd never thought of setting up a knitting blog until a few days prior to that. A year and 370 posts later, here we are. In the first few weeks of its existence, The Knitting Needle and the Damage Done had perhaps 20 visits a day, and now gets nearly 1000 visitors daily. The Facebook page for this blog, which I set up on November 26, 2012, has become a fun, active page, garnering over a thousand likes in less than a year. Trying to get the word out about this blog and build readership was very discouraging work at first. I used every self-promotion tip I could find on the net and some I thought up myself even though I am not someone who enjoys or is good at self-promotion. Fortunately after about six months of this I felt I didn't have to do that anymore (and for that matter had run out of things to try) and could just stick to updating the blog's Facebook page and my Twitter account daily, and rely on traffic to grow of its own accord over time.

Over the past week I've been doing a wholesale clean up of the archive, which has involved adjusting earlier posts to comply with the style that has evolved for the site, fixing at least some of the embarrassingly large number of mechanical errors, and also cleaning up the labels. (I wasn't happy with the way I'd labelled my posts. I'd been too specific and comprehensive, which meant that the list of labels on the blog had become an unwieldy mess. I'm hoping to finish cleaning up within the next week, after which the labels should be much more usable.) Re-reading all those posts proved a good year-end exercise, as I'd more or less forgotten many of my posts, and going through them all gave me a better sense of the evolution and state of the site as a whole.

When I first launched The Knitting Needle and the Damage Done, my idea was that it should be almost entirely about my reviews of knitting magazine reviews, and that all the other posts would be "filler posts" that I could write in five minutes. A year later, although the knitting magazine reviews have proved to be the site's main raison d'être and draw, with readers telling me that the site makes it very easy for them to keep up with and choose from among the fifteen knitting publications and additional special issues I review, the "filler posts" are more often than not just as time-intensive and lengthy as the reviews and run a close second in reader interest. As you can see, in the sidebar list of the ten most popular posts on this site, four are non-review posts. ‎

It's been interesting to see which posts have proved popular. I don't consider the ten most-viewed posts in the list to be my ten best posts. But they somehow attracted lots of visitors, often for reasons that were ancillary to the post itself. The current most popular post, which has had more than 15,000 page views, is the post in which I analyze Ravelry's Top 5 Knitting Patterns, but it's only gotten so many viewings because it comes up in the search results when anyone Googles for "Ravelry free patterns". My second most popular post, which was on knitted shoes, was a different matter, as it concerned a knitting topic that was unusual and fun enough that it got linked to in some of the places a knitting blogger most hopes for: Vogue Knitting's and Lion Brand's Facebook pages, and on Knitting Paradise. The third most popular post, the post on knitting tattoos, enjoyed a modest viral boost because of its oddball appeal — even non-knitters found it fun. It was through this tattoo post that I got my first-ever traffic spike when my site was a month old, because Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit linked to it. As for the other top ten posts, Vogue Knitting has such cachet my VK reviews always do well, and there are plenty of Jane Austen, Harry Potter, and Downton Abbey fans who knit to keep those special issue reviews high on the list. Then there's the fact that a post that makes the popular list will tend to stay there because it's so visible to anyone who visits the site.

One of the many things I've learned this year is that a blogger simply doesn't know what posts will get everyone's attention, or when. Whenever I see a TV show or movie depicting blog posts going viral within two minutes of publication, I laugh uproariously. It really doesn't happen that way. I've had medium-quality posts that I'd dashed off quickly suddenly find an audience a month after I posted them; I've worked many hours on a post and proudly posted it expecting it would do well, only to see it drop like a rock. All bloggers can do is keep producing good quality work on a consistent schedule and watch their readership grow in an organic way. Traffic spikes are fun and exciting, but counter-intuitively, they are not all that important to a blog's success, because most of those who visit via a high-profile link will only do so once, and it's the regular, engaged readership that makes a site successful. So I try to rely on my own concept and standards of what's good for the site instead of letting the pageviews determine what kind of posts I'll do, and I hope that the modest traction I've gained this year means my vision of what the site should be is a generally sound one.

Looking back, I'd say my best and/or favourite posts include: the Twentieth Century Series; the post on the history of knitted bathing suits; the Mad Men post; the posts about how to knit your own Chanel sweater and how to make your own buttons; the posts about Shaker knitting and Amish wedding stockings; my posts about knitting breast prosthetics for cancer survivors and bandages for leprosy patients; and the posts about strange and unusual yarns. I especially enjoy writing posts about knitting history or with a politicized angle, I really like putting together posts of selected patterns on a given theme, and of course the knitting fables posts are always lots of fun to do. But then I liked writing almost all of the posts for this site, and have wound up laughing hysterically over something I stumbled across more times than I can count, and I take that as a good sign.

When I first launched the site I was concerned I'd run out of material to write about. I soon stopped worrying about that. Knitting has undergone such an explosion of creativity since the rise of the internet that I always have at least a few ideas on hand. It's never taken me more than five minutes to come up with a post concept, and then I often research and write one post only to come up with three or four new ideas for future posts during the process. Though there is supposedly nothing new under the sun, there's always something new on the net. What has become a concern, however, are time constraints. I have put far more time into this site this past year than I ever expected, and much more than I should have. I've done no other writing than what you see on this site, and while 370 posts is a very respectable year's output (in terms of word count it's probably the equivalent of at least two books), I do want to have time to write about things other than knitting. I want to begin posting to my woefully neglected book review blog again, and to work on the novel I've had in progress for never mind how many years. At the same time I am still enjoying my work on The Knitting Needle and the Damage Done and want to see what will grow out of the groundwork I've laid this past year.

