OK, lame post, but this is more for my own reference…I have a ton of sites I use for knitting graph paper, so here’s the collection.  If you are charting your knitting the stitches are typically wider than they are tall, so regular grid paper doesn’t work. As a math nerd I lovegraph paper. Always have. This was one of the best things about Japan. Graph paper in every store. 

knit stitches

• Sweaterscapes store
  I likethat this one lets you pick the paper that is best for your gague. The files are jpegs. Plus they have a really snappy free pattern for Opera Gloves.

  

• Ruth’s Blog
  also has great directions for creating graph paper with excel. Math geek that I am I love this one.
• Here’s another
  set that lets you scale your own, plus you can add color lines and extra margin for notes.
• ABC’s of Knitting
   And if you want a PDF, this one’s for you. Again you scale it by rows/stitches. Even better thay have a few pages about Japanese knitting with directions on how to read the directions…I got several craft & knitting books in Japan, so this is super handy.

Ok, I have let the Tech Wednesday thing slide a bit…rather like the rest of the blog. The dust is finally settling from the start of the school year, so I can catch up over here. A bit of a warning, if you don’t have kids this one is probably not too interesting.

Big sis turns seven this week, and by far her favorite gift was the webkinz she got at her party this last Sunday.

Here’s the basic concept. You buy a stuffed animal and you get a secret code. Then you go online and the code gets you access to the website. Basically it is a mini virtual world with your pet. You have Webkinz bucks to buy stuff with, and as you spend you have to earn more. Lots of games to earn more money. The basic idea seems OK, but this is making us a bit nervous.

We don’t do TV on weekdays, so this adds a whole new dimension, since she wants to be online a lot more. It used to be a once a month thing, but now she wants to be on daily to check her dog. Can’t blame her, but that’s a lot of screen time.

On the up side there is a lot of emphasis on math, which I like. And it is really forcing her to leave. But, the games can be a lot like gambling. Not hardcore poker or anything, but they are trying to get you to play more…the more you play the more W money you earn.

Another concern right now is the parent’s area. I do wish it gave the parents a better idea of what the kids were up to. You have the choice of turning chat on or off (off for us). I wish you could get stats on how much time they spent and in what areas. You know the company is keeping all of this info. Yes, this might be spying, but she’s seven. And my responsibility. It seems it would be pretty easy for an adult to buy one of these things to get access. And then there’s the advertising on the site…

This brings me back to a big concern over the internet as the girls get older. It can bring so much, good and bad, into your home. I’d like to start letting her e-mail with family, but filtering out all the junk is not easy.

So for now we are a Webkinz house, but in a very limited way. I’ve got some ideas on the e-mail thing…hopefully more to come.

OK…this how to is too snappy. I have been wrestling with this since I made the girl’s pants patterns this spring.

From Burda-Style This tutorial walks you step by step how to make your own pattern PDF’s. Love this!!

OK, I do love my new laptop. I really do. The old one died after ten years of faithful service. We had to replace it for summer school, and possibly grad school (fingers crossed).

But let me tell you the transition to Vista has not been easy. And for the record I teach computer science, this really should not be so difficult. In all honestly I probably haven’t played with it enough. But I am a busy girl, and I have important knitting to do. I want the darned thing to just work.

It has a whole host of things that bug me, but the main thing has been learning how to turn off the laptop. I learned the hard way that using the icon that looks like the shutdown button does not shut it down, but instead sends it into hibernation.  I do not need it to pass the winter in a torpid state. I do need it to turn off so it still has power at the end of a 12 hour drive to say, Florida.
So rather than stay annoyed I did a Google search yesterday and found Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report. Ed is my new hero. Right after the Yarn Harlot. There, in an organized list, was everything I need to know to control this thing. Even things I didn’t know I wanted to do.

I am wondering if Ed does tubular cast offs…that’s the next thing I need to fix.

There you are. Sale of the century. The perfect fabric is 40% off plus you have a coupon. But how many yards do you need?

Enter, the pocket sewing guide. This PDF has two pages to record your family’s measurements and four pages to record yardage information from your favorite patterns. I keep it handy when I’m heading to the fabric store, and I know exactly what I need.

Plus, you can tape in small snippets of fabric you need to match.

Pocket Sewing Guide

Print it out and follow the handy folding guide over here at www.pocketmod.com.

Enjoy!