And more knitting....

Well, actually it's crochet! But she looks so cute in it. This is one of the baby hat patterns for Save the Children that we made a couple of years ago. http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/capstothecapital-kit11.pdf

more social networking

I continue to use Delicious and my RSS feeds (which have led me to other interesting sites). But I still have not been able to send an IM using Meebo! Once I actually send a message, I will delete that account and NEVER use it again- it is such a pain! So, some things are fun and useful and others seem to take way too much time for the payback (which in the case of Meebo I have yet to see!)

DEL.ICIO.US

I love delicious for many reasons. (http://del.icio.us/sab1 ) The tagging is a great way to save links to hundreds of sites and to find them again pretty quickly. When I am working on magazine renewals I can tag all the sites I look at for research, etc., and then go back to them easily when I want to. And I like to see what's being tagged by people who tag the same sites I do. I found the absolute best link to all things Russian-grammar, vocabulary, language, customs, even videos from the Kremlin by looking at someone else's delicious account (http://sras.org/news.phtml?m=491 ) And I like to look at knitting and craft sites that have been tagged by other knitters. Plus, how else would I have found the Vintage dance Society and Polite Society website (http://www.vintagedancing.com/dancesociety.htm) ?

SOCIAL NETWORKING-INTRO

I know a little about social networking-I love del.icio.us and use my account all the time. But I have not yet ventured onto either My Space or Face Book-probably afraid that I'll run into my daughter and her friends! I looked at the Denver Public Library's "My Space page" http://www.myspace.com/denver_evolver
but I am not always keen on pages that start playing music when I click onto them. The same thing happened when I clicked onto the FVRL YAAB My Space page- http://www.myspace.com/yaab
I can see how it's especially useful for the YAAB programs. And I will construct a page when I get to that assignment. But I think it's probably beyond my personal interest, at least at present.

RSS FEEDS, ETC.

One of my RSS feeds is tree hugger http://www.treehugger.com/
and today they have a link to a great book swapping site- Book Mooch ( http://bookmooch.com/). It's part of an article on 5 ways for Bookworms to Save Trees. You can swap books by title. Another great way to get more books to read (besides checking them out of the library) is to go to one of the periodic Friends of the Library book sales. The Three Creeks Community Library (Vancouver, WA) has incredible books at their sales and the next one is Saturday, January 26 from 10 am-5 pm. (Map and directions at http://www.fvrl.org/aboutus/branch_files/tc_map.htm )

MEEBO

Is way too complicated and troublesome to use. Even if I put the widget on my blog I am not on here often enough that I'd be likely to engage in chats-especially since the steps involved in setting up buddies, etc seem like too much bother...I think I have a limit for this stuff- having never wanted to do texting or be totally accessible to everything 24 hours a day anyway. Although I do like being able to take and email photos with my phone...

Jane Austen Knit Along

Scarves and afghans-I finished 2 scarves and now I am committed to finishing this very fancy white flower afghan for my sister while I am watching Jane Austen. Persuasion was disappointing-too short and no character development to speak of. It took me nearly 30 minutes to remember that Elizabeth was Anne's sister and not her father's trophy wife!

MORE SNAPFISH

My sister just got back from the Galapagos Islands

MORE RSS AND BLOGS

I tried Syndic8.com but didn't want to have to set up another account since I already have 3 sets of log-in cards on my desk now. Google blog search might be helpful if I were looking for something-but I prefer the pre-packaged groupings. I have some feeds set up with Bloglines but it seems to be more trouble than it's worth usually to go look for stuff there. I do like my word of the day, however-- so far I have known them all! http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/

MY NEW BUMPERSTICKER

I
Knit
Therefore
I ROCK

KNIT WIKI NEEDS KNITTERS TO CONTRIBUTE

BEAUTIFUL ARTWORK

http://www.herondance.org/Join-A-Pause-For-Beauty-W45C53.aspx
This is a weekly email newsletter- with gorgeous watercolors and inspirational text. Take a look and sign up too!

What I am knitting now-For Christmas I knit a prayer shawl using gorgeous alpaca yarn from Knitpicks (www.knitpicks.com ). Also several cabled scarves, hats and fingerless gloves and I also crocheted some scarves. Now I am making suede scarves and then onto more prayer shawls.

THE COMPLETE JANE AUSTEN

Calling all Jane Austen fans to watch the complete Jane Austen on PBS from January-April 2008. Check out this blog for all the information and for friends to watch it with:

http://www.janeaustenkal.blogspot.com/

Here is a site for free downloads of the books and movies: http://www.squidoo.com/Jane-Austen-Novels-Online

RSS FEEDS AND BLOGLINES

I discovered that at least 10 of the 200 most popular blogs are about knitting, so I added them to my feed. But I have to say that most of the posts and the comments are pretty boring- I like patterns and pictures but I don't really care about peoples' messy desks and unfinished projects (an oxymoron for knitters anyway).

MASHERS/MASHUPS- IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME

This is where I realize I have no idea of what I am doing here. I am happy to look at mashups but don't yet have an idea of how I could make them or why I would want to-although I do see it would be fun to tie my travel photos to a world map-as long as it didn't take too long to actually do it.

This is a cute mashup- http://www.fun2ask.com/#
although I would probably like to ask more book-related questions...so I'll work on that one. And I have no idea what they are mashing.

I made a trading card with a Flick photo of my relatives but the image is horrible-it has really poor resolution and you can't see the faces at all-probably better as it turns out since they may not appreciate what I've done to them. And I can't figure out how to get it to my blog either!
http://flickr.com/photos/22593551@N07/2178029059/

NEXT THING TO KNIT

Is a set of skull wrist warmers for my niece (who is 35)- http://www.magknits.com/Apr06/patterns/zombie.htm

MORE FLICKR

Matrix geometry has gorgeous designs in their pictures---- http://stamen.com/projects/matrixgeometry

I even figured out how to edit the post after I published it in order to say that Surface 1 and surface 2 are really beautiful!

FLICKR

I actually had to set up a Snapfish account also to get the copies of pictures from the family reunion-but they don't seem to transfer very well! I like having personal pictures to look at, although I also found some gorgeous nature scenes to add to my Flickr account.

Since I am the reading knitter, I need to add some knitting to this post- so off to another site for the Domiknitrix logo; and maybe soon I will figure out how to add a picture of me knitting taken by my cell phone!

SUCCESSFUL LIFELONG LEARNING

easiest for me: taking personal responsibility and having confidence in myself as a competent learner
most difficult: knowing all the available technologies that I can use