Knitting research: questionnaire

As part of my research, I am running a questionnaire on knitting blogs:

My name is Cassie Williams and I a knitter, a web professional and a student at London Southbank University where I am researching knitting blogs. I am currently studying for an MSc in New Media and shall be starting a PhD in January.

I would be very interested in anyone who has a knitting blog answering this questionnaire, which I will use to analyse trends related to knitting blogs and which will contribute to knowledge about online practice, participation and creativity amongst crafts people.

If you would like to take part, please could you return your answers to me by email to cassielwilliams@gmail.com on or before Monday 15 December 2008.

Knitting blog questionnaire

1. Age:
2. Male / Female
3. Town:
4. Country:
5. How long have you been knitting?
6. Do you have a knitting blog? Y / N by ‘knitting blog’ I mean a blog in which you discuss knitting or crocheting on a regular, but not necessarily exclusive basis
7. What is the URL of your knitting blog?
8. How long have you had your knitting blog?
9. How frequently do you update your blog?
10. Do you know how many visitors do you get each month, and if so, how many?
11. Why did you start blogging?
12. What do you most enjoy about having a knitting blog?
13. In what ways, if any, has blogging affected the way you knit or your attitude towards knitting?
14. Do you regularly meet up with knitters in real life?
15. Would you be interested in taking part in a focus group or being interviewed about knitting blogs? Y / N
16. If so, please give your email address:

I shall be writing up the results of the initial responses for a Research Development report which shall be made available this blog early next year. I hope to also use these results for possible journal articles and a PhD thesis.

This research is being carried out in accordance with London Southbank University’s Ethics Policy and is being overseen by my supervisor, Katrina Sluis, Course Director: Digital Media Arts.

All answers will be stored securely and will be kept confidential. I shall preserve the anonymity of all correspondents.

You are free to withdraw your answers from this research and if at any stage you would to do so, please email me at cassielwilliams@gmail.com to let me know.

Knitting: networks

I'm pleased to say that I've finally got round to setting up a group for people researching knitting on Ravelry.

Meeting other people at the In the Loop Conference earlier this year who are looking at knitting form an academic perspective was such a useful experience. Although we were all focusing on different aspects and had arrived at the subject via different disciplines, we all had something to learn from each other.

It's great to see how many other people out there are, or have been, studying knitting - I really hope by having a place to talk to other knitters it will help us all to discover so much more than we would on our own!

A Disappearing Number: pattern recognition

[image from: http://www.complicite.org/productions/detail.html?id=43]

I recently went to see the wonderful A Disappearing Number at the Barbican theatre in London.

The play takes as its starting point the story of the famous Indian mathemetician from the early 20th century, Srinivasa Ramanujan and parallels abstract mathematical concepts with human raw human emotions of love and loss.

To be honest, I have never needed much convincing that mathematics is about patterns, and that patterns are beautiful. But many people seem to have been put off maths at an early age and see it as a tangled and difficult mess of rules that are the antithesis of creative.

But, on the other hand, many crafts (and knitting particularly springs to mind here) are quite fundementally about patterns, I often wonder if there is a natural affinity between knitters and mathematics. Perhaps that explains the many scientists, software developers and accountant knitters I have met?

Ma Ke: useless fashion

I took these photos at the Ma Ke Fashion in Motion event at the V&A in May 2008. Ma Ke is a Chinese fashion designer who focuses on the handmade, rather than the mass produced that is so often associated with China. These clothes are from her 'Wu Yong' collection, which translates as 'useless'. These outfits were created from discarded and useless material and have been transformed into beautiful, sculptural but ultimately unwearable and useless creations.

Fashion in Motion is usually a catwalk event, with models walking around. This one was different as the models were absolutely stationary, on plinths, and the audience was in motion, moving around and inspecting the models - a strange and haunting experience.

A healing dress

Of all the things I have done in my life, I always felt that Grandma was most proud of the fact I could make my own clothes. Her mother was a dress maker, and she often said that my love of dress making reminded her of her mother.

Grandma often told me about how, when she was little, her mother would take her shopping. When Grandma saw something she liked in the shops, her mother would take her home, draw out a pattern on some newspaper held up against her, and make her a copy of the dress in the shop.

My sewing skills are no where near this advanced, I often struggle to piece together a shop bought pattern, but none-the-less, Grandma was convinced this ability had been handed down to me!

With this in mind, I felt that I had to make myself a dress to wear for her funeral - it is what she would have wanted, and I knew she would be proud. I've written more about the process of making the dress on the Burda Style community website.

There is something cathartic about the process of making something in memory of a loved one, the process is ritualistic, you have time to think, and to not think, whilst weaving your memories into your creation. In doing so, you can really place something of yourself into the object, in a way that seems to be almost spiritual - this is one of the ways which the process of craft is more real and more alive than the process of procuring and purchasing. I could have spend (almost!) as much time wandering shops, finding just the right dress to buy for the occasion, but at the end I would not have felt fulfilled.

Erin, at a Dress a Day, has written eloquently about the process of crafting in the memory of a loved one, as has Kate at Needled, her beautiful blog.

Absence

It has been a long, long time since I last posted. With all the best intentions, life got in the way of my blog. First a college proposal consumed all my spare time and energy. Then my lovely little grandmother, Gladys, died. She gave me this ring shortly before she passed away.

It is now August - I am still studying and, although I may not have been blogging over the last few months, I have rarely stopped thinking about crafts & the web and the relationship between the two. I have also been working hard (although perhaps not quite hard enough!) on the research phase of my studies.

I have resolved not only to return to posting regularly (and frequently!) but also to make the posts more beautiful (Jane Brocket, whom I met recently at a conference made me realise how important it is to care about these things), and to post more about things I have made and my own experiences crafting.

Crafts 2.0: the 90-9-1 rule

Jacob Neilson cites a commonly held web 2.0 'rule' which states that 1% of users will create content, 10% will interact with the content and the remaining 89% will view the material. Neilson continues to say that the phenomenon of participation inequality comes from studies by Will Hill in the early '90s.

I would like to know if this holds out for knitting blogs? Of the knitters I know, the majority have blogs.

Informal observations make me believe that there are many reasons why people blog: some want a blog to 'show and tell' their progress, others want to share their knoweldge and distribute their patterns, others talk about a network effect - having a blog gives a knitter authenticity and is a pre-cursor to being able to participate in online knitting 'swaps'.

Some blogs have many posts, they appear to provide a supportive framework for knitters. Some arouse controversy, but many more seem to be focused on helping and inspiring people and looking for peer-to-peer support and approval.

Does such a rule also apply in this environment?