I had a different post planned for today, but I figured I’d give you a heads-up that this year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Week is almost upon us! The post topics are already available, so if you like to draft your posts ahead, go for it. I know I’ll be preparing mine ahead of time, especially the one where we make our own Infographic. Plus it’s always easier getting your photographs done ahead of time, and if you’re planning something more elaborate for the always interesting “Something a Bit Different” post, then now’s the time to get on it. I know that my back would have thanked me if I’d started my knitting stop-motion animation earlier last year. But because it was so much fun, I’m sharing the video again:
So yes, I will be participating once again. As you can see, the whole thing starts on Monday, so I have some prep to get through. Especially this whole choosing a house thing. I may just be a monkey, I think… Or maybe a bee? Wondering what I’m talking about? I quote:
Are you a busy bee that dips into the golden nectar of many projects with your needles and hooks? Do you calmly indulge in the slow comfort of your next squishy new project? Do your wise and inquisitive monkey fingers seek new challenges in each project as you test your abilities? Do your peacock feathers shine in the form of beaded shawls and highly decorative projects?
Have you managed to decide what house you will be in for Knitting And Crochet Blog Week? If so, vote in the sidebar now and declare your allegiance! If you haven’t yet decided, re-fresh your memory using by following the link above and come back when you have decided which house you best associate with.
I hope you join in and I look forward to seeing what you all come up with!
Apart from the original, of course. I came across this one while looking for Star Wars stop motion versions. As I’ve mentioned before, I created a stop motion animation video for the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, and my original idea was to go with a Star Wars theme. I had planned for my needles to engage in a battle a la Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and before I developed that concept further, I wanted to see what my options would be in using the actual Star Wars music. You know, using the Imperial Death March, or creating a modified intro scroll together with the main theme music. While searching, I came across this video – full of win!
In case you’re wondering what happened to my concept, I took the duel option and created a kind of Wild West ‘shootout’ between my knitting needles. I’m still thinking of creating a Star Warsesque knitting stop motion video…
Knitting and Crochet Blog Week is over, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still have fun with it! The Friday challenge was the day where people put up all kinds of creative posts on the topic “Something a bit different.” Here is the exact wording of the challenge.
It’s back, and this time it has the most amazing of prizes (look for the prize for ‘most creative post’). This was a massive success last year, and for many it was the highlight of the Blog Week, so this year you are challenged, again, to find a new way of blogging.This is an experimental blogging day to try and push your creativity in blogging to the same level that you perhaps push your creativity in the items you create.There are no rules of a topic to blog about but this post should look at a different way to present content on your blog.
I talked about about my favorite posts from this year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog, and the photography nominations about two weeks ago. And now the creative post nominations are up. 10 posts are nominated, and they’re all great nominations. They include a bunch of my favorite posts, and a few new to me posts. Take a look – all of the posts are very very creative. So – if you’d like to vote for any of the posts, go here. Voting end on Sunday, at midnight British Standard Time.
I have to say, I really had a lot of fun during this year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. It was responsible for me getting back into a blogging groove. Before it, I was blogging rather occasionally – I was trying to get at least one blog post a week in. And now I’ve actually joined NaBloPoMo, and half-way through May, I can say that I’ve actually managed to continue blogging every day. I’ve also been trying to intersperse my crafting blog posts with food and photography posts. The different topics have inspired other blog posts – for example the photography challenge made me think about knitting waves for the soap stone boat I’d made for Mother’s Day, and then I took that idea and ran with it:
Given that, I’m kind of bummed I didn’t make it into the creative post nominations. It’s not about the prizes – they’re great, but honestly, I’ve been trying to stash down. It’s also not that I don’t wish the nominated bloggers. Au contraire, they all did a great job. There’s no whose place I think I should take. I just wish that there were 11 spots and that I’d make into that spot. Hence the title to this post.
BUT – ultimately I put up the post for myself. It was all up to me what I’d do, and I chose to challenge myself. I learned how to do stop motion animations, and how to have lots of fun while doing it. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but no one made me do it. I remember all the work when I look at the video, but also all the fun. I love the feedback, but I think I get the biggest kick out of that video:
So, no pity party for me. In the end, we blog first and foremost for ourselves. Or more correctly, I blog for myself. Yes, I have things to share, but I would run out of things to say if I only posted for others. I ultimately blog about things that interest me, things I like, things that make me think, and things I enjoy. Yes, we hope for an audience, and we’re glad to have followers, and subscribers and likes. But it’s about what I have to say. And there’s where an audience comes in. If you’re genuine in what you have to say, then other’s will realize it too. That’s what makes you interesting to others, I’d say.
That concludes the reflective part of today’s post. I hope you have fun on this blog. I’d love to hear from you, but as always that’s up to you. Happy blogging everybody!
Hello, hello! Remember the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week Photography Challenge Day? Well, unfortunately none of my photographs made it into the closer selection, but the 10 nominated photographs are so awesome!!!! The creators did an incredible job, you should check all of the photographs. It’s going to be really difficult picking one of the pictures. The nominations are open until Sunday, I think. Go and vote!
1: Big Teal Bird Needs More Food to Get Bigger, but Finds the Bird Feeder Not Quite Big Enough by Stitched Together
Another Wednesday! It’s once again time for a yarn along, but I also want to talk about last week’s Knitting and Crochet Blog week.
