Tuesday, January 22, 2013

My Crochet Pattern Companion Blog: What Happened!

Here's a happier topic:
Kisses from young alpacas are buttery-soft. An amazing memory
from October 2012 when I led a crochet retreat in Illinois.
UPDATE: the CPC blog is fixed! Google confirmed that it's clean. It's loading faster too. It was a sidebar widget that affected several blogs. 
-:-----:-
Just after New Year's Day 2013, a bad thing happened to a good blog. NOT the blog you're reading right now and NOT my Crochet Inspirations Newsletter. It's one of my other crochet blogs. A skilled malicious person haacked* into the Crochet Pattern Companion blog. 

*Take out the extra "a" in haacked. I'm using this spelling to avoid suggesting to bots that it happened to this blog. It also entertains me how close it is to the Dutch word for crochet, Haak. (Little things like this lift my spirits. So does the photo of sweet alpaca kisses.)
The heck!? This haak got haacked: "Which
Foundation Stitch?" See it in Flickr.

Turns out it's a blessing in disguise for all of us! Mean people don't get to win in my crochet universe. So, new free crochet patterns (more on this below). 

It's possible that this was a random (and skillful) drive-by shooting at a...crochet blog...that's about...nuts 'n bolts stuff. Um, really? Of all blogs? I've got an older crochet blog about crochet for boys (and gamers) that attracts a constant stream of spaam. It's easy to keep that blog clean, though, because the garden-variety attaacks are truly meaningless and sloppy--NOT skillful. 

The crochet tutorial posts at the CPC blog were going viral in Pinterest. Pinterest is a hot site right now for both haakers (see all my crochet pin boards!) and...haackers. Pinterest was sending lots of people to CPC. I heard from them the minute the blog got hijaacked.
See the newsletter issue:
"Favorite Tweaks for Tall Stitch Row Edges"
Photos for this popular CPC blog post: "Try a Linked Stitch
to Close the Gap Between a Turning Chain
and Double Crochet."

Isn't it supposed to be awesome if your blog posts go viral? If they become a target of mean people, I guess it's flattering, but it sure turns the success into a mixed blessing. I can decode a crochet pattern, NOT computer code. It's bewildering. 

I can turn blog posts into lovely free downloadable pattern PDFs, and how-to crochet e-booklets, and store them in safer places. 

While I'm busy converting CPC posts to PDFs, you can visit some Flickr crochet tutorial albums that I used as back ups for some of the blog posts:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vashtirama/sets/72157627962438494/detail/
You might like the newsletter issue about this tutorial, "Short Row Startle."

Which Foundation Stitch?:

Linked turning chain alternative (for dc etc):