Sundry Saturday: Catching up

I’ve had lots of ideas for posts flutter through my mind in the last couple of weeks, but not a one has made it to the cloud for your reading pleasure. What can I say? I’m hibernating. See you in the spring.

I wish. I’ve had a steady stream of photo orders to process, teaching proposals to submit (for my LYS and a lovely-sounding retreat in Virginia), samples to make (for upcoming classes and a great new challenge from some friends), old UFO’s to deal with (3 finished just this week), wrestling season for my 16-year old son, Downton Abbey and all sort of other fun stuff like that. Plus, Gwen’s taking the blog in some fun new directions, and I’m not sure I’m hip enough to keep up.

So, here are the bullets for some of the last posts I was supposed to write but didn’t. All of these are in draft form on my hard-drive, so look for full-versions soon!

• Math Monday: Social Media Marketing-does it add to the bottom line? In a conversation with an industry friend who has used social media marketing as part of her strategy for a couple of years she observed that it hasn’t made her any more money (She’s a going concern, btw, with a successful wholesale/retail presence in the industry). In her experience, people who frequent business pages on Facebook are looking for freebies and specials, so it becomes a loss-leader kind of advertising. Not necessarily a bad thing, but she’s pulled back and decided to focus her efforts on other outlets. I thought that was an interesting contrast to Gwen’s increased focus on social media. I’m still, in my introvert way, studying the panorama and moving more slowly. 
• Inspiration: That Skirt! I got my Trompe L’oeil skirt back from The Knitting Boutique and wore it to church with a cute chartreuse sweater and my new Dansko Buffy Booties. It was SUCH a fun outfit to wear. It made me feel happy, well-dressed and creative!
• Tech Tuesday: Short rows in a garter band can help to equalize the fairly significant difference in row gauge between stockinette and garter. Every 10 rows (or 5 ridges) or so, I insert a short row in my Sybil Sweater’s (yes, inspired by Downton) built-in front garter band. It works like a charm. Video to come. 
• Think Tank: Cleverness in patterns. Do you want your patterns clever and elegantly engineered or familiar and simplified? The fact is that some editors don’t include instructions for less-typical but nifty techniques. What do you think about that?