Random thing the fifth: Yesterday was Ada Lovelace Day

So I've been a bad blogger in general for the past year while, and more specifically a bad blogger yesterday. Because I pledged to write a post about women in technology for Ada Lovelace Day, and Ada Lovelace Day was yesterday. Doh.

But then today, whilst wondering which woman I should write about, I read this old post, in which a [male] tech journo wrote about Ravelry. Now in and of itself the post is nothing special (although I'd rather it didn't use the word 'ridiculous' in the context of knitting itself existing of course).

But to me its demonstrative of a wider point: that women, with our crazy lady-hobbies and little lady-brains frequently have our odd lady-technologies dismissed by The Internet at large.

Case in point: a couple of years ago you couldn't move without seeing some article about Where Are All The Women Bloggers?* And I always found this odd. Not only because I *am* a woman sorry can't do it female blogger - cooee, I'm over here! But because I've been on the internet a lot, first mailing lists, then forums, then blogs since the heady days of 1999 and in each instance the majority of the people populating said mailing lists, forums and blogs were women. I couldn't surf for falling over women. Men, not so much. But there were definitely lots and lots of women.

Now I'm the first person to stand up on a soap-box and shout about social conditioning and that there's nothing inherently 'feminine' or 'masculine' about activities, but it's clear (mainly since so many of us are socially conditioned) that the WAATWB people were looking in the wrong place. See, the WAATWB were not looking at health forums, or feminist blogs, or the knittisphere, or anywhere else that I was, but rather they were looking at their own spaces and not necessarily realising that just because women were underrepresented there didn't mean that they were underrepresented in general.

Which is why a technology site can be bemused and baffled that a knitting website might have 17,000 subscribers (and this was in the far off days of 2007 - Ravelry's now at 319,547 users), and end its brief description of what it appeared to think was solely a social networking site** with the comment:

If you’re a knitter, join the waiting list immediately. Everyone else, nothing to see here.

Because, you know, it's just knitting. Urgh. As if that's important. Talk about this any longer and we might all get girl germs.

It's not like this is an incredibly successful site built on viral marketing that most sites can only dream of; that it is revolutionising the way independent pattern designers can make a living; that means that days of trawling through Google, and Craftster, and Knitty, trying to find a knit-a-long - or just anyone who'd made this obscure pattern before - so that you can see what a pattern might look like knit up in different ways, are long gone.

Women - and all our womanly associated media - get doubly done a disservice. For those working in traditionally male-dominated technological areas there is the old boys' club and glass ceiling to navigate (one of the responses I remember reading to all the WAATWB articles was along the lines of Stop all the willy waving and maybe we'll come & play. Too right). For those utilising technology*** to fulfill a need felt only by a female majority the matter is dismissed. Because, you know, it's just knitting.

My favourite post on this is by 'Woman Blogger' (look! There's one!) & knitter Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Now, I'll admit that she's focussing on the knitting, rather than the technology, but I think the problems that she has faced are analogous to the dismissive attitude afforded Ravelry on the aforementioned post.

Just a selection from Represent, by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee:

So, there's this problem out there. [...] It is a lack of understanding (or respect) for the sheer numbers of knitters out there.

-It happened in St. Louis, where the library (despite a warning from the knitting guild and the publisher) decided how many knitters there could possibly be and ran short of books and chairs.

-It happened in MA. where all the knitters couldn't even fit in the shop and spilled into the street and there wasn't even room to sit down.

-it happened in Doylestown where when I arrived the shop had TEN chairs and were extremely reluctant to get more out. I kept saying "You need more chairs" and they kept saying "It'll be Ok." with this look on their face like they just didn't know how to break it to me that I wrote KNITTING books, and nobody was coming.

-it happened with one of my webhosts, who, despite being told how much traffic I get, made his own judgement about what sort of traffic would be possible when I said it was "a knitting blog" .

Women and Technology. We're not hiding - you're just not looking.

