The Knitting Fiend

Getting a comment about my ads made me curious. The mysterious term “SEO” made me curiouser. I had no idea what that meant. Some one else did. Maybe I could attract more knitters to my site and earn oodles and oodles of cash by totally reorganizing my blog!

So, to learn more, I visited some “how to make money ” type blogs. I read; then clicked. That sent me to similar blogs where I read, and clicked more. Every individual bit of information I read sounded reasonable. I had to agree doing “A” did sound potentially more profitable than doing “B”.

So, why did it all make me think, “uhmm… uhmm..”?

You ask, “Give me an example that made you think ‘uhhmmm…’?”.
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I’m a slow, slow knitter.

I guess I’d be further along if I didn’t allow myself to be distracted by rampant commercialism and consumer madness. (Yes, instead of knitting yesterday, I spent time shopping .) But, anyway. . . Here is how the socks are shaping up.

They are knit from “Marks & Kattens” Clown yarn which I bought at Zorra’s Yarn. (The store is in a white house on Chicago avenue, east of downtown Naperville and just east of North Central College. Watch carefully or you’ll drive by.) The Clown yarn is 45% cotton, 40% superwash wool and 15% nylon; 50 grams=190 meters.

I’m guessing they nylon will make the socks wear well. Although that’s not tremendously important in a bed sock.

Since the yarn is a cotton-wool blend, I’m finding it’s more elastic than cotton but less elastic than wool. (Amazing! )

Sharp eyed readers will have noticed I’m knitting along a fine strand of lycra. That’s because I have 1 lb cone left over from machine knitting, and I figure extra elasticity is a good thing in socks. So, I decided to use it. I’m not sure that I’m happy with that decision; carrying the lycra along is a pain in the neck. I’ll decide after I steam the socks to see how they feel.

As to the Clown yarn: I like the way it’s forming nifty little patterns as I knit with it. I do think the self patterning looks much better in stockinette than it did in ribbing; so I’m glad I planned an ultra simple stockinette sock. Knit purl combinations would probably just ruin the look.

I hope will be done soon. (Tonight, the heel turn!)

I'm sure visitors have noticed I added "Chitika" ads to my site. I already had Google ads, so why the Chitika ads? Well, I have three reasons. First, sheer curiosity. Second, rampant commercialism! But, Google Ads should be enough for that, right?

Nope! Third: I've noticed that Google Ads sometimes don't "sense" my individual blog article content for about 24 hours. This means that regular visitors arriving from services like bloglines see blank boxes instead of ads. Now, I'm aware that visitors probably don't mind this. But, the fact is, I'd prefer the ad boxes to be full, not empty. So, I created an account with Chitika and wrote some code to make Chitika ads fill in the sometimes blank boxes.

That was the plan. So, I went to Chitika and found ads knitters might actually want to see. I tried things like "yarn", "knitting needles", etc. I ended up having to search a bit deeper. (That was a pain in the neck. Google less hassel.)

But, I hit the motherload. Looky here:

Ok, it's an ad for Alpaca; you can't touch it over the web. But still, Alpaca! (Strangely enough, I'm not sure which of the 10 alpaca yarn or kits I entered will display, but a whole lot of them say "yumm". )

(Since it's an ad, I also have to warn you: I haven't bought these yarns through Alpaca Direct. I'm just drooling at the pictures, and they are brands I recognize like Plymouth. So, I'll post ads for these in the sidebar. Note, the Alpaca ad will appear randomly near the top, and always appear way near the bottom. )

Ok. So, I found yummy Alpaca. I even found other knitting things to post (which you'll also see in the sidebar). No more empty grey boxes. You'd think I'd be happy.

Well. . . . yeah. But, I'm grumpy too.

Why? Well, late this morning when I was hunting around for products to display, Chitika carried ads for regia and jawoll sock yarn. Some looked really, really yummy. Plus, as you all know, I'm on a sock binge. So, I found loads of search terms for a bunch of sock yarns, and created the little script to show those yarns. I was even planning to buy some of the yarns through the link on my blog.

But first, I went to get groceries.

I came home. Wallet in hand, I visited my blog and noticed in place of the sock yarns . . . electronics!

Now, mind you, I had decided to post some ads for electronics; after all everyone or their kids wants an MP3 player for Christmas. But these appeared in place of the knitting ads! You know, when I visit my own blog, I want to see knitting yarns.

So, I had to do a bit more hunting for knitting items. Fortunately, I found some. (Which you'll see over to the right in the sidebar.)

Hopefully, the ads will still be knitting oriented tomorrow.