... and the winner is!

Thank you so much for all your congratulations and nice comments on my last post!

Today I have drawn five winners:

Four pattern winners: CeltChick, Miriam, Serena and Kuku have all won a pattern of their choice.

CeltChick and Miriam, please contact me with your Ravelry name or an e-mail address, so I can send you your pattern. Kuku and Miriam, I need to know what pattern you want. Serena, the Blomekrans vest pattern is on its way to you!

And, ta dah - the winner of the project bag, and a pattern, is Merete Sinding! I have sent you an e-mail, to get your address and to know what pattern you want.

Thanks again, everyone! Without readers, no blog. Thanks for visiting!

5 years anniversary! Join the giveaway!

Just over 5 years ago, I started this blog. 

November 20th 2008, I had my first two patterns published, 

in The Inside Loop. 

(This online magazine was discontinued shortly after, 

but I'm still going strong :-) )

So, to celebrate, I'm doing a giveaway!

If you comment on this post, you can win this project bag, 

with some stitch markers, a skein of hand dyed, icelandic lace yarn, 

a book mark from Shetland, and maybe some other goodies...

You also win a pattern of your choice. 

Four other winners, can also have a pattern of their choice. 

Five years, five winners.

Just make a comment saying which pattern you would like to win,

 if you're a lucky winner. 

The yarn, is the same yarn as I used in this shawl, details on Ravelry.

The give away closes on December 1st, 

and the winners will be announced on December 2nd 

(if nothing comes in the way.)

torirot in Norwegian

When I started blogging more than four years ago, I had just had two patterns (Hippocampus and Amiga) published in a British online knitting magazine,The Inside Loop (now discontinued). I had many online knitting friends that did not speak Norwegian, so it felt natural to start blogging in English. But obviously, my Engish is not as goot as my Norwegian, so I sometimes feel it would be interesting to write in Norwegian. So now you can find me in Norwegian also. But fear not, I will still be posting here in English. The two blogs will be about the same topics, mainly knitting, but they will not be identical, so feel free to follow me both places.

Problems commenting?

Jogless stripes

Someone has had problems commenting on my blog. Have you?

I have tried to change the settings - can you see if it works? If it doesn't, you could tell me on Facebook.

Have a nice weekend - with or without comments!

Grrr.... Blogger

I sat down to start blogging some holiday knitting and discovered my navbar was gone. Without me having done anything. I can manage without, but it annoys me, and I can't figure out why it happened and how to fix it. And trying to fix it, I messed up other things and spent too much time without getting anywhere. That's what I hate about blogging. Anybody who can help? Or just cheer me up?
I went for a walk, took a photo of a pretty flower and had a cappuccino, which has improved my mood! Hope to show you some FOs soon!

A different view

On the blog "How about orange" I learnt that you can get different views with Blogger: Flipcard, Mosaic, Sidebar, Snapshot, or Timeslide

Here's a Flipcard view of my blog: (Click on the photo to get the up-to-date version).


Or see a Timeslide view here. Those are my two favourites. On "How about orange" you can get a lot of other nice tips - check it out!

Btw - thanks a lot for all your comments on my redesign cardigan - and for all other comments, I do appreciate them.

Award

Judith has given me a blog award.

Thank you so much! I'm supposed to give it to five other blogs. (Judith did, you should have a look at my fellow award winner's blogs - blogs I did not know before, but will certainly visit again!) It's hard to choose five favourites among the blogs I follow. So consider it given to all the blogs I like to visit. "Ingen nevnt, ingen glemt" as we say in Norwegian (meaning "nobody mentioned, nobody forgotten")

One year blog anniversary!

So it's been one year... I hesitated a long time before I threw myself into the knit blogging world. I was - and still am - ambivalent about this project.

Before starting, I wondered
- will anybody read?
- will I have something to write about?
- will it be to hard to formulate interesting posts in English?
- will it take too much time?
- why am I doing this?

The answer to the first two questions is obviously yes. When it comes to my English, I try not to think that I have to compete with blog writers whose mother thongue is English. The main thing is that people understand what I mean. I could of course have used Norwegian, which is my mother tongue. But that would exclude most of my Flickr and Ravelry friends. So English it is.

And blogging does take time, I'd rather think it takes time that I otherwise would have used surfing around on the web, but I'm not sure...

And why am I doing this?

As I said, I am ambivalent. But when I got my first pattern published, I decided it was time. I enjoy visiting designer's blogs. It started with Knitty, visiting the Knitty designer's blogs opened my eyes to this part of the web some years ago. And I was disappointed when I saw an interesting design, but found no blog. So I figured, other people would probably like to visit my blog, if they liked my design. So there I was.

I also blog to have somewhere to show and sell my patterns. Opening my own website would be to ambitious, so I'm fine with this. With the help of Ravelry, of course!

And when you answer one question, there comes another one: Why do I design? Or rather, why do I publish it? Couldn't I just be happy making things without necessarily publish it? I probably could. But once you've started, it's hard to stop, somehow. So I'll be around for a while, still, I think.

Thanks for reading and commenting this first year of blogging! If anybody wants to win one of my patterns (ie, the ones to buy in the left sidebar or one of the football hats in the right sidebar) just make a comment and tell me which pattern you would like. Three of you will be lucky winners! You have till Sunday 22nd.

New blog design

I was happy when I managed to get a left sidebar earlier this summer. But after a while I dicovered some bugs - some links weren't showing properly, they would only show when you moved the mouse over them - a little annoying. So I redid everything, this time using a free template from bloggerbuster. I think it's ok now. I don't like spending so much time on these things. I had to redo some of the widgets in the sidebar, but I got the label cloud I've been wanting automatically.

More interesting, Twist Collective Autumn 2009 is up. I have just browsed it quickly, and these are my faves so far: Piper by Christa Giles, and Vine yoke cardigan by Ysolda Teague.

Three columns!

Wow - I did it! Almost didn't believe my eyes when I checked the preview and saw the three columns!

I have been wondering about how to get three columns. On Merete Veians blog (in Norwegian) I found some links - but none of them for my blog template (Rounders). So I tried google: rounders three columns blogger - and arrived here: An easy-to-follow tutorial for dummies like me!

Still have to figure out how to change the text colours in the left sidebar, though...

Have a nice summer, everyone!

Blog start

Some days ago I received a mail from Kate in The Inside Loop: "There's just a week until the Winter issue of TIL goes live on 20th November. If you would like to start plugging the fact that you have a pattern in this issue on your blog, Ravelry, etc, then you are welcome to start doing so!"

I actually have two patterns in this issue - I don't really believe it till I see it, though, my first published patterns! So I figured this was a good occasion to start blogging. I'm not allowed to show pictures of the projects yet. So in the meantime you can have a look at my Wintergreen mittens, finished earlier today. It's a lovely pattern, and a fun knit.