Recently in crafts Category

I've been using Ravelry for years now to find crochet patterns and store information about the things I've made. This summer,however, I've finally branched out a bit--first modifying patterns I'd found in minor ways, and then finally coming up with my own pattern for an item that I needed.

Since Ravelry won't let you share a pattern that hasn't been published elsewhere, I'm publishing my first original pattern here so that I can then put it up on Ravelry. It's a can cozy, made from cotton yarn, intended to keep cans from dripping in the humidity. I made my first one a week or so ago, and have been using it daily since then. Now that I know it works well, I've written up the instructions for how to make one of your own!

The body of the cozy uses a spike stitch that results in a very sturdy weave. The top and bottom are embellished with bobble stitches, which also keep the cozy from slipping in your hand.

Notes
1. Materials: Lily Sugar 'n' Cream yarn (~50 yards), F hook

2. Gauge: 3 rounds of DC (base) = 2.75"

3. Bobble Stitch (BS): *YO, insert hook into stitch YO and pull loop through* repeat* 4 more times, YO pull loop through all stitches on hook.

4: Spike Stitch (SS): SC over current stitch into space below.

Row 1 (base): Ch 3, (do not count as first dc) 11dc in the 3rd ch from hook. Join with a slipstitch in first dc. (11 sts)

Row 2 (base): Ch 2 (do not count as first dc from now on), 2 dc in each st. Join with a slipstitch in first dc. (22 sts)

Row 3 (base): Ch 2, *dc in 1 st, 2 dc in next st*, repeat from * around. Join with a slipstitch in first dc. (33 sts)

(All remaining rows will have 33 stitches.)

Row 4: Ch1, sc in back loop only of each st. Join with slipstitch in first st.

Row 5: Ch1, *sc, BS, sc* 11 times. Join with slipstitch in first st.

Row 6: Ch1, sc in each st. Join with slipstitch in first st.

Row 7: Ch1, sc in back loop only of each st. Join with slipstitch in first st.

Row 8: Ch1, sc in first stitch, *SS in next st, sc in next st*, repeat from * around. Join with a slipstitch in first st.

Row 9: Ch1, SS in first stitch, *sc in next st, SS in next st*, repeat from * around. Join with a slipstitch in first st.

Rows 10-18: repeat rows 8 and 9

Row 19: Ch 1, sc in back loop of each st. Join with a slipstitch in first st.

Row 20: Ch1, *sc, BS, sc* 11 times. Join with slipstitch in first st.

Row 21: Ch 1, sc in each st. Join with slipstitch in first st, finish off.

This is the first holiday break I can remember that doesn't seem to be rushing past me before it's even begun. I've been slowing down a lot, and indulging myself with binges in everything from baking (double chocolate walnut biscotti, my annual gift to our department office staff) to reading (I tore through Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers in a day, loving every second of it, and am also really enjoying Neal Stephenson's Anathem), and crocheting.

That last one is what leads me back to social software musings.

During my annual day-after-Christmas bargain hunting with Alex, I came across some bargain-priced sueded yarn, so I picked up a bag full of it. After I got it home, I had a hard time deciding what exactly to make with it. I tried a few patterns from books and magazines, but none seemed to work well with that particular yarn. Then I remembered Ravelry, a social site for knitters and crocheters that I'd joined this past year.

What's interesting about Ravelry is that it isn't just glorified forums--there are plenty of very active forums for crafters out there, but that's not what I was looking for. Ravelry is far more like Flickr or LibraryThing than it is like Crochetville or Craftster. That's because Ravelry is based around objects--yarn, patterns, projects, people--rather than conversations.

Like Flickr, LibraryThing, delicious, and other successful social software tools, Ravelry entices you to enter data and metadata because it's useful to you. It's helpful to enter your yarn stash into their database because once you've done it, you have quick and easy access to a list of all your available yarns--without having to dig through boxes and bags. Most serious needlecrafters have enough yarn to make that well worthwhile. And once you've done that, it's easy to add new projects that you're starting with your yarn.

