Spinning in the Dark, or: I Need New Glasses

Last night I Tweeted this:

"velmalikevelvet needs new glasses so badly she's wearing her headlamp to spin. The old is everywhere."

For some perverse reason they both share*, VTKnitboy and Hellchick both requested photo-documentation, & I'm nothing if not accomodating. It's darker than it looks, & I'm in desperate need of a new prescription (can you say "bifocals", class?). Chris, aka vtknitboy, pointed out that my shoulder pain might be related to how high I hold my hands/forearms (the better to SEE you with, my dear!) I think he might be onto something!

And what am I spinning? Why, the merino for my Harf mentioned yesterday, of course! I got through the first half of the fiber, about 2oz., last night (the singles, not the plying). Will try to do the rest tonight so I can cast on tomorrow; I'd like to work on the Harf while I'm gone next week (more on that later!).

What's this? THIS is a screenshot of my blog stats this morning, showing the absolute SKYROCKET in readers on VWorld yesterday, that's what! Turns out, if @knittydotcom re-Tweets, say, your blog post re: Imaginary Rhinebeck: it appears on the Knitty Blog and... To the moon, Alice! Haven't had a day that big since Deb Robson linked to my Sock Summit recap post on her blog.

Today? Well, today is getting ready for that trip next week. Check back for details!

*Must've been something in the air about headlamps yesterday on Twitter, 'cuz earlier in the evening Knitch was asking me for this photo of me knitting with mine on at Purl 'n Hurl recently. Weird.

Tags: Twitter, handspinning

I'm Twitter-ific! Are You?

I pimped my Twitter background yesterday. You like? I hear that if you use a monitor with a smaller screen, it's all fucked up, but I like it, and hey, that's what really matters, right? ;)

I saw another Tweeter with a background I liked, and thought to myself, "Self, you could totally do that!". Off a-Googling I went, & found Twitterbacks.com. They offer free .psd template downloads; I chose the "ProBlogger" background, & then tweaked it. Nothin' fancy, but I like the results.

The hot avatar portrait of me was drawn by the spectacularly-talented Varuna Darensbourg, aka my bro-in-law. He took the photo I've used in the past, the one of me modeling my Hallowig & rhinestone cat-eye shades, & he super-hero'ed me! I call her the COLORBOMBshell! (Cole & I particularly like that he made my tits all nice & perky-like.)

Not yet one of my Twitter followers? What exactly are you waiting for, an engraved freaking invitation? ;) I'm velmalikevelvet there too, in case I hadn't mentioned that. Today is FollowFriday, so it would be a great day for you to add me to your follow list. Oh, yeah, & go follow TinkerAndPo, & then send 'em an @message saying I sent ya; won't they be surprised when they see their membership spike (they put out the word requesting an avalanche of new followers, so don't feel like it makes you a stalker if you add them; they're real nice folks with a lovely shop on Etsy.)

See you on Twitter!

Tags: Twitter

Wordle Nerdle

Playing around on Twitter.com today (where I'm also velmalikevelvet), I noticed I've got a new follower, DavidVanVickle, who blogged about why Twitter is good for something and linked to WebGeek's Twitter Mini-Guide, where I discovered Tweetstats and through them, Wordle.net. What a fun way to waste a Sunday afternoon!

Tweetstats renders statistics on your Tweets (posts) and Twooshes (posts of *exactly* 140 characters, the maximum) in graph form; you can see mine here. So much fun for us quantifiers! They will even return all the words you've Tweeted in a cloud. I took the cloud the generated for me over to Wordle.net and got the pretty (and configurable) version of my word cloud above. My top five words are: new, yarn, love, thanks, and good. And apparently I refer to myself even more frequently than I do to my business! (No surprise for those that know me.)

If you are at all curious about how to maximize your social networking on Twitter, I highly recommend you scan the application list on the Mini-Guide.

Back to Tweeting!

Tags: Twitter, social networking

Ephemeral but Exciting

Like the stockings on our mantel it won't last long, but I wanted to share this:


My BOMBucks eGift Certificates were featured (prominently, I might add! First page!!) in the Etsy Gift Guide to Gift Certificates today. Woot! Apparently I'm not completely inept at graphic design. Not sure how long the Guide will stay up, but I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

Thanks to BlondeChicken, who Tweeted about the Gift Guide, for alerting me to it's existence. Go, Twitter! I'm velmalikevelvet there too, if you wanna Tweet me. And be sure to check out the BlondeChicken Boutique - she's a purveyor of some scrump-didley-umptious yarns and fibers.

Yay Etsy! Yay Buy Handmade! Yay crafters! Yay yarn!

Tags: etsy, COLORBOMB Creations, BOMBucks, gift certificate