So, what I am going to do is to cut back my posting schedule on this blog. From now on the posting schedule for The Knitting Needle and the Damage Done will be only three days a week: on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I decided this past July that I would keep posting daily until the end of this blog's first year in order to build a solid archive and then move to the new posting schedule, and far from second guessing my decision I've been looking forward to this anniversary as though I were getting out of jail. A daily posting schedule is more than a little gruelling when your posts can take up to four hours to write, and generally only bloggers who are making a living from their work can maintain that kind of pace. I am sorry to disappoint those of you who have told me you read my blog every day, but I feel sure that it's necessary that I cut back on my posts here.

What I can promise you is that my posting schedule will not be further decreased so long as I maintain this site, and that in those 156 posts a year I will still be doing all the knitting magazine reviews I've always done plus a good 60-70 posts on knitting-related topics, so the site will offer you the same kind of reading experience it always has, if somewhat less of it.

And of course I must thank everyone for your interest and your feedback during this past year. When I first came up with the concept for this site, I decided that since I'd never liked the typical style of knitting blog that I was going to write the kind of knitting blog I would enjoy reading, and it's been so gratifying to find that there are other knitters who do indeed want that kind of knitting blog and that even some non-knitters whose eyes would normally glaze over at the phrase "knitting blog" have enjoyed reading it. I never forget that there are thousands of knitting blogs out there for you all to read, and that you've paid me the compliment of reading mine.

Thank you all for visiting this blog, I will continue to do my best to make it worth reading, and I want you to feel free to contact me with any comments or suggestions you might have for the site.

Being Catty

October 29th was National Cat Day. I would have done a special cat patterns post for that day if I'd known about it in advance, but I never heard about it until we were well into the day itself, by which time I'd already posted something else. However, I am pretty sure that as far as cats are concerned, every day is Cat Day, and I know how much everyone seems to like any kind of cat-related post on this blog's Facebook page (the only kind of post that's consistently more popular is a photo of a handsome male celebrity knitting), so I'm going to go ahead and do the post now.

The hat depicted above is the Temple Cats design, by Suzanne Frary. This pattern is available for $2.99(USD).

This is the CATS in the HAT design, by Deborah Tomasello. This pattern is available for $3.00(USD).

The Cat's Pajamas design, by Alison Stewart-Guinee. These cats are "pajama cushions" — they have an opening in the back and a child can keep his or her pajamas in them. This pattern is available for download for $9.00(USD).

The Cats & Mice Vest, designed by Jade Starmore. This pattern is available in The Children's Collection, by Alice and Jade Starmore.

Love this Cat Pillow, by Val Lov, which shows cats just as they usually are. The pattern isn't available, but would be easy to replicate from the picture.

The Cat Socks, by Jorid Linvik, are perfect for pussyfooting it around the house. This pattern is available for $6.00(USD).

For once a cat can be made to sit just where you want it to. The Doorstop Cat, by Sue Stratford. This pattern is available in Stratford's book Knitted Cats & Kittens.

The Ginger Tom toy pattern, is another Sue Straford design, and again is available in her book Knitted Cats & Kittens.

The Cheshire Cat, by Debi Birkin. This pattern is available for £2.00(GBP).

The Cat on a Brick Wall design, by Samantha Haughton, is a very cute child's sweater. This pattern is available for download for $5.50(USD).

I don't think you need to be a Harry Potter fan to appreciate the Professor McGonagall baby blanket design, by Kristen Fanning. This pattern is available for $3.50(USD).

Skants and Swants

Once upon a time, these "skants" were posted to Etsy by one of their vendors. Yes, that's a sweater being worn as a putative combined pants and skirt (pants + skirt = skants), and this unique one-of-a-kind piece was offered for sale to some lucky Etsy buyer for a mere $780(USD). The marvellous and sadly now defunct site Regretsy (which, if you've never heard of it, existed for the sole purpose of making fun of Etsy's more ridiculous listings and twee excesses) did a post about it that spawned something of a meme. Many Regretsy readers sent Regretsy owner April Winchell wonderful pictures of themselves posing in their own skants, which they had "made" from whatever sweaters they had sitting about.

I only wish I could link to the skants posts on Regretsy, which if I remember correctly had me laughing until tears streamed down my face. Alas, Regretsy is gone and we're left with only a scattering of photos to remind us of all its crazy former glory. I remember this one as being one of my favourite Regretsy reader skants photos. And I just had to post it for the benefit of my American readers, whose Thanksgiving celebrations are in the offing. Why create some time-intensive, tasteful Martha Stewart-esque centrepiece no one will even notice when you can do something like this that your family will remember for years to come?






Though we no longer have Regretsy, we do have knitting designer Steven West, who has taken up the skants baton by taking them to the next evolutionary level and calling them "swants". West's swants are not quite like their predecessor skants. Unlike skants, swants involve some sewing, and feature a crotch. West has posted a tutorial on how to make your own swants on his website. He's also posted a video of the swants-wearing Westknits Fun Squad demonstrating how one should wear swants to the tune of "On and Ever Onward", by The Dirty Projectors and Bjork.

If you should get inspired and proceed to make your own skants or swants, be sure to link to a picture of you modelling them either here in the comments or on this blog's Facebook page, so that we can be sure this brave new crafting direction is getting the level of workmanship and respect it deserves.