But the real power comes from the aggregation of that information. After I'd entered my new yarn into my online stash, I could immediately see that there were over a thousand projects listed on Ravelry that used the same type of yarn. And following that link allowed me to further sort the projects by craft type (crochet only), by yarn color, by type of project, and more. That's what makes Ravelry so very useful to me (and the thousands of other needlecrafters using it)...the ability to pivot on different aspects of the data--the yarn, the pattern, the designer, the crafter, and more.

Ravelry pulls together a number of the factors that make social applications work:

1. It meets the specific needs of a specific community. Facebook did this for college students, Flickr for photographers, LinkedIn for people looking for jobs or workers. If you build it, they won't come...unless you're helping them solve a specific problem.
   
   
2. The initial hook is not the value that you're providing the community--it's the value that you're providing to yourself. Storing and re-finding your own bookmarks is the hook in delicious; being able to store, organize, and share your photos pulled people into Flickr.
   
   
3. The value to the user grows as the community expands. This isn't true for most forum based sites, which simply don't scale well. But site that are focused on objects rather than conversations provide increasing value as they scale to more users. The successful sites scale at a reasonable pace, as well--including Ravelry, which continues to add users from its waiting list at a rate that doesn't overload their infrastructure, thus avoiding the "fail whale" problem that can lead users to decide a site isn't reliable or useful enough to invest time and energy into.
   
   
4. The sites are well designed to pivot on critical data points that are relevant to their users. That's most likely to happen if the people building the site come from their target community of users and therefore understand the nature of the information needs. Mark Zuckerman was a college student. Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake were both photo enthusiasts. Joshua Schachter wanted a way to store his own bookmarks efficiently. And Ravelry was started by an avid knitter (Jess) and her coder boyfriend (Casey).

There are plenty of communities of interest out there that can benefit from online sites that help them connect in useful ways. The success of those sites, however, will depend on how well they get the above things right in their implentations.

• responding to the slew of last-minute messages from students panicked about exams and projects* grading final exams and projects
• restarting the afghan for Lila Rose, because I didn't like the yarn I was using and the way it wouldn't lie flat
• dealing with the chaos of kids home all day because of February break
• reading and reviewing grant proposals for a meeting later this week
• catching up on Battlestar Galactica episodes that were on the verge of being deleted from our list of recordings
• leveling my troll priest in WoW--I expect she'll be 70 by the end of this week

I don't expect blogging to resume with any regularity until grading, proposal reviewing, and leveling are all finished.

I bought a bag of plain slide-top tins, which are a perfect fit for 20 Moo minicards. Then I tried a number of approaches to decorating them, with this one winning out.

I printed out the image from the Moo cards on an inkjet printer, then cut it out to fit the lid of the tin. I used some no-primer metal paint to prepare the tin surface, then used spray mount artist's adhesive to place the printed image on the top. (It might have worked without the paint, but I didn't want to chance it.)

After the adhesive set, I sprayed the lid with a digital photo protectant, so that the inkjet ink wouldn't run or smudge.

Now that it's dry, it's perfect. Just enough texture on the top to make it easy to slide the top open. And no need to guess what's inside. :)

When the weather gets colder, my thoughts tend to turn to my stash of yarn. I love doing crochet projects in cold weather--particularly afghans, which keep my lap warm while I work!

I've finished three afghans this fall already--two for baby gifts, and one whose destination cannot yet be revealed on the blog. I've also started making long, thin, super-soft scarves--one for me, one for Erin, one for Alex, and yarn-a-plenty for making more for gifts. They only take about an hour, so they're a great TV-watching activity.

With a two week break ahead of me, I'm starting to think about more ambitious crafting projects. I think Alex and I will be getting some ceramic paint this week to do custom mugs (we did this years ago when the boys were really little, and the mugs turned out beautifully). I need to figure out where to buy the cheapest possible "blank" mugs to work with.

And I'm also about to order a bunch of these metal tins, which are the perfect size for Moo MiniCards. I'm going to place a new order of cards to use as gifts, and I want to decorate the tops of the tins using some kind of decoupage technique

I've also fallen in love with the Etsy web site, where I've found some wonderful, unique items to give as gifts to some of the people I know who are most impossible to shop for--and gotten some great ideas for things I'd like to make myself, too.