row counter

Readers of this blog probably already realise I'm a bit of a nerd, but you may or may not realise the full extent of this nerdery. I'm actually a software developer by trade. Hey, where are you going? Wait... there's some free stuff further down!

So lately, I treated myself to an Android phone, and have been having lots of fun playing round with it. I am the sort of person who constantly loses her place in charts, as I am quite often doing something else distracting while I knit, like watching telly or thinking about what to have for tea. So I really wanted a nice idiotproof row counter app, and there weren't any free ones that did what I wanted. I just wanted something mega simple where you touch the screen and it counts. I did find one, but it didn't stop the phone from going to sleep. This is a bit of a pain if you're knitting long rows and have to keep turning your phone back on again whilst holding more needles than a porcupine. So I wrote my own app, really simple with a nice big number, which stays awake, eagerly awaiting your tappings. You can set a pattern repeat if you like, too. I've found this quite useful for the shawl I'm currently working on. It's Aestlight, and there is a 16 row repeating pattern all along the border. Amazingly, there have been no froggings / tinkings to date. This is nothing short of a miracle, based on previous encounters between rubbishneedles and lace patterns.

Anyway, County from BobbinsSoft is now up on the Android Marketplace for free download, if anyone else is interested. Hope it is of some use to other lovely knitterfolk!

If you have an Android phone handy and want a go, you can take a picture of the QR code below and send it to Google Goggles, and it will find the app for you. (Or just search for BobbinsSoft in the market.)



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acts of scarfy kindness

More random acts of kindness today! My friend Steph from knitting group made me this scarf. Isn't she lovely!


To be fair, she didn't really make it for me, she made it to try and learn how to knit continental style. And I was sitting next to her in Purl City when she said 'I don't like the colours in this scarf, does anyone else want it?' Everyone else was too polite but I piped up, obviously, because it is brown, green, red and orange, all of which are very high on my favourite colours list. I was born in the 1970s so I think my colour palette is highly attuned to these shades by default. I would basically be over the moon with happiness if it was autumn all year round. *gazes fondly at leaves*

The yarn is James C Brett Marble Chunky, and the pattern is Multidirectional diagonal scarf. I think the long colour repeats look ace in this pattern. It also goes perfectly with my collection of brown and green coats. (Well ok, getting a bit carried away there - I have one of each colour, i'm not that minted.) But now I can has a cheery warm neckcovering also, hooray! Thanks Steph!

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