Unplugged.

I've had no internet all day today. I just woke up and it was gone. No where to be seen.

I must admit I panicked a bit at first. What if someone sent me an important email? How could I check the weather radar to see how far away the impending storm was? How could I bake banana bread if I couldn't load Kirsty's site? How would I find Indi's singing teacher's phone number? How would I post my day six blog of Blogtoberfest? What if...

I tried to fix it but had no idea what I was doing and then I made a decision to turn it off and be without it for the whole day.

In the end I had to bake something from a recipe book instead, the rain still came, I texted someone for the phone number and I had SO MUCH MORE TIME!! I played and read books and baked with the girls, I cut out and sewed two and a bit dresses, I knitted a few rows of my cardi and I was really present.

I didn't jump up to answer the email ping, I didn't get distracted by blog land or lost in ravelry land and all those emails will just have to wait until tomorrow.

Bren walked into the office at 8.30pm and switched the router off and on again and wouldn't you know it, it all worked perfectly. Yay!

Farmer Bren brought 300 of these chickies home today too. They are one day old and super cute. Some of them haven't even opened their eyes yet.

Most of them are out in the brooder but six have stayed inside to ride in tractors and pose in shoes. Its 9pm now and they are still cheeping in their box. Hmmm if they don't go to sleep soon I think they might need to go and join the others.

So my friends I hope you've all had a fun and productive day and I'll see you tomorrow. That is unless my farm boy does what he's threatening to do and turns the internet off again in the morning.

Taking control of my content.

Before I start this, can I suggest that you go to your dashboard, press settings and press site feed. Once you've done that have a look at the top section entitled Allow Blog Feeds and make sure that you have clicked short. This means that a short excerpt of your blog can be used for google searches but that a whole blog post cannot be syndicated.

Done? Great!

Yesterday morning I made the decision to stop blogging. It just felt too disgusting to think of my stories and pictures being posted out there on a foreign blog as if they belonged to somebody else.

A little while later I came and read some of your wonderful comments and decided I didn't want to stop. This is my community and I love it.

Not long after, I decided to open up a new blog with a new name and start all over again. I couldn't decide whether I should keep it completely separate and secret, or if I should leave the new details on my other blog or in my comments or somewhere else.

Then I started thinking up new names for my new blog.

But then I got angry. This is my blog, these are my words and my photos and my stories and nobody has the right to take them and use them without my permission.

And then I started googling and found out that I was right. Just because it is on the internet does not mean that it is free for the taking. What that blogger did to me is called website hijacking and is a copyright infringement.

I spent ages searching and reading and I found out that this happens often and that there is a lot of information out there about what to do if it happens to you.

These are some of the sites that I found helpful

• What-to-do-when-your-blog-content-is-copied.
• What to do when someone steals your content.
• The Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
• Domain Based Research Services.

In the end my situation was resolved quite easily.

I left several comments on the offending blog asking them to remove my posts immediately, and when they were ignored I wrote a polite but firm email explaining the situation and asking that the posts be removed. I sent the email to the website administrator and the website host.

A few hours later I received an email with an apology letting me know that my posts had been taken down.

I think I was really lucky to have had a conclusion so quickly but I am still a bit freaked out that this must have been going on for quite some time without my knowledge.

If you want to know if anyone is using any part of your content, put your URL in here; http://www.copyscape.com/.

So peeps, my advice to you is to be very careful what you put on your blog because you have no idea who is reading it and what is being done with it.

A huge thank you to those who left supportive comments, emails, suggestions of ways to deal with it and who commented on the offending blog. I appreciate it beyond words. Thanks also to my Farmer Boy, you are so ace. You are calm and sensible and balance my over emotionality so well. It scares me to think of how badly I could have dealt with this without you.

Gotta fly, we've got wet wool laid out and its time to go and paint it.

Have fun out there.

Love Kate (http://foxslane.blogspot.com/)

Maisie Cardigan.

How great is the internet?!

Before I start this ramble, I should tell you that I am pretty useless at it. My sister set up my blog for me and told me how to work it, I have a flickr account but I'm not sure what to do with it, I can't play with my photos or the layout of my blog and I have never bought anything on line.

BUT!

I can email.

The other day after crocheting the top of the Maisie cardigan out of vintage crochet by Susan Cropper, I got stuck on the exact placing of the stitches needed to make the dress bit. I had a few tries but I didn't feel confident.

So I put it aside for a few days and started something new, but then I remembered the baby due any minute and decided I had no choice but to finish it.

So I went back and had a look at the pattern and saw that the designer of the pattern was Alicia Paulson. I then checked the designer biographies at the back of the book and there I found her blog address. Once I found her blog Posie Gets Cozy, it was easy to find her email address.

So I emailed Alicia, she emailed me back and I finished the cardigan.

What would have happened in the days before email?

Would I have sent her a letter all the way to America and waited for her reply to get back to Australia?

Would I have given up or made it up?

Who knows. But its pretty cool that in 24 hours I can have personal advice from the designer herself don't you think?

This Maisie cardigan was crocheted from eight ply cotton found in the bargain room at Bendigo Woollen Mills. It was crocheted for a baby due last Friday, a baby that will make Indi's best friend a big sister.

Wrist warmers for Indi from this wool from Purl's Palace are my next crochet project.

Does anybody have a good pattern?

Have fun out there. XX

Little Stitches.

How things have changed.

The other day I was in Ballarat to pick up supplies when I pulled up in front of this shop.  Only 6 months ago that sign would have made my heart beat a bit faster.  I would have raced inside and grabbed arm loads of those awkward, long bolts of fabric, dragged them through the aisles and to the counter where the checkout chicky would have gritted her teeth at my request for a meter of each. 

I would have chosen spots, stripes, plains and florals because I might need them one day.

Like I said, things have changed.

I now know I have plenty of fabric at home and unless I start making women's wear I am set for a long time to come. 

This time I was looking for yarn.

These delicious colours in cotton, wool and bamboo.

These small balls are what makes my pulse race now and they are so much more convenient to carry around the shop in a little basket while I make my decisions.

While hunting the internet for crochet washer patterns I have come across some cute teacup patterns which I haven't been able to resist. 

The pink one is from here and the purple from here.

As far as I can understand from my small amount of research amigurami is the Japanese art of crocheting little, cute objects. It uses cotton and fine crochet hooks.

After making 2 and a half cups and saucers I have learnt that amigurami single crochet (sc) stitches go through both loops of the previous stitch and that it is best to mark the start of each row, I used a safety pin.

There have been lots of form versus function debates raging through my head while I have been crocheting these mini stitches. After crocheting washers and dishcloths these don't seem so practical or useful but there are some very thirsty dollies about to wake up in their cradles who would love a tea party, I'm sure.

I hope you have a great weekend wherever you are.

Fire Blossom.

Not a huge amount of crafting going on at Foxs Lane this week.

The youngest member of the family has barely been sleeping which has led to us wandering around in the same type of fog as when she was first born.

I have finally slowed down on the washer making although I still haven't figured out which one to use for the swap. 

The one above surprised me though as usually I can't stand the colour orange. It runs so deep that I barely even eat orange food.

I made my first internet purchase this week.

To be honest, I'm not entirely thrilled with how the labels turned out.

When I had ordered and paid for them, a woman called to let me know that the font I had chosen didn't come in double lines.

I might be paranoid, but once they had my bank details I felt like I couldn't cancel the order.

So I have 50 of these schoolish looking labels that are far less contemporary looking than I had in mind, but they do make my work look a bit more professional.

The pattern for this Fire Blossom Dishcloth comes from here. I added more stitches to make it a bit three dimentional.