Lately I’ve been thinking about the blogs I read, and I’ve been haunted by the sneaky feeling that most of them are US-based. So I did some detective work today. It was serious detective work. Try an experiment, take your favorite 10 blogs and look for clues on them to find out where they are blogged from. Not that easy, huh? It seems that most people (including me!) consider (consciously or unconsciously) that their physical location is irrelevant, so they don’t include that information in their About page. It’s certainly made me think about it, and consider how I can amend my About section to give more useful information.
Magrit – blogging from Serbia, she recently purchased a knitting machine and has been weighing up its pros and cons.
50 Vilappeikoa – blogging and designing wonderful knitwear in Finland.
Ignorant Bliss – blogging and loving socks in Finland.
Anyways, here are the results of my little investigation: of the 129 craft blogs I read, 82 are from the US, 23 from the UK, 8 from Canada, 2 from Australia. And Europe, my home? Only 14 are from Europe. (I’m singling out the UK from Europe because it’s the second largest contingent, and, well, because the UK likes to be singled out from Europe.)
Knitlob’s Lair – another Finnish girl. Hm, I’m seeing a pattern here…
Romantales – a compatriot of mine, living, knitting and blogging in Italy.
Itty-Bitty Blog – a French mama with the most stylish handmade-dressed toddler in the world.
Niella – a Norwegian meteorologist who hides the yarn she buys from her boyfriend.
Now, I know the online community is global, but since our crafts are still very much material, there is something to be said for the value of the local community. Well, the fact that I’m defining a continent as the local community already says something about the globalization of our perceptions. But when it comes to advice and practical tips on buying yarns, supplies, shipping, taxes, etc. – it’s the people from Europe who are in the same situation as me. Furthermore, there’s something to be said for local trends. While we are all a community, we are all still individual, and I’m sure that there are unique European trends, as opposed to, say, North American ones. (And Australia, or Asia, are unique in their own ways as well.) I’d like to know more about what they are.
Fuoriborgo – living the dream in Italy (imagine the backdrops she has for her FO photos).
There’s a Million Things – she may not look German, but she is. Really. No, really. (Just check out the Diagram.)
Pickles – Norwegian blog with the prettiest header ever.
So I propose a little exchange. I present to you, the 14 European crafters I follow. I hope that you may add some of them to your blogrolls and expand your European reads. In return, I would be grateful if you sent me links to European blogs that you enjoy! Apart from English, I speak Croatian, can read Russian pretty well, and dabble in Spanish and German. But, as you’ll see below, it’s not necessary that the blog is in a language I speak. Especially for craft blogs, photos can sometimes say more than a million words. I would love to expand my blogroll to include crafters from Hungary, Denmark, Georgia, Portugal, and so on, even if I can’t necessarily understand them.
Dances With Wool – more Finland. Ok, now I’m thinking I should’ve divided my categories differently… ;) Check out her drawings.
Misha – a knitter and blogger in Serbia whose recent post title was “3 guillotined photos”, heehee :)
Wool and Cotton – if you lived in Greece, would you knit? She does!
Juicy Knits – don’t let her recent photos deceive you, she’s actually blogging from Switzerland.
That’s my list. I hope you use it to discover new treasures. And I’ll be awaiting your comments with recommendations eagerly. Just one more thing before I go: I love my North American bloggers. I am a huge fan of my regular UK reads. And I also want to find out about more Australian bloggers, I’ve seen a few and they were really special. I would love to know if there’s people blogging about knitting from Africa… So don’t get me wrong. This is just the begining. We can do a world tour in blogs together. For now: bring it on, Europe! :)
fridica 
ooh thanks – I’ve picked a few of my favourites to follow!
So glad you found something you like! :)
What a great post. I really enjoyed it.
I have looked through the blogs I follow and I am sorry I only have one European one for you (and I don’t know how to link it). It is Under the Rainbow at http://www.rainbowandhermagicdyes.blogspot.com. She is from Finland. I hope you enjoy it.
Oh it linked automatically. How civilised.
Thanks, I love the yellow hat!
What a great post!! I checked out Pickles (awesome!) and need to go look at the rest!
You might enjoy perusing these two from the Netherlands:
http://potjethee.blogspot.com/
http://puurjane.blogspot.com/
Haha, I love that on both the blogs you recommended the first post is about children in mud! :) Thank you so much!
Oops, my comment disappeared. Too many links in it? I’m not spam :)
Oh no, I’m so sorry to hear that! It wasn’t me! Usually when there’s links in a comment it’s sent to me for moderation, but I didn’t get anything from you! Perhaps it was just a glitch in the system? Could you be bothered to send the links again, if it’s not too much trouble I would LOVE to have them! If it doesn’t work here you can just send them to my email igspanATgmailDOTcom and I’ll post it here.
Thank you xoxo
Here is what Alexandra wrote, which my blog didn’t let through (sorry again). If anyone else has problems, please do not hesitate to email me with your links and I’ll post them here in the comments!
So let’s hear from Alexandra:
Thank you so much for including me in your list! I see lots of new blogs here, I can’t wait to check them out! Here are some of my favorite European blogs (I’m not including ones from the UK, although there are lots of lovely blogs there too).
