Chat Back for February 13

Answering questions from comments and email.

Susan asked . . .

I'm wondering when you'll tackle a pair of toe up socks from Wendy Johnson's book. I've started a pair myself.......

When I do, it will be my first pair of toe-up socks.

Someday I'm going to pick up that book and give it a try, but there is no set date. Could be next week, next year, or next decade.

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Jan asked . . .

Will you be participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count?

I think these counts are more to get people interested in their birds than to gather valid scientific information. My mind has been trained to be accurate and logical. Just the thought of trying to count our birds makes me dizzy.

For example, I have 5 Cardinals at the feeder, 15 visible in their favorite staging bush. While I'm trying to count, birds are flying back and forth between the bush and the feeder. Then there are the dozens of finches hopping around while the Titmouses (Titmice?) and Chickadees dart in, grab a seed, and take it to a tree to crack and eat it.

And what about the feeders on the other side of the house? And the birds that are present, like the Pileated Woodpecker, that don't come to the feeder?

So no, I'm not attempting a count.

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Kathy B asked . . .

Do you call them Flickers? We call the big one a Flicker. Are we off here?

Flicker above, Red-bellied Woodpecker below. (The Flicker picture is from Birdsource.)

They're about the same size, the Flicker is just an inch or so longer.

The Flicker has a tanish gray and black back, the Red-bellied has a bright black and white back.

The Flicker has a black mustache not present on the Red-bellied.

The most noticeable difference when they're in motion is the yellow wing shaft on the Flicker. Red-bellies don't have any yellow.

Flickers like to insect feed on the ground. Their favorite food is ants. They even bring ants to their hatchlings. That can't be easy.

Red-bellies stay for the Mid-west winter, Flickers normally migrate to warmer climates in the Southwest.

So which do you have?

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Thoughts on the blog redesign.

• I was pleased to find Blogger has gotten much easier to use since the original Stitches of Violet formatting in 2004. It all went smooth. It was even fun.
  
• Now that I've upgraded to the newest, easy to use, Blogger layout software, I'll be making changes more often.
  
• I especially had fun with the colors.
  
• After noticing the profile picture with the red sweater didn't match the blog color scheme, I found a picture with a green background and a purple sweater. It's more important to have the right colors than to show my face. (I think I'm just kidding.)
  
• Long time and/or serious readers know the Violet in Stitches of Violet refers to an online name I've used in the past. It was chosen because I love the wild blue violets that bloom in the spring and has nothing to do with purple yarn.
  
  So even though it's not spring yet, I made the violets my blog theme for now. Tentative plans are to change the header and footer to reflect the season, but no promises. I love the violets.
  
• The only complaint I have about the new format is losing my Haloscan comments.
  
  With Blogger comments there is no easy access to a reply email. In many cases there is no email information at all.
  
  Also, there is no instant way get the blog URL of the person leaving the comment. In many cases there is no URL information at all. You may have noticed I left blog URLS out of the Chat Back questions this week. And probably will going forward.
  
• Blogger gives us the opportunity to stop comment spam in several different ways, all of which I hope to avoid. I want to do everything possible to encourage comments because I love getting them.
  
  Typing in the letters in the box is the first line of defense. I dislike doing it on other blogs, so it's not turned on for this blog. Yet.
  
  Mandatory comment review by me before posting is the second line of defense. I hate it when I leave a comment on someones blog and don't get to see it immediately. I hope spam never gets so bad I have to do this.
  
• Another safeguard is to not allow anonymous comments. There was a nice anonymous comment this morning from someone who bought the Beautiful Knitting Patterns book and is going to knit a pair of black socks for her husband using the same stitch pattern as John's socks. Is this someone I cyber know? Do I read her blog? If I didn't allow anonymous comments, would she have identified herself? Or not left a comment at all?
  
  Note to anonymous commenters: Even if you don't want to give Blogger your id, you could be friendly and type your name at the end of the text. Please.
  
• Some of my archived posts have text running down the right side of the picture where there isn't room for text running down the side of the picture. As I notice these, I may go into the html and fix them. If I link to an archived post, it will be reformatted so all the text falls under the pictures.
  
• Did anybody actually read all this babble?