Research

No pictures today because I'm posting from work (shh). This post is a plea for help.

I've been feeling like lately I've just been reporting on my FOs and WIPs, with no real content to this blog. I started this blog in January of last year because Jen's blog wouldn't allow anonymous comments. I thought, why not. Then, of course, I fell in love with the idea of becoming a part of a knitting community. I had started to grow my knitting community by hanging out at Nina, by attending knitting nights there, and by knitting with friends. It's nice to have friends who knit.

I had an ulterior motive for starting this blog, too. I have been reading knitting blogs for a while, and am fascinated by the popularity. Why do people blog about their knitting? Knitting is so tactile, and blogging is not. Why am I so interested in reading what others are working on? Why did I feel like I could join this community and share my own knitting adventures? I'm a folklorist. I study communities. My interest was piqued.

After about ten months of blogging and commenting on blogs, I decided to take the plunge and really start researching this community. In October I asked a few knit bloggers to answer a series of questions for me. Knitters are so gracious. I now have a good start on this project. I need to figure out a way to get more knit bloggers to answer my questions. I've refined them, and I'm still working on making them more focused, but they take time. I was thinking that starting a meme would be useful, but I wouldn't know how to track it. I need the answers to compile my findings.

Basically, I'm trying to research the motives for blogging about knitting; the impact the larger knit blogger community has on individual blogs and the knitters themselves; and the unique characteristics of an online community that is based on an artform that is physical in both creation and purpose.

So, please, if you would be willing to answer about 25 essay-type questions about knitting and blogging, please contact me through this blog. And please, please spread the word. If you read a knit blog that addresses these questions (because I'm sure we all think about them from time to time), please send me the link. I'm bookmarking them for future reference or for possible interviews.

One more plea: if you know of resources about how blogging (and its predecessors) creates or maintains communities, please recommend them. I'm interested in books, websites, scholarly articles, other blogs, or anything that leads to other resources.

Finally, thank you to those knitters who have answered questions for me already. They've given me insight on how to revise the questions and a kernel of an idea for a thesis.

In knitting news, I started the sock, the hat, and another hat. Why choose?