All about the blog posts

Ten-year blog anniversary

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Today, my blog turns ten. I was twenty-nine years old when I started it, a relatively recent transplant to Los Angeles, and just learning to designs knitting patterns. My website was three at the time. If you want to take a trip in the way-back machine, you can even see the first version of my site here, though it's nothing more than a splash-screen. For a couple of years, it functioned primarily as an online resume. Then, in 2004, I gave the whole thing a makeover, started offering free patterns, and my blog followed closely behind.

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*sniff* They grow up so fast.

I don't think I'd be designing knitting patterns, today, if I hadn't been testing the waters online, at the time I started my site. Ten years ago, very few people even knew what a PDF was. Online purchases were the exception, not the norm. While I enjoyed knitting, if I hadn't been connecting with knitters online, I'm not sure I would have had the community of enthusiastic knitters to encourage me,while I learned from the many mistakes I made along the way.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like if, 13 years ago, Leo hadn't encouraged me to start a site. I wonder what would have happen if we hadn't stopped at Big Sur, on our way to San Francisco where we picked up a couple of cute knit hats at a gift shop, and how things would have been different if Leo hadn't pretended to love the ill-fitting hat I knit for him a few weeks later. I wonder if I would have started offering patterns if the owners of Artfibers hadn't encouraged me along or if knitters had been more disparaging of my mistakes and incomplete patterns. Knowing me, I could have easily been discouraged along the way, which would have been unfortunate, as my circle of fiber arts friends has been wonderful and they have challenged and encouraged me, made me laugh and made me think, and overall, made knitting one of the more rewarding parts of my life.

I don't blog as much as I used to, not for lack of things to say, but because so many of us have connected on social media platforms, where we can interact more directly and more quickly than through blog comments and emails. But I'm pretty sentimental about my blog. It's like handwritten thank-you notes, not something I do as often as I'd like but something I still do for more special occasions. Looking through my RSS aggregator, I see a lot of links to now-defunct blogs from knitters, spinners, crocheters and just all-around interesting people. Perhaps blogs are the pet-rocks of the early 2000s, but I'll be keeping mine going for at least a while more. And, presuming you are on my redesigned blog, and not reading this in an aggregator, or through my old blog, you can find me on a multitude of social media platforms, up there, to the right, under the "Find Me Here" heading. I interact mostly on Facebook, but you'll see me pop up on Twitter and Flickr with some regularity.

If nothing else, you'll get to see more pictures of the pooches.

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And a few hummingbirds, too.

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If you'll grant me just a little bit more sentimentality, I couldn't end this blog post without thanking those of you who come by my blog, read my posts, leave comments, and/or interact with me online, and knit my patterns. I'm a pretty shy person and would never have connected with so many people if I had to do it in person. I cringe at a lot of my old blog posts (and old patterns) but I wouldn't take any of it back. It's the mortified shoe-box of my late twenties and early thirties and I hope I'll always be able to look back, read through the posts and remember all the remarkable people I've met and experiences I've had.

The new digs

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Thanks for stopping by the new blog. I'll keep the old blog up, so all the old links still work, but anything I had there is also over here, so I hope you'll stay, subscribe to the RSS feed and, of course, leave comments if you feel so inclined.

Since you're here, you may have noticed the new look. Over the past few months, I've been taking some courses; one on designing for mobile and another on developing for mobile. There was a big focus in something called, responsive web design, which is any design whose layout adapts to the screen width and device. If you narrow and widen your browser screen (I'm assuming you're on a desktop), you'll be able to see the design reflow accordingly. If you are viewing this on a tablet or phone, hopefully, the design is easy to read without zooming in and panning. That's the idea, at least, and hopefully, I'll be able to continually tweak the design to make it better.

In honor of the redesign, I'm offering 20% off of everything in my ravelry shop, using the promo code, redesign13. Just use it when you get to the ravelry checkout. This doesn't apply to Twist or Stitch Diva patterns, since I do not sell those directly.

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We're doing some other sprucing up around here. Leo installed some rain gutters on our fence and filled them with strawberries, lettuces, and other veggies.

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I'm pretty excited to see how this works out. We've already made a few salads from the lettuces and the strawberries are high enough that Darwin has not been able to decimate those. The ones on the ground, though, we have to watch like a hawk. He doesn't care if they are green, he will eat ALL THE STRAWBERRIES, which I suppose is decimating times ten, but you knew what I meant.

The plum tree we planted soon after we moved in, is now big enough to bear fruit and we're seeing lots and lots of baby plums.

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We've got tons of other veggies and herbs growing in our raised beds and other little garden patches throughout the yard and a couple other young fruit trees that should be bearing fruit in a couple years. We have pretty much no idea what we're doing but each year, that becomes ever so slightly less so.

Anyway, thanks again for stopping by the new site and the new blog. If there's anything wonky that you think I should know about, feel free to use the contact link to let me know.

For over two weeks, two of my 3 feeds have not been updating in Bloglines, despite repeatedly contacting them for support. Google Reader would show updates and my feedburner feed that uses my primary feed, was updating in Bloglines (that's the 3rd feed) but the two directly out of my blog, were not updating.

I was sad.

I missed you guys.

So to any of you who haven't been by since before the election, welcome back. Sorry for the backlog.

To those of you who have had no problem getting my feed, well, here are a couple of shots from Thea's first trip to the beach back on April 29, 2007, for my your enjoyment.

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Aww, puppy.

Marnie, speak. Good girl.

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Marnie Talks now has a new look and name.

It's a work in progress, so expect it to evolve, but I'm happy with the basic concept.

Press refresh if you still see the old design.
If you have a very old or very new browser, things might fall apart a bit, and I'm sorry for that, but I think it should look fine in most browsers.

Let me know if you see any issues, and I'll do my best to fix it.


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Old blog design

New Blog Design
New blog design

Junk filter gone loco!

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Woah, I was wondering why I hadn't really been getting any comments lately and suddenly it occurred to me to check my junk comments folder.

Well, there you guys all are.

If you commented recently and didn't hear back from me, that is probably why. I'm going through the loads of junk to pull you guys out.

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About this Archive

This page is an archive of recent entries in the about the blog category.

chunky merino hat is the previous category.

pattern is the next category.

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