now, i know that i still have a couple of readers out there, though according to my stats, not many left. i hope you’re all enjoying the weekly updates and my work over at popknits. time is short lately. i don’t even get time to knit every day! but i am still working while being a stay at home mom. most of my freelance work is programming and building websites using expression engine. it’s a tool that i like a lot. a whole lot better than movable type, actually. there’s the crux of the matter. i no longer like blogging here because making MT do the things i want it to do is tough. writing out those weekly updates is a pain in the ass. it would be so much easier if all i had to do is pick a date off the calendar, drop in the image from flickr, and enter my description. but it doesn’t work like that and that drives me a little bonkers.

so, i’m planning on a big backend update to gleek.net. i’m going to move the blog and all of its content over to expression engine, and in the process, i will also be changing the blog format. there will be separate areas for weekly updates, knitting, photography, and random. i’m not sure what will go in random yet. i’d like to hear your opinions of what you like to know about. i have ready made content for that area from:

1) my delicious links which i use a lot. i bookmark tons of recipes or cool things i find online.

2) family news. is anyone really interested in peanut anymore? i can’t tell. i’m interested in my friends’ kids but maybe strangers don’t really care about what goes on in my “parenting life”.

3) travel, if i travel, i like to write about it but this sort of content would be few and far between.

4) technology. i’m still pretty up on web tech but it’s not my bread and butter anymore.

for those of you who know me, what do you want to hear about? i’m open to suggestions.

and my time here has come to an end for the day, as i hear peanut and KP are home from the playground! i’ll be back with a knitting update soon!

please know that the problem has been fixed and everything should work as planned now. so sorry!

as of today, gleek.net’s stats are as follows:

holding strong at 412 entries (this entry is 413) and over 3000 comments! i’m glad i’m taking the time to post more often now. it’s good to be back in touch.. and it also seems that posting more often brings more traffic to my site. let’s take a look at my visits stats (all of the following are from my mint installation):

as you can see, january gave me my largest spike in almost a year. i have a feeling that i have a lot of new readers! i love how the day breaks down on the left.. 10PM ET seems to be a popular time to surf my site.

looks like the patterns page and the index get the most traffic around here. i wish i was a little more diligent about putting links into del.icio.us. my ravelry queue has taken over there. still, i think that my vino arm warmers bring in a lot of traffic (see below). after that, i’m glad to see the peanut is well-loved! and so is the gallery.

i was surprised to see how many people searched for “arm warmers” and ended up on my site. possibly as surprised as seeing people search for “oreo pizza” and “care bears”. mint is great. really, i’m still awed by it every time i come to look at my stats. the little image icon next to some of the searches like “gable” means that the person did an image search (either on google images or a similar image search engine) and ended up on my site.

now let’s talk about browsers because i’m sure that’s what most people want to know about. IE still seems to dominate the scene i’m sad to report. please switch to firefox! i’m happy to see firefox’s numbers so high. they weren’t like this a year ago. i recently read about record numbers of FF users in europe so that might have something to do with it. seriously, folks, IE is not secure. it’s riddled with bugs and will certainly force you to reinstall windows a hundred times because it’s been hacked without you knowing it. firefox is the bomb! just today i installed a great add-on called greasemonkey that allows me to add enhancements to flickr. so cool!

no real surprise here. windows is still leading but mac is catching up! who’s been accessing my site with a wii? i would love to see what it looks like! we access gleek.net at home with our playstation 3 every now and again. i’m happy to say it works like a charm.

this one blew me away. i had no idea that google reader had such a following! i knew that bloglines was top but i always thought that newsgator would come in second. guess not.

speaking of RSS readers, here’s a quick look at my feed subscribers. looks like i’m averaging around 145 daily scribs per week. nice.

this panel is a little hard to read (i wish there was a better way of showing this information) but it looks like most people view gleek.net at a window width of over 900 pixels. there seem to be a lot more people out there with smaller monitors than i would have hoped for. i guess i shouldn’t make my site wider, eh?

