theraineysisters knitting and so much more

The results of our bloggiversary survey are in. We had over 800 responses. Woo!! Thank you for taking the time to complete the survey.

The “typical” respondent is a very experienced knitter, clocking in with more than 20 years of knitting time. Our knitter enjoys knitting shawls and wraps more than most other types of projects, and likes our blog just the way it is. (Cue the Bridget Jones music. Or at least cue Colin Firth as Mark Darcy.) Our readers use Ravelry for pattern surfing and checking out other knitters’ projects. They read knitting blogs just as frequently, if not more so, than they did before Ravelry.

Here are the details:

How long have you been knitting?
Quite a while from the looks of it!

Experience level shows a perfect bell curve:

We decided not to constrain the responses by defining the different levels of experience. Respondents defined for themselves, often explaining their choices by what they are “afraid” to do, such as steeks, lace, etc. Many said they are fearless, or will tackle anything, but still have a lot to learn.

What do you REALLY love to knit?

You can see our readers love to knit just about everything! Of course, we forgot some things in our list, so readers added them in their comments — felted items, toys, mittens, scarves — or simply the obsession du jour!

About a Blog
The next few questions related to the blog itself: frequency and content. Most people felt that we were on the right track with 98.5% saying the content balance was right.

We loved reading the comments people wrote about our blog — after all, that is one reason we continue to do this. We love hearing from you. Most people like our finished projects, information about patterns and yarn selection, finishing, repairs, etc. Shop hops and stories about our local knitting stores were less popular because most of our readers do not have access to them.

People were also realistic about the fact that we can’t crank out 5 FOs a week to keep the focus on finished projects! One commenter noted that we start some projects and then never show them finished. Hmmm. That can’t possibly be true 😉 . (Aside from Sally: I am notorious for putting projects aside. I do sometimes go back to them, and you may see one or two of these phantom projects over the next few months.)

Someone else wished that we would use more affordable yarns to make it easier to replicate our projects. We are truly sorry, but we cannot comply! We love really nice yarn!! We do understand how expensive a hobby knitting can be when you use expensive yarns. For us, it’s important to enjoy the process of knitting as much if not more than the finished object; the pleasure of working with beautiful yarns is part of why we love to knit. Moreover, it takes so long to knit certain projects that the investment of time seems to require an equal investment in yarn quality. That said, not all expensive yarns are worth the price and it’s particularly disappointing when an expensive yarn doesn’t live up to its price tag.

Has Ravelry influenced your blog reading?

Only 8% spend less time reading blogs! That was a surprise. And, for the 0.3% who are not familiar with Ravelry, please go join TODAY! You won’t regret it!!

Our readers LOVE Ravelry:

Here again, we forgot to list everything that people look for in Ravelry: stash management, the great library, buying as well as selling patterns, and networking with other knitters. Many of you expressed your love of Ravelry: wonder what I ever did without it, check it multiple times each day, it’s my obsession, etc. We agree with all of the above!

The overall message we received from your comments was to keep on blogging. To be honest, we get a lot out of it ourselves. We often come back and look up projects or techniques — ‘google’ our own blog to get answers. We know we read about it somewhere…maybe at The Rainey Sisters! (Sally will be providing an example of that very soon.)

And, remember — you are all Aran-clad wieners in our eyes! (There’s a reason we didn’t ask you about Susan’s love of puns. . . )