Hey Mister March Postman...

The mail just delivered this : Sabrina crochet actuel n#17.
There are a few patterns I intend to do:

• the Chanel beige jacket,
• the green lacy sweater on the cover, I think it's the same pattern jinglelady started for the olympics
• the striped sweater, I like the lack of simetry in it, and the idea is simple but efficient.

More pics:

United colors of crochet : inuits

Crochet is one of the most widely spread textile art form in the world. Most
cultures have developed their own technics and have their own traditional crocheted
items. I recently stumbled upon this inuit nassak,
it's a quite recent tradition, a crocheted hat with a colorful pattern.

You might want to see other exemples on this site:

Mothers who are fond of baby wearing will be able to see another interesting traditional inuit item : the amautik,
a coat that allows the mother to wear her baby (from 0 to 3 years old) in her
back while keeping both warm and comfortable.

Pelotes etc... and a WIP crate

I stumbled upon this on the internet... It was on an English blog, Pelotes etc..., written by a French lady (I think) Sylvie.
What do you think about this idea?
I just love it (I hope she doen't mind my borrowing her pics). I think I'll try it, I've got a few yards of fabric I intended to cut in strips to crochet a rug, I might have enough of it to make myself a Wip basket... My woven paper basket doesn't suit me anymore... for one thing, it's already full, and I now find it ugly.

Thanks for the inspiration Sylvie.

Progress bars

I'm having a very quiet Sunday, which is a good thing, as I can have a little
rest before I go back to work (my holiday time is over). We had a little bit
of snow this morning, but it melted as soon as it touched the ground, however
my daughter was very happy to see the flakes swirling in front of her, fun time.

The weather is still cold, colder than what we're used to here in the French
Midi, it reminded me that I should finish the few warm-wintery-things I started
so that they could be useful, instead of gathering dust in my drawers.

I have a few works in progress down there, WIPs as my fellow crochetville pals
say.

I thought it would be nice if I had a WIP bar too, but then, which one to chose,
that is the question... There are many, each one is different, each one is interesting
in its own way.

1 - The Flash Program

Olympic project:




Cabled cardigan:

Here is what Anna, from the now defunct site Annaknits, explained (thanks to
Andrea
for finding the original page) :

“You might find something completely different to use it for, but I use it
to display the percentage of a project done. There are only 2 variables to
set, and you can integrate it easily into more complex code, like I have here,
or update it manually very simply. You can set the color and percentage to
anything you want. To put it on your site:

~ First download the Flash file. (Right-click and “Save Target As…”) Copy
it to your own server. Make a note of where you put it!

~ Wherever you want to put the percent bar, paste this code:

<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/
shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0"
width="102" height="17">

<param name="movie" value="(path)/percentbar.swf?percentage=100&colorout=25BFE0">

<param name="quality" value="high">

<embed src="(path)/percentbar.swf?percentage=100&colorout=25BFE0"
quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="102" height="17"></embed>

</object>

~ Edit the colored parts of the code, changing the “100” to whatever percentage
you would like to display. Change the "25BFE0" to the hex code of whatever
color you would like to use for the progress bar. Finally, if you didn’t put
the Flash File in your root directory, replace "(path)" with the path to the
swf file. If it is in your root directory, omit "(path)" altogether.

~ You’re done!”

I uploaded my flash program into the free image hosting site www.photobucket.com,
as if it were a picture, it makes it easy to find out the path of the flash
object, the swf file. As for the code, you can cut it down to this :

<object>

<embed src="(path)/percentbar.swf?percentage=(percentage)&colorout=(hexadecimal
code of the chosen color)" quality="high" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
width="(the width you want the object to be, eg
150 if it's 150px)" height="(the width
you want the object to be)"></embed>

</object>

I like the smooth look of it, but everybody doesn't have a flash-friendly computer, I'm afraid that would render my blog less readable.

2 - Table cells

Olympic project :
100%
Cabled cardigan :
	12%

Here's the code:

<table width="150" border="0" cellspacing="0"
cellpadding="0">

<tr>

<td colspan="2" ><strong><em>Olympic project
:</em></strong></td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td colspan="2" width="100%" height="30px"
bgcolor="#FFCCCC"><div align="center"><strong>100%</strong></div></td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td colspan="2"><strong><em>Cabled cardigan
:</em></strong></td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td bgcolor="#FFCCCC" width="12%" height="30px">&nbsp;</td><td
bgcolor="#FFFFFF" width="88%"><div align="center"><strong>12%</strong></div></td>

</tr>

</table>

The bar is made of two cells, one "full", with a background color
of your choise and a width consistent with the percentage of progress of your
crochet project, the other "empty" (background color white or no background color), with a width consistent with what is left to be crocheted. if it's 100% then it'll be one cell with a colspan of 2 (one cell replacing 2). This is an easier way to achieve the same result as the previous one, especially if you're
not comfortable with the flash technology. Tables are easy to implement and
look fairly neat.