and last but not least, my favorite panel, locations. check out india! turkey! korea! holy moses. my favorite: lithuania. did you know that my husband is part lithuanian? it’s where our last name comes from.

anyway, i hope you all find this interesting and useful! i hope to do it every year and take a look at trends. chime in if you have something to add or, dude, if you’re reading from india! turkey! or korea! say hi

now you don’t. bu-bye charade sock! it was nice knowing you.

taking a page from laura’s book, i decided that these charade socks were just not going to work out. this has nothing to do with the pattern (the pattern actually rocks hardcore) but with my execution. man-sized socks on 2.5mm needles would take me FOREVER to knit and the 72 stitches that i cast on were just not enough. i had KP try them on last weekend and they were tight and damned if i’m going to rip and re-cast on more than 72 stitches. looking back on my progress it took me months to get where i am (or was before i ripped). so my plan is to find thicker sock yarn that i can knit on US4 needles and make faster man-sized socks. any suggestions? i have nothing in the stash except for this that might fit the bill.

so socktoberfest has started and i thought, hey, now that i don’t have the charade socks maybe i should gather up my sock yarn leftovers and make baby socks for the peanut! i have quite a few leftovers…

a little leftovers can go a long way

and i think that i can whip them up during october. i really want to try and do it seeing as i failed so miserably at project spectrum. at least i’ve been mainly knitting from my stash! what little i’ve knit..

except for this.. (you knew there was an “except” coming, right?) but it does lie within the rules. we’re getting the nut baptized in late november and i thought it might be nice to make her a christening gown. one that i can dye when said christening is done and turn into a sweater for the winter and a keepsake for all time. i bought some filatura di crosa 501 on elann.com for a steal and have been knitting this up.

me, a model?

hard to tell in this photo (the peanut is not a good model.. she cries whenever i put this on her!) but it’s a top-down raglan-type sweater dress. i got the basic idea from the february sweater and the rest i’m making up as i go along. don’t ask for a pattern. i have no idea what i’m doing.

and in regards to my miters, they are just sitting on my couch. i’m enjoying the fairly mindless stockinette of the christening gown while watching “heroes” on DVD. oh god, i’m in love with that show! it’s a nice cross between “LOST” and “the 4400″. i’m glad i’ll have something to watch this fall since none of my shows are coming back till 2008. i was smart enough (amazingly) to start recording this season on the DVR while watching last season on DVD. i should be done by the next week, methinks.

oh, and i’m thinking about starting a project for myself once i get through the majority of this christening gown. i’m thinking flair in artfibers ming. mmmmm, can’t wait!

yes mommy!

the peanut approves!

p.s. i’m making adjustments to the full text feed RSS. admittedly, it’s changes that i’ve wanted to do for a while and i’m just now getting around to it. i put comments in the RSS feed about a year ago as an experiment and i think that my experiment is now complete. if i were answering more questions in the comments, it would be a “value-add” as we call it in the business, but it’s not. i generally write people back via email or amend the entry if there were more questions to be answered. so, as of today, the comments have been pulled from the full text feed. it will only update when the entry has been updated. i will still occasionally break up a long entry and make you click-through for the full entry but otherwise, you’ll get it all! i’m sure this will come as a great relief to many of you no need to thank me.

