I’m just…tired. Our house (you remember we’re moving, right?) is almost finished, and so we’ll be moving very soon. Which is nice, the house is beautiful. But we’re to the point that almost all of my pattern books are packed up, and most yarn not currently in use is in a box. Turns out that I have a lot of yarn (mmm, could use more, though. :D).
In between the kids and packing, I’ve been able to get SOME work done on my ‘secret project’ (although the smock has, sadly, been on hold for almost a week). Because I’m using a lot of different colors, I’m really trying to finish up soon so that I can pack all the yarn I have draped across my sofa. I am…ALMOST 2/3 of the way through, and despite the fiddlyness and frustration, I think it’s one of the best things I’ve created in a while. Look for the pattern some time before the end of the year, you lucky, lucky ducks, you.
As for Bitacle…bleh. Bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh. I don’t delude myself that they made/are making millions off of my work, I sincerely doubt they’re stealing my traffic, since you pretty much have to search for my blog and Bitacle together to find their copy. I had someone tell me that their ads have been pulled (which is what we wanted, really, if they won’t delete the content they stole) so…just bleh. *UPDATE* Apparently, they have lost their Google advertising. So that’s good. Here‘s an article from Plagiarism Today about Bitacle’s future. I’m going to try to set it aside for now, and not think about it. Bleh. (/update)
I’m tired. Hopefully the blog will be back to chipper, photographically documented yarny craft content soon – but I’m going to busy for a few weeks.
IF YOU ARE READING THIS POST ANYWHERE BUT TOOMANYHOOKS.MYCROCHETBLOG.COM YOU ARE READING STOLEN CONTENT!
My first thought – aside from, ‘wow, check out the company I’m in’ (seriously, apparently I’m popular enough to get robbed just like Stephanie Pearl-McPhee) – was something along the lines of a slowly smouldering fury. In case you don’t know what I’m going on about, let me explain. There is a site out there called ‘bitacle’ that steals blog content wholesale (writing, pictures, the whole shebang), surrounds it with ads, and then sits back and collects the admoney. They don’t even have to update, because they use blog feeds. They’re about to steal this post from me as soon as I publish it. I’m more than a little sickened.
They’re making money off of pictures of my babies.
As for my blog-friends (or, some of them, stalk-ees) I mentioned, many of them don’t seem to know. I just heard about this today – I will be notifying as many people as I can. Worried that your blog may have been stolen? (Apparently they’ve stolen more than 14,000 blogs, with the number growing every day.) Go here. I got results searching for pieces of urls (toomanyhooks got me to mine).
Also, check out StopBitacle.org. Here is someone’s plan for action.
Also, they apparently hotlink all of the images. See here for Plain Jane Mom’s anti-hotlinking tutorial.
Still confused? Here is an excellent post by Lorelle on WordPress.
Today’s post was supposed to be a half-whimsical, half-serious one about Eunny‘s disappearance (it’s been a month), but if she found out about this, I could see why she might stop posting. Fuming. Seriously, just fuming.
Oh, and congrats, Bezzie – you’ve been immortalized in yarn. The pattern didn’t mention you, but you know there’s not a girl at the coffeeshop that didn’t see that and squeal, “Bezzie!”
‘Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of’ – no, wait, wrong story. Something very exciting indeed has happened in toomanyhooks-land, and so (in the hopes that this will help oblitera- I mean, alleviate the formatting nightmare of shame that is my previous post) please read on to hear a wonderful yarny tale (complete with pictures!)
Once upon a time, there was a young woman who liked to crochet. She crocheted hats, she crocheted toys. She crocheted sweaters, and she crocheted scarves. She loved to crochet! One day, this young woman was cruising around the internet, when what should she find but this book:
“Oh, dear,” she said. “I love that book. I want that book. I must have that book!” So, she bought it, not caring whether any other pattern in the book was good, because she was going to make the beautiful little dress on the cover. The young woman waited, and she waited, and she waited, until one day a package arrived! She ripped the packaging open, and withdrew the book.
“Huh?” she said.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “It looks like a different version. Well, that doesn’t matter, as long as it has the pattern I want.” So she looked, and she looked, and sure enough, there was the smock.
“Well, that’s all right then,” she said. “Let’s see what kind of yarn it calls for.” She looked, and she looked, and then she realized that the yarn was not available in the United States – not locally, anyway – because although they had converted the stitches to American conventions, it was still an English book. Undeterred, she looked for a sub. “Red Heart Baby Fingering should do fine,” she said. “I even have some. Oh, it’s not enough for the whole thing – but I can start now and buy more later. Oh, but I don’t have the right hook. Oh. Darn.”
Not long after that (really, not long at all) she went to Walmart for yarn and a hook. To her surprise, she couldn’t find the Baby Fingering anywhere. She looked high, she looked low, but there was none to be found. “Where could it be?” she wondered aloud as she checked out, hook in hand.
Somewhat later, the young woman happened to be exploring the Coats and Clark website when the awful truth was brought home. The Baby Fingering yarn had been discontinued. “Oh, no!” she cried. “That’s the only fingering yarn I have ever seen! What yarn will I use now?” So, for many sad months, the young woman looked, at Walmart and Michaels and Hobby Lobby and even Joann’s, but she just couldn’t find a fingering yarn. “Oh, well,” she said. “I’ll have to make an internet order, but I don’t have a daughter yet, anyway. It would be silly to do it now. I’ll just wait.” And so the book sat on the shelf, unused, for well over a year.
Then, one day, she went to Walmart to buy some Softee Baby in Lemon and Mint:
(Doesn’t that sound delicious? And I like mint, especially for baby things – no matter what Crochetmesays…)
…when she saw something amazing. Her Walmart was carrying Bernat Baby! She stopped. She stared. She dove in with both hands! And, in the end, she bought skeins and skeins – enough to make the smock both in Antique White –
– and Baby Green.
“Hurrah!” she said. She brought the yarn home, and introduced it to the book. “We’ll start tonight!” she declared.
There was only one problem. The hook she had bought, so long ago, was the wrong size.
“Oh, not again!” She couldn’t believe it. Still, the next day, she took one more trip to Walmart. Battling Saturday traffic, forging her way through the crowds, she bought the only thing standing between her and a little smock WIP – the hook! And a candy bar. But that’s beside the point! She returned triumphant with her size 4 steel hook, and she crocheted happily ever after.
