Miscellaneous: April 2004 Archives

No knitting update today. I am getting perilously close to the armholes of my Onde top. Perhaps over the weekend I will achieve another victory.

What have I been doing instead of knitting lately? Well, I've been programming. What kind of programming have I been doing? I've been writing programs that work on these:

       
Palm OS Handheld Devices

I actually carry the one on the right around with me all day (it's a Kyocera 7135) and I feel a little bit lost and unhappy when I don't have my trusted Palm around me remembering important things for me.

Now, why am I bringing this up on a knitting blog? Well, I have to do a programming project for my class that involves developing a brand-new application for one fo these little devices.

There are already a number of applications out there for knitting...

CountAble (which I already own) is a wonderful and flexible row counting/pattern interval counting tool -- perfect for when you're doing that complicated Starmore Aran.

The same company also makes KnitAble which contains both ways to database your knitting information as well as helpful conversion tools. I don't have this software because it didn't connect things exactly the way I wanted them, but it's still a nice piece of software.

So my question is this.... can you think of a nice, small piece of software for knitting that would be handy to have on a handheld? Ideally, programs for handhelds should be small and focused on one thing they are trying to do.

Any ideas? If you come up with a good one and I decide to implement it, there will definitely be a little something in it for you...

Well. I took my Phil'Onde to the KIP tonight in hopes of swatching for "Le Pull" from the Phildar Famille book.

Phildar: Le Pull

It was the sweater that Phildar made available for free for a while. (They have a new free pattern that also uses Phil'Onde but is in the Tendences magazine. You have to go to the French Version of Phildar's website to find it.)

I didn't look very carefully at the pattern translation. I saw "US 5 needles" and so pulled those out and began my swatch. This pattern calls for 24 stitches and 26 rows over 4". I got way too many rows/inch.

Then I looked back at the pattern translation and realized that they were calling for a 4 mm needle. A US 5 is only 3.75 mm. So I breathed a short-lived sigh of relief, ripped out my swatch and cast back on using a US 6 (which can be a 4.0 mm or 4.25 mm needle).

Still too many rows per inch. Rip. Rip. Rip. Rip. Back into the box with the 6's.

Now I'm working on a swatch with US 7.0 mm (4.5 mm). It's looking like it has more promise, but I won't know until I get a few more rows in. The pattern specifies that I am supposed to knit loosely. I guess they weren't kidding.

Maybe I'll go back to lace and socks...

Happy Easter to those who celebrate. To all others, a happy weekend to you!

It's been a busy week so far Chez KeyboardBiologist. And believe it or not, almost none of the busy-ness has had anything to do with knitting. Instead, with the help of Becky, Morgan and Elisabeth, I've been involved in getting ready to launch something that I am really, really, really excited about. And even more fun, the wait is over. It's time to spill the beans on the Audrey Knit-Along!

No April Fool's joke here! In addition to Knitting Along with us, we're also hoping that the participants will want to blog along with us. No blog experience is required and there will be plenty of fun stuff going on as we work our way towards a beautiful sweater. We hope the end result will be a very comprehensive resource for others who want to tackle this project. If you've never tried blogging before, here's your chance to try it out in a friendly environment.

Expect plenty of knitting tech talk, 50's glam talk, fashion discussion and other good stuff. There's even going to be a few special surprises for the participants along the way.

There's always time to join up! Just click the button above or in my side bar and it will take you directly to the blog page with info about how to get started with us. Even if you don't want to blog, we'd love to have you along!

P.S. No knitting to show today... but I'll be back in action tomorrow!

P.P.S. Apparently blogging and knitting along is all the rage -- if you're interested in a different sort of project, you can also check out the Everyday Cardigan Knit-a-Long