*silence*

really, i nearly burst out laughing but stopped myself because that would have indicated that i was indeed eavesdropping. the inanity of that statement left me speechless. i don’t feel old and yet i’m twice her age! kids. geeeeez. i can’t believe that i’m going to have a baby that in a few years time is going to think that i’m OLD and so uncool. it makes me laugh.

so january is almost over and i’m almost at 34 weeks (with a due date of march 15th) and time is flying. just to keep you up-to-date and all, here’s a quick state of the knitting recap.

almost done!

the EZ february sweater will be done before february! amazing. it was so quick and took just over 1 ball of cashsoft DK (it was exactly one ball for the body and then some for the sleeves.) here the sleeves are blocking and tonight i will seam them up and weave in the ends. if i’m lucky, maybe i’ll sew the cutie-patootie buttons on that i bought at the point on friday.

getting closer…

the 3-hole shawl is chugging along, of course. i’m just about to start the repeat where i put in the 3rd and final hole. then it’s 7 repeats of the pattern, the garter stitch border, bind-off, and block.

the pirates hat is blocked and it looks ok to me but definitely will not fit my dad. it fits me nicely and fits KP very snuggly which means it definitely won’t fit my dad as my dad’s head is bigger. on to plan B which is a hat and mitten set made out of the lovely chocolate brown debbie bliss merino aran that i have left over from this project. i plan on casting-on for mom’s mittens later this week. let’s hope that i get both parent projects done before the end of february.

over the next few weeks, i’ll be updating you on the state of our apartment as well. i’m a big fan of apartment therapy and have decided to take on revamping our apartment in anticipation of the peanut’s arrival (don’t freak.. we’ve been working on it for weeks and i just decided it was probably a good idea to take pictures and document it. i’m not tearing down any walls or anything. just switching out furniture, moving it around and making room.) stay tuned for before and after photos and what i’ve bought on my budget to get everything in order.

on a blog related note, mint 2.0 came out yesterday and i immediately installed the upgrade and screwed a bunch of things up as i usually do. i think that everything is back in working order now but you may have seen a lot of RSS updates and corrupted feeds over the last day or so. my apologies. we should be golden now.

i managed to get some great christmas knitting booty this year! look what i got!

mmmm, lace

i only hope that i can actually make something from them in 2007! time is swiftly winging away from me and before i know it i’m going to have a baby and no time for knitting for a while. i’m trying to get in some things for her first before she’s born and then have some mindless knitting standing by for when she appears in our home. regardless, i’m happy to have these books in my collection. they’re gorgeous and full of beautiful patterns.

well, my christmas knitting went off without a hitch. i finished all three hats i wanted to make and gifted them to my family members on the 23rd.

i used up most of the disney wool/acrylic blend that i bought in japan last year for these hats. yes, there is a disney brand yarn! and it comes with little tags that you can sew into your garments with pooh or mickey on them. very cute. the hat for my FIL was made with knitpicks swish i had leftover from the first pair of glittens i made and then the pair of glittens i am making for myself right now. i made up the pattern for my BIL’s hat, the hat for linda is just a generic baby cable hat, and the FIL’s hat was made with this pattern from fig and plum.

now, i’m still working on the noro 3-hole shawl. a row here and there adds up to a repeat here and there and now i’m more than half way between the 1st and 2nd hole. it’s pretty mindless knitting so i work on it whenever i want to just watch TV and not do much thinking.

i made some stash enhancements recently which i have to take pictures of and add to the stash page. i bought 4 balls of dale of norway falk (2 black, 2 white) for the pirate hat and mittens for my father and 3 hanks of noro cashmere islands (yum!) for the hat and mittens for my mom. i’m loving this yarn! the noro is just gorgeous and i’m looking forward to doing my first fair isle with the falk. i’m going to practice with the last of my disney yarn (which is roughly the same weight and gauge as the falk) as soon as i’ve freed up the appropriate needles.

these appropriate needles are currently engaged in make some glittens for myself! i figure it’s gotta get cold around here soon and i’ll need some gloves/mittens when it does. i think that i made them a little too big but i have a feeling they might shrink up a bit when i wash and dry them.

swish glittens galore

this time around i’ve devised a new system of knitting them where i pick up stitches between the fingers and then decrease them away on the next round to close up holes. it works really well and the joins feel a lot more substantial. i’m sure i’ll be done with these before the weekend. they’re so easy! then i’ll get started on the hats and mittens for my parents and some baby knitting.