* I know I know that's a great big grammar fart staring us all in the face, but I assure you that this is a quote rather than my own composition. I don't spend all day writing woman=noun female=adjective on my students' work for the good of my health.
** I quote (this is most of the post actually):

"So of course there needs to be a social network around [knitting], and Ravelry is going to fill that need.

The site is still in private beta and has a long list of knitter-types desperate to get in - 17,000 people have requested invites and they’ve let about 1/3 of them in so far. If you want to get a feel for the features and look/feel of the site, see the screen shots they posted here.

Needless to say, the idea is to build out a profile and then add friends, create a blog, add pictures and participate in the forums.

But users will also be encouraged to put up information about projects they are working on, and other users can participate by commenting, recommending, etc."

This not only ignores the fact that knitters have been socially networking through existing channels, but no mention appears to be made of the fact that Ravelry's primary use for many many users is for the pattern database and archive and the fact that you can now easily find others who have made the same pattern.
*** I am aware that one half of Ravelry - the coding half - is a dude. But, you know, he codes knitting, ergo, girl germs.

Random thing the... uh... ... fourth

I hate bra sizing.

Hate it with A. PASSION.

There are many reasons, including the fact that apparently that most women are erroneously wearing a band size that is too large, and a cup size that is too small. Yet when I input my measurements into bra size calculators I consistently get the answer 36A which seems, for me, to be slightly too large a band size, and, since my 34C bra cups were too small & I was expecting to be something like a 34D/36C-D, slightly too small a cup.

But try as I might, I kept getting 36A or B on all size charts. The only time I'd get anything that sounded slightly more realistic was from websites that talked about how bra sizing sucks (this site was particularly informative and this ebay guide is similar), and that most people are wearing a band size that is too loose, and a cup size that is too small. Going on this, I felt it even more unlikely that I was a 36A.

I got fitted for a bra the other day, and after 45 minutes of tryings on (4 different bra styles), the overwhelming conclusion was that I was a 32DD-E.

Riiiight.

The 32DD-E isn't without its problems though. The bras are obviously a lot tighter than I'm used to; having had 2 years of little support, my boobs are really tender at the moment from all this trussing up. I suppose if things don't start feeling more comfortable soon I'll have to go elsewhere. I did try on some bras today in another shop; I only took 32DD-Es in, but think I must be a at least 34 something-or-other in their styles and really couldn't be bothered faffing with any more.

Interestingly, given that I've read a lot these past few days about women wearing too big a band and too small a cup, I've just come across one article that suggests that women who want breast reduction surgery are wearing too small bands and too big cups, and getting a new bra solves their problems rather than surgery. But it doesn't say what measuring guide they used... So who knows!

Why there can't just be one consistent method of measuring which actually correlates to the sizes of bras being made in a standard way across styles and brands I don't know.

Random thing the third

I once found a bat in my bedroom.*

My old bedroom had Victorian sash windows. Sash windows are often pretty much the height of the wall and have three states: closed; open with a 2-6 inch gap at the top or bottom; half open. So, for those of us who are security conscious, the window essentially had two states: closed, or open with a gap. My window was always kept open with the small gap.

I am also a hoarder, and used to keep random crap in plastic bags stuffed down the back of a chest of drawers which was in front of the window.

One evening, lying in bed (a very low bed, in a small room, so my head was next to the chest of drawers) I heard the plastic bags crackle. I started to freak out a little bit, since my window was only open at the top - near the ceiling - and the plastic bags were near the floor. I convinced myself that there was no way an axe-murderer could have fit through a 4 inch gap in the window (and even if one had, they wouldn't fit behind the chest of drawers).

It was only when I heard my windchime tinkle that I knew something weird was happening. My windchime was hung by my door in such a position that it *only* *ever* chimed when the door was being opened or shut. There was no way that a breeze from the window could move the chimes. And the door was shut.

There was clearly something in the room that way making the bags crackle and the windchime jingle.

So I went and woke up my brother, who felt that logically there was no axe murderer playing with my windchime. I lay on his floor for a while, uncomfortable and being unable to sleep, and eventually decided that it must've been a big gust of wind.

