sweetgeorgia

Baby, Baby

On Saturday evening, we met Michelle’s new baby niece for the first time — there she was all warm and cozy in a blanket we had knitted for her as a group.

Michelle picked the baby blanket pattern from the Last Minute Knitted Gifts book and each of the seven of us picked a colour and knit seven squares — yes, the guys learned to knit so that they could help out on this blanket! Richard did the blocking and Michelle (bless her) sewed in at least one hundred yarn ends and seamed the blanket together.

We were initially a bit worried about the squares since each one of us knits at a slightly different tension and some of the squares had creatively tossed in “yo” increases and decreases. Some of the squares varied anywhere from 4 to 6″ square. But enter the magic of blocking…

Anyway, we spent about half an hour at Michelle’s watching Richard torment play with the baby. The next day, Michelle mentioned, “hey Fishy, you didn’t get a chance to hold the baby!” and hey, I am totally ok with that. I mean, you break it you buy it, right?

*Oh! And in good news, one of my yarn orders finally arrived. Yippee! Dye dye dye!

Knit. Blogosphere. Still two words.

Yesterday, I attended the BCAIM (BC Association of Integrated Marketers) Christmas luncheon at the Four Seasons Hotel. One of my clients is on the board of directors at BCAIM and she invited me out to hear the program.

The association had invited Darren Barefoot to speak about blogging and how blogging can be incorporated into business practice. Long gone are the days when marketers can control the message that the consumers receive. Now, at best, they can hope to engage in a conversation with consumers and attempt to manage the conversation. It was really an excellent presentation, illustrating how businesses can become more appealing to the consumer when they use blogs to communicate with their customers.

This is knit-related because one of the things Darren mentioned was the incredible number of knitting blogs out there in the blogosphere. (You know, I was all ready to come out of the closet with my “hey, I write a blog and yeah, it’s about knitting” until I heard all the snarky giggling and laughing from the crowd at the concept of knitting blogs.)

He seemed genuinely surprised that there would be so many knitters who blog — ok, I can deal. But unfortunately, this was then followed by the conclusion that this meant that bloggers are more than just geeky teenage boys — that, gasp, they might include older women. Did I just read that in? Or am I just too sensitive about the whole issue? It seems that with all of knitting’s new-found popularity, it still can’t shake that old granny image. We need some serious PR-work, stat.

Update: Isn’t it wonderful that we are all so passionate about this craft? I can sense everyone’s intensity through your comments. For me, I appreciate Darren coming here and clarifying his point. I’m cool with that. I’m sorry if this post sounded at all like a Darren-vs-Knitters complaint.

I think it’s kind of a defense mechanism for people to tease you about things that they don’t really understand. So the prescription for that is more exposure, more information, more communication. That’s what blogging is all about, no? Getting the word out.

Happy Friday!