can you believe that i’m actually thinking about buying another set of denise needles? gosh, i love them. i have a set of the new ones and a set of the old ones, but the old needles don’t connect well with the new cables and i’ve not always been able use them for projects because of this. i could really use another newer set. have you seen the pink version? $5 goes to breast cancer research. sounds like a good plan to me!

some blog news: i’ve decided to discontinue doing book reviews on the reading blog. i know it doesn’t get much traffic and i was doing it mainly to remind myself of the books i’ve read but i just can’t keep up with it. i’ve got to let something go because i’ve taken on a rather large and consuming project outside of work and home life (and this blog) that requires more of my attention. i’ll still keep you updated as to what i’m reading on the sidebar but that’ll be it after the last two reviews of 2006.

i decided to upgrade and actually use my flickr account. i’m only keeping photos there of completed projects, some yarn p0rn, and my favorite non-craft photos (mainly from around town and on vacation.) i hope that this will encourage you all to make me your contact! flickr is such a fun and amazing site that i can’t not participate. the tagging schemes and flickr pools are enough to warant the pro upgrade, but this is what really got me going. i’ll be buying mine next week, i think!

just so you know, though, all photos on this blog and MORE will always be available in my gallery.

have a great weekend!

kaitlyn and MJ enjoy some time outdoors

monday KP and i were off to NJ to see my family… and then wow, the THREE DAY weekend is over. so i had to put another day on just so that i could do stuff around home. and i did. i cleaned pretty much all day and finished pimping out the gallery. there were many points this weekend where i thought that i would have certainly given up on the gallery upgrade if i didn’t know what the hell i was doing.. and it’s a good thing that i do know what i’m doing because if i didn’t i would surely have screwed this thing up and all the images would have been lost and/or broken.

but four days later, it’s up and running and i’m happy with it. the migration process was tiring (especially since i had close to 2000 images in the gallery! which includes close to 2000 mod_rewrite rules for all you apache junkies.. and that’s a lot for a darn knitting blog.) in the end, i chose a grey template for the whole shebang called carbon and modified only a small amount so that it would fill out the TITLE tag with an appropriate amount of information for mint tracking. i also did the same for the slideshow template and then figured out how to redirect all of my old slideshow links to the new slideshows (since it seems that people REALLY love my crochet, beads, and other slideshow. really? what is SO fascinating about that slideshow? it gets the third highest amount of traffic in the website!)

i also added some new icons in there and a hack to show PNGs in backgrounds for IE. and of course, installed mint. if you have any specific questions about what i did, please put them in the comments. my biggest hurdle now will be to go through all the albums and fill out the titles and summaries of the photos, especially all the ones that were truncated in the import from gallery 1 to gallery 2. ok, anyway, it’s online now and feel to drop in and see a slideshow or something.

now, on to knitting… i’m almost through the body of green gable. i didn’t have as much knitting time this weekend as i would have hoped for so progress has been slow. i wanted to show you my japanese short rows that i put in in the bust area though.

japanese short rows (knitside picked up from knitside)

these japanes short rows are pretty awesome. on the knitside, you can hardly tell they’re there! but…

japanese short rows (purlside picked up from knitside)

oops. when picking up the purlside short rows from the knitside (which you have to do because you are forced to continue in the round) the pickups got twisted. i used a method that one of the KALers, jackie, came up with. but after working them, i think that it would need to be k2tog tbl instead of just k2tog, or maybe ssk to correct the twist. i’ll have to experiment someday and find out. i’m not ripping back. it doesn’t bother me.

i’m doing the waist shaping different too. i’m doing an ssk and k2tog instead of two k2tog and i’m spacing them out further to prevent bunching. it should all be done soon and i’ll be able to show it off. i’m also working on KP’s socks (believe it or not) and just need to go back and do the second half of the heel on both socks before continuing on the feet.

all right, i just need to publish this entry and see if my links to the images in the gallery worked!