The Knitting Fiend

I had to laugh at the two discussion threads posted at the knitlist this week:

• I don’t understand why people blog about knitting.
• I don’t understand why people knit dishcloths.

I can only assume my two blog articles on knitting dishcloths makes some knitters’ minds reel!

Of course, the answers to both questions are: people do things because they enjoy doing them. They don’t need anyone else to understand.

During the course of the discussion thread, a knitter, who happens to blog, posted to mention she stopped reading blogs because she felt some bloggers conveyed an snootty attitude about “what a knitting blog should be”. I’m not sure whose blog she visited, but I know any blogger who seemed to suggest hers was the “ne plus ultra” of blogging would probably bore so many visitors no one would visit!

In any case, I don’t think there is a correct answer to “what a knitting blog should be like”. There are only all knitting blogs have in common: they discuss knitting and they use some sort of blogging software to organize the posts.

Other than that, knitting blogs differ from each other dramatically. One thing that is absolutely true of all blogging: The content, philosophy and design of a blog is entirely the decision of the individual blog author and no one else. I’d say most bloggers attitude is this. If you like my blog, great! You’re welcome to visit. If you don’t like my blog, it’s a big world. I’m sure you can find other amusements, and that’s fine too.

Here are some of the types of blogs I’ve seen:

Blogs the authors use to show off their projects to their family family and friends. Blogs are easier to author and maintain than web sites, so it’s a good way to start. Chances are, few of these bloggers mind that fewer than 3 people a day visit their blog. That said, many of these blogs have 20-40 regular visitors, many of whom leave comments because they are friends with the blogger. In many ways, these blogs are similar in content to Christmas card letters people send to their friends, but if the public sees them, that’s fine too.

Some blog authors write entertaining stories, often involving knitting. At their best achieve a “Dave Barry” or “Erma Bombeck” quality. “Totally Knitting Universe” falls in this category! I’d say a fair number of blogs strive for this quality. When the author is very entertaining and post regularly, these blogs can become quite popular — after they are discovered by enough readers to be highly linked.

Some multi-author blogs just try to build an community of knitters. The co-bloggers often work on projects together, but have a forum to show off what they are doing. (Iowa Chick Knits falls in this group.)

Other knitting blogs concentrate more on techniques and projects. Mine falls in this category, as does Kim Salazar’s much more popular hand knitting blog. Sonja of Fusion Knitting has a technique & project oriented machine knitting blog I think every machine knitter should visit. ).

Do we get traffic? Well, I have no idea how much traffic other knit bloggers get. According to site meter, between 150-250 people visit my blog each day. However, very few of my visitors come read today’s article; most of my traffic comes when people do a Google search on something like “count rows knitting” or “seed stitch chart”. And, since many stay less than 20 seconds, it’s clear that often, when they get here, they haven’t found what they were looking for. So, likely fewer than 50-100 people really read my blog a day!

Ok, so maybe 50-100 people actually read my blog. That’s fine. Plus, in the blogging world, that’s a mediumish amount of traffic. Let’s face it, no one is writing a knit blog thinking they are going to become famous.

So, why do knitters blog? Well, to a large extent, knitting bloggers blog because they enjoy it. And they know someone, somewhere “out there” wants to find a pattern for a knit rat, and they figure it would be fun to help them find one!