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!

Crikey!

I haven't been blogging much this month, because I felt there 'wasn't much' for me to blog about. Of course, now I come to write a post I realise that there's loads and loads, and if I'm not super careful this will turn into one of my super boring posts with far too much text and not enough photos. I've been a bad blogger, I do apologise.

It also turns out - I've been tagged! It hasn't happened before, but I am going to try and combine an update with the tagging thing, and hope not to get too verbose ;)

I'm not going to tag anyone else, but if you want to do this, let me know in the comments!

I have been tagged by DarnCatCrochet.

So I'm it......

Here are the “official” rules:
1. Players must list one fact, word, or tidbit that is somehow relevant to their life for each letter of your first or middle name.

2. When you are tagged you need to write your own post containing your first or middle name game facts, word, or tidbit.

3. At the end of your post choose one person for each letter of your name to tag.

4. Don’t forget to leave a comment telling them ,they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

5. If I have tagged YOU, please join in on the fun! (Rules supplied by Hannah at bittersweet)

My middle name is MARY. My very Catholic grandmother was not overly impressed that I was named after a punk pop star (despite it being a biblical name!), so my parents opted for Mary as a consolation prize ;)

M - MONEY
Now, DarnCat (I love that film BTW, the Hayley Mills version) won't know this, but it is completely her fault that I've got my etsy obsession. Well, her fault via Harry Potter. See, I spent the week leading up to the last HP book reading all the previous ones, getting totally immersed in HP land (my 'tradition' is to read each one in a day leading up to the release of the next one). Then the following week we saw the fifth film. Then... I was having HP withdrawal symptoms!

So I started lurking on Craftster, because they often have threads about the costumes in the HP films (one thread had a link to a documentary all about costume in HP films; as an ex-wardrobe mistress I found it fascinating). Then I found a thread about a crocheted Harry Potter and Hedwig (I love Hedwig!) that were just fabulous. Utterly utterly amazing; the best knitted/crocheted toys I've ever seen. DarnCat was the designer, so I started stalking her blog, desperately waiting for her to release the pattern (can I crochet? Of course not ;) ). She also did a Hermione and a Ron, and now I reeeeeeeally need my crochet-ing friend to teach me (I think I can bribe her with goes on my spinning wheel).

Now, I was aware of etsy before, obviously. But having money in my paypal account mixed with Harry Potter withdrawal symptoms... Anyway, since my pattern purchase, I may well have bought stitch markers, bracelets and t-shirts. Not all HP related ;)

And the best part: it feels like it's all free! My 'rule' is that anything bought with money from paypal, has to be paid for with money already in my paypal account that I didn't put there. i.e., I have to sell some of my old crap on ebay, in order to fund my etsy habit. So I'm decluttering too ;)

A - ANTSY
Earlier in late Spring/Summer, I heard about 2 things. Ravelry, and Mystery Stole 3. I decided that I was both above taking part in things 'just because everyone else is', and - being aware of my injuries - better off not joining a website which would involve more typing, nor a KAL that would involve loads of knitting.

Doh!

Of course, I loooooooooooooooove MS3. If I'm honest, I've loved it ever since I first saw the first clue (yet I *still* didn't join, even though there were a few days left). I've been stalking Melanie's blog, desperately waiting for the pattern to be released. And today it has been! Hoorah!

So now I'm super antsy, waiting for my download email to arrive!

As for Ravelry, I've signed up, but I think there are still a couple of million people in front of me in the queue. I've realised that I don't *have* to actively type loads, but can use it as a resource. Same with every other Mystery project! Just because I'm getting the clues doesn't mean I HAVE to knit them! So I've now signed up for the Secret of the Stole and Secret of Chrysopolis as well, so I don't miss out again! However, I think MS3 is going to be my priority, once the download email finally arrives!!!

R - REALLY TINY HATS
My pledge has succeeded! Hoorah! It's still open until the middle of October, though, so you can still sign up if you want :)

I haven't started my mini-hats yet, but I have been unravelling crappy old acrylic WIPs that I'm going to use the yarn for hats instead. I've pledged to make a minimum of 5 hats, but I'm hoping that I get to use up all my old acrylic instead! (I have nothing against acrylic - the emphasis here is on old!).

My friends are holding a Knit-In to make hats, so I'll probably start when we do that. Or I'll start this weekend - who knows ;)

Y - YARN TO BE
I'm thinking for MS3 that I'll just go with Jaggerspun Zephyr, since that's the yarn used in the sample, and I can get that over here. I'm thinking maybe the darkest grey that I can get, and using lighter silver beads (I have no idea where to buy decent beads in the city I live now!).

There's a new Knitty, and I love Cherie Amour. I was looking at yarns to sub, but then realised that since it has a pretty short yardage, I could spin for it!

I've decided to get some dyed Corriedale combed tops, and make a 2-ply bulky yarn. My plan is to have one ply being all one colour, but to make the other ply multi-coloured (ie., spin a tuft of colour A, then B, then C, then back to A, etc). The two strands will barber-pole, but the knitting should appear to be striped, as the multi-coloured strand should stand out more. (Clear as mud, right?)

I'm thinking of using the following colours:
Plum Duff
Raspberry
Jelly Bean
Grape Jelly

They are all shown next to each other on this site:

http://www.pmwoolcraft.co.uk/html/view_product.php?ProdID=1092&CatID=&start=18

Bu obviously the colours in the photo might be off! I think they're actually darker in real life, especially the grape jelly, as this site has the same fibre with different photos, and there are slight differences.

So! The million dollar questions! Do you think I'm bonkers? Do the colours go well together, or should I rethink? Which colour should I pick to be the single-colour ply? I'm thinking Jelly Bean or Plum Duff (but that might have to depend on me sampling once I've bought the fibre).

I'd really appreciate any input, because Mr Bee is a) not really interested b) complaining I have too much fibre already, and why don't I use that instead (answer: I don't have enough of any one fibre!).

My MS3 pattern just arrived - hoorah!

(oh, and I failed on the 'not being too verbose' front: I'll do photos soon :) )