Norway: Nordic Stitches http://knittingplace.blogspot.com/, knitting and some more http://strikkepinnerogandrepinner.blogspot.com/, Fryd + Design http://frydogdesign.blogspot.com/
Finland: MadebyMyself http://madebymyself.blogspot.com/, Jatta Sohelttaa http://jattasoheltaa.blogspot.com/, The Yarn-Loving Couple http://theyarnlovingcouple.blogspot.com/, Neulova Narttu http://neulovanarttu.blogspot.com/, Under the Rainbow http://rainbowandhermagicdyes.blogspot.com/, 100% Pura Lana http://pura-lana.blogspot.com/,
Germany: Rosa P. http://rosa-r.blogspot.com/
Denmark: Lykkefanten http://lykkefanten.wordpress.com/
France: http://www.cda-petiteschoses.blogspot.com/
Thanks for linking me! :) And the others too, yay for new blogs to read! I’ll check the ones out I didn’t know.
My pleasure :)
Just emailed you as my comment did not go through…
Thank you for linking me and sharing the others!
You are prompt, awesome! Ok everyone, so here is the treasure of links from Siga ( http://juicyknits.blogspot.com/ ) Thank you so much!
Thank you for including me. :)
Here’s Julia, a Spanish girl, blogging from Switzerland just like me: http://swissincatalan.blogspot.com/.
By the way, I’m Lithuanian, have lived in Germany for 10 years, so probably I am quite ‘germanized’ in my style. :D
Then I have Christine, an American blogging from Germany, so not sure how much that counts. She’s quite active on Ravelry, but is at the moment hibernating her blog activity: http://heidelblogging.wordpress.com/.
There’s also Anna from Estonia: http://kuduja.blogspot.com/. She’s mostly designing all her knits, worth to check it out.
Vaida, blogging from Lithuania, with the most beautiful pictures: http://xvaidax.blogspot.com/.
Another Lithuanian, Jurgita with a cute doggie: http://viskopotruputi.blogspot.com/.
Birgitte, knitting, designing and blogging from Denmark: http://birgittestrikker.blogspot.com/.
Katarzyna, blogging from Poland (unfortunately, mostly in Polish), but if you do know Croatian and Russian, then you should at least get an idea of what she’s talking about: http://www.fiubzdziuu.blogspot.com/.
I think these are about all the ‘continental’ bloggers that I’ve been following and am aware of their locations.
Now I’m going to check out yours. That’s a realy cool thing you’re sharing!
I’m a Dane living in the UK. Does that count?
If not, I have a few Danish (and Swedish) blogs I love:
– http://aalerusen.blogspot.com/ (Aalerusen). In Danish.
– http://birgittestrikker.blogspot.com/ (BirgitteStrikker). In English.
– http://petrao.blogspot.com/ (PetraO). In Swedish.
Well, I’m a Croat living in the UK, so I’ll make you a deal – if we can count me, we can count you too ;)))) Thanks so much for the links!
I just checked my stats to see the country of origin on the read list (it only holds the last 500, but still it’s fun) and the vast majority from from the US, then Canada, then Poland, then the UK. After that, assorted countries from around the globe. I wonder if the major reason that there seems to be a higher concentration of US bloggers and viewers has to do with the fact that we are posting in English (and that Ravelry is in Enghish, too). I also wonder if the high percentage of bloggers you listed from Scandinavian countries have a stronger interest in knitting because their countries already have a high knitting cultures, colder (and therefore sweater-worthy!) temperatures, and a higher occurrence of speaking English as a 2nd/3rd/4th language.
I love the links you shared! I love Juicy Knits too, she’s awesome. I’m so intrigued by the Greek blogger! I’m going to go check that out right away….
1. Erm, are you telling me that there was an easier way to check than counting physically, with a piece of paper? :O
2. Language definitely has something to do with it, both native and how much it is learned as a second language, I agree. But I think it also has something to do with how we find blogs: e.g. once I discovered one crafty blogger who blogged in Croatian, I found a few more immediately. But as long as I am mostly reading blogs in English, from the US, they are likely to mostly only link to other blogs in English, from the US. You know what I mean? For obvious reasons, the non-English-speaking blogger communities are more self contained, but that makes them also more difficult to find! :)
3. As for the culture of knitting, I wonder about that. The more I tell people from different countries that I knit, the more I am finding out that knitting is quite culturally engrained worldwide, including very warm places like South America. But I still don’t have a definite conclusion on this one. :)
Thank you – this is a great idea! (Although I am worried about the potential for spending even MORE time reading craft blogs than I do already!) You must visit Suzanne, based in Amsterdam (not a knitter but an artist extraordinaire – and see her Etsy shop too):
http://sakurasnow.wordpress.com/
and Annabel, who blogs in French from France
http://fee63.canalblog.com/
Thank you, I’ve added them both to my RSS reader! :)
So far 26 new entries in my RSS reader, in just a few hours! I have the most amazing readers in the world! :))))))
Thank you for sharing all those blogs I now have a few new ones to follow & read.
My pleasure! :)
Thanks for mentioning my blog :) I’m glad you like it enough to read it :)
Of course I do! Silly you :)
Holy crap! You follow 129 blogs?? That’s a lot of reading. ;)
I’m finding I have the opposite issue–I’m in the States, and more than half of the blogs I read hail from Europe. It’s neat to hear about knitting issues from the other side of the pond.
Well, RSS readers make it very simple. And keep in mind – not everyone posts very often. But yes, it’s A LOT, and I keep adding. I love procrastination, that’s all. :)
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