Since I'm not working, I can afford to spend a lot of time on the interweb (and today I learned that I'm not being considered for yet another job, so I have spare time to spare (ha!)). I probably read more than my fair share of knitting blogs. I notice some patterns, and some themes. Other than knitting, obviously.
1. Cats. That knitters and cats should go together is not surprising. I mean: knitters --> balls of yarn --> cats. It seems that no matter how hard people try to keep away from the stereotype of knitting as something your grandmother did (as if that was an insult!), some element of the "little old lady with her cats and her knitting" survives into the new generation.
2. Scientists. A good number of the knitting blogs floating around are written by scientists. Maybe they just stick in my mind more, but scientists do seem over-represented in the knitting blogosphere. I know that the things that drew me into science also informs my knitting to some degree. Like, I basically think of knitting as problem-solving. I have this one-dimensional piece of yarn, and I want to turn it into a three-dimensional object. I have my tools, and my arsenal of techniques. I just have to figure out how to apply them to the problem. Also, it involves lots of experimentation, and some math. It also involves loads of learning- if I can't get the result I want with my existing tools and techniques, is there another way to do it? Has someone done it before? (As we used to say: two weeks in lab can easily save you two hours in the library.)
3. Food. You expect yarn porn in a knitting blog, but there is a surprising amount of food porn, as well. Lots of close-up, macro pictures of food. It seems like a lot of knitters are also foodies. I'm not sure where the overlap is: a retro embracing of all things "homey"? A reclaiming of the formerly un-prestigious domestic sphere?
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3 comments:
That's interesting really - I've noticed the cats and the scientists, but not the food.
Funnily, I'm/I do none of these(but I'd love a cat!)
consider tho: possibly scientists are more actively engaged in "publishing" their findings, and putting information into active opensource circulation for others to leverage or build off of. That is inherent in being a scientist to some extent. Therefore, I'm guessing scientists inherently are more likely to adopt new information technologies and ineffect be early members actively engaged in the blogscape.
=> consider: the union of the subset of the population who actively blogs with the subset of the population that knits might account for your majority of scientific blogging knitters.
I'm guessing (just theorizing here) that there are great numbers of knitters out there who are neither scientific, nor actively read/write blogs.
Cooking and knitting go very well together. They both take raw materials and turn them into something else and can have many styles to them. Both can be formulaic (e.g. follow a recipe or pattern exactly) or a creative expression of yourself (e.g. don't use recipe or patterns). They can also be somewhere between (e.g. use recipe/patterns for inspiration and follow loosely).
I definately enjoy both and for similar reasons. I can take a few ingredients and turn them into something yummy and pretty. I can also take some yarn, get inspired, and turn it into something pretty (hopefully).
I also have two cats but I had the cats before taking up knitting. I don't know what the connection there is since cats make knitting harder (mine like to eat the yarn).
Oh, you're no longer the only American in Ireland with no Irish connections. :)
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