Stats, Stats and More Stats

While I'm working on my book that's about travel and knitting, I found myself looking up a variety of stats for the countries that will be profiled.  Basically, I'm writing a book filled with knitting designs, so I'm writing about the countries that inspired the designs.

Though it's going to be a fairly light book - nothing controversial, only fun - I did find some interesting stats and thought I'd share them with you here.   The countries that are highlighted, or profiled, in my book are:

• Austria
• Bulgaria
• France
• Greece
• Spain
• Turkey
• United Kingdom
• United States of America

The reason these countries were chosen is solely because I had knitting designs already completed (or well on their way) that could easily be applied to these particular places.  The stats I'm about to post are per the CIA Factbook.  Hey - I'm not an economist, nor am I a business writer or anything, so I went to an easily accessible source.  So while my friends on Facebook were letting me know what they knew about all these countries (Thanks for that, friends!), I was gathering some statistical information.

OK, let's start with some basics.  Each group of stats will include each country's individual ranking.

Population (July 2012 est.)

USA (#3) 313,847,465

Turkey (#17) 79,749,461

France (#21) 65,630,692

UK (#22) 63,047,162

Spain (#27) 47,042,984

Greece (#78) 10,767,827

Austria (#94) 8,219,743

Bulgaria (#100) 7,037,935

Size (Area)

USA - #3

Turkey - #37

France - #43

Spain - #52

UK - #80

Greece - #97

Bulgaria - #105

Austria - #114

Moving on to some financials, I looked up the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. The Factbook defined this as "Purchasing Power Parity."  I didn't really know what that was either.  It went on to say the GDP at Purchasing Power Parity exchange rate is the sum value of all goods and services produced in the country valued at prices prevailing in the United States. 

GDP

USA - #2

UK - #9

France - #10

Spain - #14

Turkey - #17

Austria - #36

Greece - #41

Bulgaria - #71

Interesting that USA is #2, but listed as #1 Is the European Union.

Per Capita GDP

USA (#12) $48,100

Austria (#18) $41,700

UK (#34) $35,900

France (#35) $35,000

Spain (#43) $30,600

Greece (#49) $27,600

Turkey (#86) $14,600

Bulgaria (#90) $13,500



What I was happy to see was the rather high literacy rate in all the countries.  Sadly, I was a bit surprised at Turkey because I thought it would actually be lower.  Perhaps I shouldn't have thought that.

Literacy Rate

France, UK, US - 99%

Bulgaria - 98.2%

Austria - 98%

Spain - 97%

Greece - 96%

Turkey - 87.5%

Finally for tonight, I'm going to add in Life Expectancy. 

Life Expectancy (At birth)

France (14) 81.46 years

Spain (15) 81.27 years

UK (30) 80.17 years

Greece (31) 80.05 years

Austria (33) 79.91 years

USA (50) 78.49 years

Bulgaria (112) 73.84 years

Turkey (124) 72.77 years

I'm surprised that the U.S. isn't ranked higher than it is.  But I also read today that over 1/3 of adults are considered obese - nearly 40% of all women.  YIKES!  Need to work on that healthier lifestyle.  Maybe we should all move to France and drink more wine?  (I love France!) I have more stats to share later on, but in the meantime, I think this is all pretty interesting.  What do you think?



The Itinerant Knitter

So yesterday, I finally got around to deciding on what my New Year's resolution is going to be.  Clearly, I don't believe in rushing these things as it's now February.  Sure the losing weight thing is there, but that's an annual renewal of sorts, so it doesn't really count as a resolution in the new year if it's just being carried over from last year, right?

For those of you who have read my blog before, it's probably rather obvious that I love to travel.  Probably rather obvious that I love my Indiana Hoosiers, too, and that I occasionally like to dabble in politics.  While I haven't written too much about it here, I also love to knit and never go anywhere without at least one or two (or often three) knitting projects within reach.  When I'm deciding what to write here, I usually have some needles and yarn in my hands to keep me busy since I'm lousy at not being fidgety.

When I knit, I like to knit two things in particular: lace and socks.  Sure I knit other things - like sweaters for other people, hats, cowls, wall hangings, etc.  But I mostly knit socks and lace projects.  Sometimes I knit socks with a lace pattern on them, but thanks to access to wonderful books and a desire to knit something potentially complicated and challenging, lace usually wins out.  Of course, as any knitter knows, it takes a heck of a lot less time to knit a small project than it does to knit a huge lace shawl, so the smaller projects often win out.  The former can be done watching a good football or basketball game on TV.  The latter requires actual concentration that jumping up and down while my Hoosiers defeat #1 and #2 ranked teams simply doesn't allow.

With knitting, I've also begun to dabble in designing.  I'll admit, I'm horrible at making fitted garments, so I don't touch those, but with lace - and no true need to stick to a particular gauge - I like to make up my own stuff, such as this stole, the design for which was borrowed from a kilim I saw while in Istanbul.

Istanbul Stole - Ravelry pattern link

Or even with other projects, such as this pair of fingerless mitts that actually keep your wrist warm, I tend to create my own pattern if I can't find another pattern that I like.  Thus far, I've published everything on Ravelry which is amazingly knitter and designer-friendly.