I’m still working on my Erin Go Bragh shawl. I know, I’m almost done, and I should have finished this project before the end of the month, but I’ve been so busy blogging this past week that I really haven’t made any progress. But, I have a new wip! Yes, even though I already have plenty of projects on my needles (I think I need to make a collage of my wips!).
But actually, I’m not the one who decided to cast on for a new project. Noooo, my knitting needles decided. In fact, my knitting needles decided to cast on a Windward scarf and have a little battle over the yarn for this project (Wollmeise 100% in Indisch Rot). Don’t believe me? See for yourself:
There is a good reason why I made this video. Remember the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week? Well, Friday’s topic was all about creativity:
Day 5: April 27, 2012. Something A Bit Different It’s back, and this time it has the most amazing of prizes (look for the prize for ‘most creative post’). This was a massive success last year, and for many it was the highlight of the Blog Week, so this year you are challenged, again, to find a new way of blogging. This is an experimental blogging day to try and push your creativity in blogging to the same level that you perhaps push your creativity in the items you create.There are no rules of a topic to blog about but this post should look at a different way to present content on your blog.
Wednesdays are the days with the most traffic for me, so I thought I should spread the love and share some of the other awesome creative posts out there. Here are my favorites:
A Pile of Sheep created a Yarn Personality Test! I’m Madeline Tosh Vintage – I’m an “easygoing person with just a touch of wild child for spice!” What are you?
PumpkinSpins used mind mapping to draw up a chart to answer “Why I create” – really interesting, and now I want to think more about why I myself create
Knit One, Stitch One, Save One drew a series of images, and created a quick animation out of the gif images to show what her hands look like while knitting. So creative – and the drawing are just beautiful.
Stitched Together is planning to knit a shawl with stripes, and the color of the stripes will be based on the comments that people have left on the blog, and in the end she’ll hold a random drawing where the winner will get the finished shawl. Awesome!
All She Wants to Do Is… created a knit/crochet version of The Onion website, call Crafting News Network. How hilarious!
When Did I Become a Knitter: It’s a post from the perspective of her Roan sweater, a wip of hers, at a self-help group called Unloved Knits Group. I have a few nominations from my wips for that group too.
Sanday Spinners put up a Knitting Riddle – I’m still trying to figure out the answer on my own. And you can win a knitted item from her!
Wickedly Artsy created a visual knitting timeline with images of the different stops in her knitting life
Fidlstix has a great post titled Something You Should Know About Me (no, I’m not going to tell you what it is, you need to play the video yourself)
Laylock‘s animated gifs of her knitting techniques (cast on, knitting, purling and cast off) are really interesting – my version of those techniques look different. Plus they should be really helpful to new knitters
KellPattsBlog‘s contribution is a crytoquote. How cool!
AStashAddict made a Hexipuff Evolution vlog. I haven’t made a Hexipuff yet, but I foresee a Hexipuff blanket in my future.
Frog-Soup‘s funny drawing (naked sheep in need!) made me giggle
and a ton more more…
And then there’s of course my stop motion animation – I’m ridiculously proud of this video. The family is already discussing whether we should do a video for my grandmother’s 90th birthday.
I hope you liked all of these different, creative takes on the something a bit different topics. I had to stop adding posts to the list or it would have been unendingly long. You can find more posts on this topic by googling 3KCBWDAY5. If you’d like to nominate any of these posts (or any others!) for the creative award, click here to go to Eskimimi’s nomination post. Of course, if you’d like to, you can also nominate my post too 🙂 If you cannot submit your nomination even though you’ve filled out all the fields correctly, then that means that someone else has already put in a nomination for that post. Nominations close on May4th, at midnight British Standard Time.
Day 5: April 27, 2012. Something A Bit Different It’s back, and this time it has the most amazing of prizes (look for the prize for ‘most creative post’). This was a massive success last year, and for many it was the highlight of the Blog Week, so this year you are challenged, again, to find a new way of blogging. This is an experimental blogging day to try and push your creativity in blogging to the same level that you perhaps push your creativity in the items you create.There are no rules of a topic to blog about but this post should look at a different way to present content on your blog.
During last year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, I came across this awesome stop motion post by gluecksfisch. When the creative post topic reappeared this year I decided to create a stop motion animation video, too. I know I should have thought a bit more about this ahead of time, because I didn’t prepare, and so I’ve spent most of today working on this video. I’m ridiculously proud of this video – it required many hours of work (and sweat!), a whole bunch of props, and a lot of patience. This has been my first time puttering around with iMovie – the editing functions are really are pretty neat, even though it took me nearly forever (auto-didact here). And thanks to my parents for their creative input, and especially my Dad who came up with the idea to my photographing set-up:
This won’t be the last time that I’ll be doing a stop motion project! Maybe I’ll put up some of the other plot ideas I’ve had – after all, there is much more mischief that knitting needles can get into. As for today’s post, I’ll leave this one up for a while so Day 6 will probably be posted late tomorrow. In the meantime, check out the other creative posts out there, by googling today’s code 3KCBWDAY5. Until tomorrow!
Knitting, reading, photography, and maybe more 