She's Crafty!’s Neighborhood

I have been reordering my vocabulary a bit to deal with winter - I used to think everything "died back" in the wintertime, at least my plants, flowers, etc...  This used to make me sad, and I'd start feeling that way around fall, which made the impending winter come on with a complete sense of doom.

Now, we call this "dormancy" - I've had the opportunity to collect a lot of seeds and watch many things reseed themselves, and I constantly remind myself that the ground is sleeping, our sheet mulches are creating, and soon, I'll get to watch the joy of seedlings becoming plants that eventually produce foods and flowers all over again.

In the meantime, it's cold outside and I've joined Netflix (find me there as Dori.mondon if you'd like to be friends) and I'm doing a lot of knitting and baking and wondering why and how it is that I haven't already packed on the pounds.

Evie's Dream scarf

On that note, I've written a free pattern for a lace-stitch scarf. You can download it by clicking this link. It's a superquick, chunky knit on size 11 needles.

And, although I can't provide for any Christmas gifts, I'm now offering sets of two and sets of four handknit washcloths of my own pattern designs. These sets are available for purchase in my Etsy shop. And as I mentioned, while I can't provide for the holidays, these do make excellent gifts! I hope to team up with a neighbor who makes the best soap ever and start selling combined kits soon.

Baby bootees for Maya Laura

While I'm all talking about knitting, here's a pair of Saartje's Bootees that I whipped up for a friend - I was at her aunt's house the day before her surprise baby shower, but I had to leave that evening, so I left these behind for her to find. How cute are these things? My mothering thing is only now starting to kick in a bit, and, well, these are, ya know...  Cute. and Inspiring. This little pattern is HUGELY popular - and many folks have come up with alternate ways to knit these. Do a google search!

Well, I guess that's really it for now - I have quite a huge bit of knitting to finish for the holidays, as well as a lot of sheet mulching to finish so that I have some good soil in new flower beds for the spring. We intend to rock the farmer's market really early this year, too, and have started our first greenhouse. Pictures next time I'm on the internet. And, you'll get to see pictures of our new dog, too. Our last male dog got really sick and died three months after we adopted him. it was heartbreaking, but we're the kinds of folks who communicate with "the dead" and we asked him to send us a new one - we need a good huntin' dog around our parts to keep the wildlife out of the crops. Sadly, our female, though she can run about twenty-five miles an hour (no joke) is useless when it comes to this. She'd much rather be trying to sleep in our bed. So, all of a sudden, here comes a woman with a half-heeler, half-australian shepherd she has to find a home for. Our home it is. We're looking forward to him moving in sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Have a happy holiday season and really, try not to stress about it too much - it's supposed to be fun, ya know?  I'm sure I'm leaving out quite a bit since I'm not here that often, but so it goes. That's how it is when you live in a rural area without the internet at home...  I hope that changes soon though, I really do!

First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!

The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.

TypePad Micro

10 comments

A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.

Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.

On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.

And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!

~ daisy

As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.

The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.

When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.

It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.

Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.

As always, thanks for your patience.

~daisy

Go forth and fill your libraries with media.

Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.

~daisy

I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.

I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.

Cheers,

daisy

Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.

We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.

I will keep you posted.

Thank you for being so patient.

~daisy

Blog Action Day

13 comments

Blog Action Day is every October 15th, when blogger are asked to post something about a single issue to show our strength and conviction as an online community. It's a great way to feel connected to the greater good, and the participation of so many bloggers to support the world's leading non-profit organizations is something you can do to help, right now. By blogging today, you're supporting some of the world's leading non-profits and sharing your voice for change.

This year's topic is climate change, and we'd love to read your thoughts on the topic. If you participate, leave us a link to your post in the comments, so we know to check out your post!

Go to www.blogactionday.org to learn more, get a badge for your blog showing your participation, and see some ideas for your post on climate change.

Can't wait to read your posts!

~ daisy

I'm still incredibly psyched about this pattern, though I was disappointed when, halfway through creating it, I saw Knitty.com's fall issue and noticed someone had submitted a pattern with somewhat of the same concept.

Morning Glory

Regardless, I kept rolling with mine anyway as it's actually quite different and a bit more substantial, materialwise, and I'm still VERY excited about it - meet Morning Glory, a combination hood/cowl that will keep you warm and looking like a fairy in the winter woods. It's an easy enough two-skeiner knit, but does involve some a little bit of lace and cables, more advanced grafting techniques, and picking up stitches.

The pattern is available in my Etsy shop as well as in my Ravelry pattern store. As with all my patterns, the nominal fee for the purchase of this pattern helps to support our small permaculture farm - it allows me to make an income where there really isn't any (we're really rural, folks!) and feed all our animals (we're almost entirely fed by our garden).

The Amazon Conduit will be working again on October 15, 2009. Thank you to everyone for your patience.

Have a great weekend,

daisy, Team Vox