Buckeye Braided Fingerless Mitts - Ravelry pattern link

The last year or two, I've been toying around with the idea of writing a book.  I love to travel.  I love to knit.  I love to knit while traveling.  Heck - I almost knit an entire sock on the flight back from Madrid a couple of weeks ago.  Why not combine my two loves into one big project?  Why not create a collection of designs inspired by the places I've traveled?  After my recent trip to Spain and Morocco, I certainly have plenty of inspiration and am already working on my third design from the Alhambra alone!

Since I didn't already have anything more than just a recycled "lose weight" New Year's resolution, I've decided to make this project my slightly-belated resolution.  Maybe it can be a "before my next birthday" goal since I just turned (cough) 29 (cough) again last week.  That would give me an extra month, anyway.  I already have it all outlined with a whole list of possible designs, though last month's trip to Iberia and Northern Africa would probably yield enough ideas for a stand-alone book.  So much beauty there.

I already have an appropriate name picked out:  The Itinerant Knitter.   It's under that name that I already publish my patterns despite the fact that my Ravelry ID is "DizzySpinster," a name borrowed from my time in the Peachtree Handspinners Guild in Atlanta - a fabulous group of ladies who originally taught me how to knit back in 1999.

My goal is this:  Organize the book, getting the written parts done and have most if not all of my projects knit up for pictures so that it's ready to be submitted for publication - all by this time next year. 

Hopefully while all this is going on, I'll find a publisher willing to take a chance on a new author / designer.  My hope on the book as well is for it to be appealing to knitters and non-knitters alike since I plan to write about the various places I've visited.  Maybe it'll turn out to be a lovely coffee table book...that just happens to be used by knitters all.

So there you have it: My (slightly belated) New Year's Resolution.

I'm really looking forward to this!

Addiction

Hello.  My name is Heather and I'm addicted to yarn.  (applause - HI HEATHER!)

While heading out east this past weekend, I first spent the afternoon and evening in Hoboken with my cousins, including some time in Trish's yarn shop.  I knew when I went there, I was going to pick up a couple of things.  Yeah.  Well - I ended up picking up a whole lot and I totally blame Trish for just standing by and not stopping me.  lol!  I mean, she just stood there while I grabbed more and more yarn.  Seriously - it just jumped out at me.  I had no choice but to take it back home to Ohio. Yeah.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I like to knit.  No.  I love to knit, so buying yarn is a hard thing for me to avoid.  Like all knitters though, I have far more yarn than I'll ever be able to knit up.  From time to time, I trade yarn with my friends, but while I have more than I can ever use, I really do knit a lot.  I do actually complete projects as well.  I'm in a dinky apartment, but still have a bunch of plastic bins in a storage unit - many of which are filled with yarn.  Yes - I'm hopeless.  Thankfully, I have plenty of friends in the same boat!

Speaking of friends, my cousin, Trish, opened her yarn shop, Patricia's Yarns, seven years ago.  Prior to her opening the shop, I only knew how to knit socks and crochet afghans.  Since she opened, I've learned how to do so much more.  While I don't get out to Hoboken very often, I can say she's introduced me to a lot more kinds of yarn.  I've now officially become a yarn snob and love knitting with the good stuff - such as silk, alpaca, merino wool, seacell, linen, etc.  I can't bring myself to buy the acrylic stuff except on rare occasions. 

Anyway...here are a few things I've made.  I've grown a lot as a knitter since my days of only socks and afghans.  I love the creative process and definitely love learning new things.  Recently I've learned how to knit entrelac (a basket weave sort of design) and a moebius scarf.  Love taking classes at my local yarn shop!  These are just a few things I've made in the last couple of years.

Alpaca, fingerless mitts.

Dr. Who socks

Moebius scarf

Wysteria Lace Shawl

Are you on ravelry?  What's your Rav ID? I'm there as DizzySpinster. Feel free to add yours below so we can see you there.  Happy knitting!

Oh the anticipation!

Oh the anticipation of it all! What to post in my first blog entry of Au Lait in a Sidecar?

Still working out the details and setting up the blog itself, so this posting most definitely does not count.

But, to give you a preview, I do plan to write about random observations - which really can be anything at all, hence the word "random." (See? I'm smart!) Possibilities include:

* Politics - I lean left (Obviously! I use a coffeehouse in an historic building as my 3rd space!) I listen to NPR, served in the Peace Corps, believe in a single payer system of healthcare - you know, like Medicare, only for everybody! Yeah. My leftiness will definitely make itself known!

* Current events- since I like knowing what's going on in the world.

* Knitting ups and downs (may even keep you in stitches)

* Far away places - oh yeah, will definitely write about far away places as I LOVE to travel, (Of course, I could also talk about budgetary woes that prevent me from traveling as much as I'd like...sigh.)

* My progress with Arabic. السلام عليكم

* My cat, Moghi (fair warning: she's a tad evil)

* Fun days in class - my students are awesome!

* People I admire (e.g. W.A. Mozart, Richard Engel or my friend, Cath)

* Who the heck knows what else? Maybe some days I'll even choose to write in something other than English, though it won't be in Arabic for quite a while!

I do know that I plan to write at least something every day, some entries will be short and others probably longer than you'll care to read, but hopefully you will anyway.

Maybe I'll even get around to telling you of the story behind my blog's name! Never know! Could be fun!

Regardless of what's in my mind at any given moment, I do hope you'll stop by from time to time to say hello or even follow me. Heck, maybe I'll even see you at Stauf's!

Всичко хубаво, friends!

(All the best)