I would advice knitters: If you like these sorts of all stockinette hand knits, you should consider buying a knitting machine. You could whip something similar out in a day.

On discussing non-knitting at a knitting blog

Luna asked whether it’s ok to discuss tracking blog traffic at a knitting blog. The answers is, “Sure it is!” I’ve done it before.

Many of your visitors are bloggers and enjoy the occasional blog about blogging. The reason I started a new blog about blogging is that I was planning to write tons of posts about blogging. Those would have seriously bored knitter to tears.

What’s Stumble? Can it help my knitting blog?

As to your not knowing what “Stumbles” are… that’s not surprising. I never paid attention to these sites until I started blogging about blogging!

But knowing what Stumble is may help you get traffic to your knitting blog. If you blog for business purposes, this could get you business for your store. So if you’d like to try, I’ll describe what it is and how to use it.

Here’s the story: There is a site called “StumbleUpon”. It’s possible to do a number of things. One is to nominate a post as “excellent”. (This is called “Stumbling”.) When doing this you place the post in a category.

The other thing you can do is visit posts people have nominated as “worth reading”. It turns out a lot of people find blog posts that way, so if a post gets enough “stumbles” in a particular category, it can draw a lot of traffic. (I don’t know if it works in knitting, but we can give it a try, right?)

Would you like your best knitting articles to be stumbled?

The most effective way to get stumbled requires doing three things:

1. Add a “Stumble” button to your blog. It looks like this:

   Stumble it (and place in knitting/crochet!)

   You can get the correct code for your blog at StumbleUpon I edited the text to suggest placing my posts in “knitting/crochet”.

2. Tell your blog visitors about Stumble. Otherwise they won’t have any idea what “Stumble” is, and won’t click on the button.
3. Write posts knitters are likely to love. Then your visitors will click. Knitters you don’t know who visit stumble will click. You may see traffic.

If you do get Stumbled you’ll benefit not only from traffic, but from good links Google counts toward your rank. This can help you attract more search engine traffic on things like “sock yarn”, which is a good thing!

If you have more questions about Stumble (or similar programs) just ask.

Offer to knitting audience.

If my regulars would like, I can explain some of the more useful “blogging tips” I post about over at Big Bucks Blogger. I figure roughly 1 out of 10 of those posts are of interest to knitters, knit bloggers and knit store owners.

Actually, even though my post on Jason Calacanis’s new “human powered search engine that will put Google out of business” won’t help your blog or store, knitters might be amused by screen shot of some results. Evidently, for some knitting searches, we knitters are offered links on gay marriage, bannana peppers or Disney Movies.

I think it’s safe to say these current results are . . . . irrelevant?

Well, evidently Mahalo is in Beta and only 60% complete. (Or Alpha and 5%-10% complete. I think I’ve read or heard both in the past few months.)

Anyway, enough for now! I’ll looks for more silly knitting patterns, and let me know if you’d like tips about things that can bring traffic to your knitting blog.

© lucia for The Knitting Fiend, 2007. | Permalink | 9 comments
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Oddly enough, by just posting things I’ve learned while blogging about knitting I am experiencing quite a bit of traffic and thing called “stumbles” from the “in the know” people.

Mind you, I didn’t even know what “stumbles” were before I began blogging about blogging. That said, it looks like my post on how to protect your blog from being hacked using “htaccess” has gotten a few “stumbles”, and may soon get a flood of traffic. ( Never mind that that’s a rehashed post that appeared on a knitting blog back in 2005! )

Still, when I saw this from Berrocco and had to post. The blogging, work and gardening projects have been interfering with my knitting. So, projects I strated in May are being finished now. (I’ll try to show the “gardening” projects soon. They involved filling the garage with flagstone to create a sort of second patio where we plan to put a fire pit. The garden changes are actually unbelievable.)

I’ll try to resume posting two or three times a week now! I hope you all had a great summer!

© lucia for The Knitting Fiend, 2007. | Permalink | 9 comments
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The Fun Fur in France
is knit into fuzzy tops
and floppy berets.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

© lucia for The Knitting Fiend, 2007. | Permalink | 18 comments
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Mighty Hercules,
this strong muscular hero
is a real softy.
 

I found this Phildar pattern at the French ebay site. French grandmothers must have real knitting skills to knit these for kids.

© lucia for The Knitting Fiend, 2007. | Permalink | 7 comments
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Or maybe this hand knit sweater just looks older!

That furry loop stitch is actually a bit tedious to knit. You need to hold the loops rather evenly as you form the stitches. So, unlike the ratty worn looking sweaters you can knit quickly and easily using lion brand fun fur or other novelty yarns, this one is difficult.

Is it worth the extra effort?

From Adriafil

© lucia for The Knitting Fiend, 2007. | Permalink | 11 comments
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My dear old granny
crochets beautiful blankets.
I wear them as capes.

Everything old is new again! I’m not sure this will keep your shoulders warm. It certainly won’t block the wind. Maybe it’s just a fashion statement?

Once again, this is from Adriafil

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This item from Adriafil caught my eye. Maybe it looks more atttractive in real life, but somehow, that lace fringe looks awfully floppy there. And couldn’t the photographer have posed the model to look a big more dynamic?

Oh well… It’s not as though hand knitters might hope to look elegant when stepping out to buy groceries.

© lucia for The Knitting Fiend, 2007. | Permalink | 14 comments
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