So I went back to my cofy bed, with all the lights on and with some music playing (and the covers over my head and firmly tucked in all round my body) and tried to get to sleep.

Then the windchime clashed again.

Completely freaked out I dared to glance out... and saw that there was a huge bat flying around my light.

Once I'd calmed down from the lack of an axe murderer, I decided that having a bat choose to fly into my bedroom actually upped my goth cred quite a bit, and was therefore totally cool. But I did go back and sleep on my brother's floor.

In the morning my mother & I found the bat sleeping on the back of the curtains, and, with its wings all folded up (it wasn't upside down or anything), it was so diddy! It must've been a pipistrelle, a tiny British bat with relatively long wings which is why I thought it would've been larger.

Later that day it had gone. I didn't see it again so I assume it found its way out of the window, leaving me with a pretty cool experience to relate (and a small amount of bat poo on my curtains).

* Yes, this is inspired by the current week in Ravelry round-up thing, which I've never read before, but discovered that it was an easy way to alleviate boredom when on my baby computer without bloglines.

Random thing the second...

...I am evidently not as good at updating my blog as I used to be. Huh. Whoda thought?

I've spent the weekend getting an old W-I-P ready for finishing,* going through my blog and adding labels to the all the old posts. The next step is to add all my FO pictures to Ravelry, since I've heard they've now implemented photo-upload now. I've been using the Ravelry queue over the past year, and I always check out what designs look like on other people, but other than that I don't really use it.

And then I guess I need to start some updates!

* including doing the kitchener stitch for the first time ever, and using it to graft live stitches to a cast-off edge. It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. I'm not sure that what I did was 'true' kitchener stitch, but it looks pretty and it works!

Is this thing on?

So, about a million years ago (give or take a few months), Hope tagged me. In an unrelated area of my life, my jobs got so overwhelming that something had to go, and sadly, it was blogging (I've still been reading though, but must work on the commenting). For the past couple of months I've been planning to post to this blog again, and doing the thing where you write the posts in your head - that kind of thing.

Anyway, there's never a better time like the present. I have a bunch of FOs, since I may have had to stop the knit-blogging, but I didn't stop the knitting. I also went to Woolfest last week, have decided that I may do the Tour de Fleece thing unofficially (i.e., let's have an excuse to do some spinning), and have been making the longest Ravelry queue in the world (I don't use it that often, but I'm TheKnittingBee there).

I feel there is nothing better to ease oneself back into blogging, other than filling out a meme with excruciating slowness. Here goes:

"Here’s the deal: Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged."

[no, I am not going to tag anyone else]

Random thing the First

I do not have a fridge, or a freezer. Mr Bee & I have been doing without for over 18 months now, and it really isn't as 'hard' as people think.

Initially we were just too lazy to buy one, since our old flat came with a fridge/freezer but our new house didn't. Then after a few months we realised that we didn't really need it.

We have a north-facing kitchen with no radiators or heaters in it; one cupboard in particular is always quite draughty (I think there are vents somewhere to outside), and so we call that our cold cupboard and it's our pseudo-fridge. We use butter (which is rarely spreadable, even though it's not refrigerated), and cheese gets eaten far too quickly to go off. We have mash instead of frozen chips, and any ice-cream bought has to be eaten immediately (oh, for shame!). As vegetarians, a lot of our fake-meat is dried, rather than chilled, so that's not a problem either (and anything from the chiller cabinet is fine in the cold cupboard for a day or so anyway), and vegetables stay fresh for ages in a regular cupboard, never mind the cold one! We don't drink milk (but it will keep for at least 24 hours at most times of the year).

The one thing I miss is being able to freeze left-overs, but other than that it's really not an issue (we've now learnt just what the right amount of food to make initially is). I did think I'd miss ice-packs for cooling down inflammation, but I have gel-packs which I can submerge in cold water instead (plus - not that much inflammation!).

So there you go - no fridge, no freezer, just a nice small electric bill!

Tune in next time for the second stunning installment of this meme!