Here
you can find a how-to that was written by Noricum.
It's really well explained, no need for me to re-write what she's already so
perfectly stated. Just notice that if you want a border around your progress
bar but not around the title, you'll have to create a table inside the table,
and to take into account the width of the border and add it to the total width
of the table.

Olympic project :

100%

Cabled cardigan :

12%

Now, the code :
<table width="200"
border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">

<tr>

<td colspan="2" ><strong><em>Olympic project
:</em></strong></td>

</tr>

<tr>

<table width="152" border="1" cellspacing="0"
cellpadding="0" bordercolor="pink">

<tr>

<td width="100%" height="30px" bgcolor="#FFCCCC"
align="center"><strong>100%</strong></td>

</tr>

</table>

</tr>

<tr>

<td colspan="2"><strong><em>Cabled cardigan
:</em></strong></td>

</tr>

<tr>

<table width="152" border="1" cellspacing="0"
cellpadding="0" bordercolor="pink">

<tr>

<td width="12%" height="30px" bgcolor="#FFCCCC"
align="center">&nbsp;</td>

<td width="88%" height="30px" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
align="center"><strong>12%</strong></td>

</tr>

</table>

</tr>

</table>

Quite easy to implement, but that's a lot of coding, maybe too much to my liking... and it's not really pretty either...

3 - Cascading Style Sheet bar

Another very interesting one to try : here is the link
to the Knitticisms page that explains it all.

It's just a 1 pixel wide image that you set as the background of a division,
and you stretch this background image to the width you want, consistent with
the percentage of progress done... Simple but clever.

My interpretation of this idea is slightly different but the result doesn't
differ much. I chose to create two classes, the first one is just the bar, empty,
and the second one is the color representing the progress of the work. In the
HTML code, The second is nested inside the first, and is given a width consistent
with the percentage of progress done...

Olympic project :

100%

Cabled cardigan :

12%

The style sheet code (to be written in the "head" section of the
html page) :

<style>

.bar { height: 30px; width: 150px; border: 1px pink solid; background-color:
#ffffff;}

.progress { height: 30px; background-color: #ffccff;}

</style>

The html code, to be written where you want your bar to be, X
stands for the percentage of work done:

<strong><em>your project's name:</em></strong>


<div class="bar">

<div class="progress" style="width: Xpx" align="center">

<strong>X%</strong>

</div>

</div>

4 - Plain and simple images

I found this brilliant idea on the weblog of Mc
Crochets. All you have to do is create a set of images, let's say 1 for
every 5% more achieved (that would be 20 images), then you'll just have to insert
them in your page, changing the image name as the project grows.

So <img src="(path)/75percent.gif">
would become <img src="(path)/80percent.gif">

However, there's no reason why the image should actually be a bar, variations in that rang of ideas are endless...

my take to it :

Olympic project :

100%

Cabled cardigan :


12%

In my exemple I chose to use images of hearts I already created, so that my
bar would match my page theme,

• a big heart stands for 10%


• a medium size one for 5%


• a small one for less than
  5%

I think the result is cute. Really. But not striking.

Last, but not least, ladies and gentlemen, fellow yarn addicts, let me introduce
you to ...

5 - Indigirl's
handy dandy progress tracker

I think I found the perfect one, it's so cute... I just would need to draw my
own images, to make it more personal. Anyway this stuff is neat...

http://www.indigirl.com/knit_tracker/

But it looks like I have a feww difficulties running it correctly...

 

Tell me... what would YOU choose?

Addicted to yarn...

I asked to join the yarn addicts community. I don't know if I'm entitled to do so.. I am a yarn addict but am I proud... I don't know.
I do like to open my drawers, boxes, cupbards and look at all this yarn, thread, fibers and other stuffs I have recklessly bought.
I do continue to buy balls, bobbins and cones of all types of fibers, although I know I will ha ve a very hard time finding a place to put them once I'm home.
I do appreciate window shopping yarn stores, even if I have more yarn than I will never be able to use.
I do collect new adresses of internet shops that I like to drool upon.
I do look forward to browsing the yarn category of e-bay, in search of new so called "bargains". I do love reading about new materials, like bamboo, corn or soya...

but...







I do feel a little bit ashame of it. It's so out of control sometimes... We're even thinking of buying me another cupboard to stock my yarn stash. Isn't that a shame.

Hopefully my husbad is thoughtfull and shows a lot of understanding... maybe because I never say a word about his addiction to movies and his insane compulsion to buy DVDs...

Here's a glimpse at my yarn stash...

You may have questions about the last one... Yes, it's plastic. What? It's not yarn? Well... not yet, but this is going to change...
How? let Manolo show you...

Update : March 30th

I recently found those lost in the depths of my cupboards:

and I just bought this one on e-bay :