Hats ahoy!

I've been so busy recently I've just had no time to blog so I've had potential posts stacking up. One thing that I haven't written up properly is the pledge for all the mini-hats for Innocent!

My aim in setting up the pledge was to raise at least 40 hats - so £20 for Age Concern - by asking 35 people to knit at least 1 hat, if I knit 5.

Well, I'm happy to announce that we raised way more than 40 hats! For a start 39 people joined up, so we were 4 over target already. And it turned out that hat knitting is addictive, and many people knitted more than their suggested number of hats.

I made 10:



Some others sent me either their hats or their photos. One thing that came out from using the pledge was that people who had never heard of the hat drive got to know about it, and people who wouldn't normally have knit a hat decided to rise to the pledge challenge and get some done.

Here are Chris's hat - I love the hat stands!



Ann did 7 - each has a different little emblem on:



These are Celia's matching set (love the bobbles on these):



My friends R & Fizzysister invited me to their Innocent knit-in where they made some awesome rainbow coloured hats and one in the shape of an elephant, but sadly took no photos. I stole the idea for the ribbon-tied cloche hat (the third one along in my photo collage) from them.

Alaha made 5 - including an awesome one with horns! - Janette eventually made 22, Bod made at least 6, Adeline made at least 3, Ruth 2, Juliette made at least 3, and Fran referred to 'hats' so I shall assume there was more than one...

And then beating us all, Miss Shine & her knitting group managed to send off a whopping 63 hats! She has a photo on her blog of a selection of them.

So out of only 13 pledgers who let me know about their hats, we've produced well over 100 hats!

And then finally, today, Mr Bee & I found a Sainsbury's and found the results of all the at knitting! Hats in the wild! The hats go on Innocent smoothies sold in Sainsbury's in November, and 50p from every hatted-bottle sold goes to Age Concern. So it's important to close the loop. We're going away this week, and I can't wait to find more behatted bottles in the wild:

An open letter to designers of Mystery knit-a-longs

Dear Designers,

For the love of wool PLEASE stop running mystery KALs on yahoogroups and mailing lists. Seriously.

I admit it. I have a low tolerance level for email these days (consequences of two jobs where I have to deal with morons sending moronic email all day). But I can't be the only person turned off from these sorts of KALs because they're run via mailing list.

When KALs and the online knitting world were small then it wasn't a problem to run these sorts of groups via mailing list. However, with increased popularity - there are over 2100 knitters on the now-closed Secret of the Stole, and over 1100 on Spring Shawl Surprice already and that doesn't even start for nearly 2 months - it's becoming less and less feasible to run a group this way.

I suggest moving away from email-led groups into a more structured forum setting. Free forum software is very good, members can be required to join and messages can be kept restricted so that nothing appears on public view.

At the moment with the mailing lists one's choices are essentially receive everything (and I mean *everything*), or receive nothing but special notices from the designer. I feel that a forum would be a happy medium between the two.

There could be a special 'announce' section for those who just want to get the important messages from the designer & nothing else; there can be sections for advanced queries, and those for beginners, those for photos, as well as a separate section for people to chat about things in general.

Important posts can be 'stickied', and it would be a lot clearer when someone had already asked a question, avoiding unnecessary duplication. Those who want the full socialising atmosphere can hang around all the sections. Those that just want to knit the pattern can simply keep an eye on the relevant pattern sections.

I would like to keep up more with the lists, but there is just so much traffic that I just can't. And a lot of the traffic isn't always relevant immediately to the pattern - or it's very basic questions that have to be asked over and over because people don't tend to search the archives of mailing lists in the way that they would on a forum. I haven't been able to keep up with my email and I currently have over 100 unread *digests* (so 1000s of messages) solely from the past *month* - from only 2 KALs! It's ridiculous!

I think this problem is only ever going to grow as the online knitting world grows, and while mailing lists have their place - I'm on lots of other ones, so my problem isn't with the concept of a list - I think that the mystery KAL has outgrown them.

Yours grumpily,
TheKnittingBee