Look! Up in the Sky!

Well, it's already over, and we survived, but today we had an asteroid (Asteroid 2011MD) in near-Earth space! Luckily, it wasn't a collision, although they said it was small enough to burn up in the atmosphere! If you click the link, you'll see a diagram of the way Earth gravity has disturbed it's trajectory.

We are also having a meteor shower. The June Bootids are expected to peak tonight, but will continue on for a bit, and you might still see one or two on the fourth (if you can distinguish it from the fireworks).

If you want to gear up to get out and watch meteors, check out this site. It's full of great hints! You might want to get out tonight to watch, even if you don't see to much because it will be good training for the Perseids shower that happens in the early part of August. This is one of he biggest, and My personal favorite because it peaks right before my birthday, so I always thought of it as my own, personal birthday fireworks. It's one of the many things I really enjoyed about Pennsic.

If you read the article on Pennsic on Wikipedia (the link above), it says that the kingdom with the most war points wins. What it doesn't say is that the loser has to take Pittsburgh!

Even if you're familiar with Pennsic, you should read the article. It has some funny parts, such as:

Contrary to popular myth, the Pennsic wars were not caused by Cariadoc challenging himself to a war and losing.

If you're interested, it inspired a mystery called Murder at the War, which is a lot of fun. It follows a mythical murder set at an early Pennsic, and shows a lot of the flavor of going to Pennsic. If you read it, it has a few errors in it (notably, people are not automatically entitled to be called lord or lady--people you don't know may be called that because you wouldn't want to offend someone by assuming they're not nobility).

Well, I got off the topic there!

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I've gotten back to my work on the mobius hat with cables. I need to take the photos and write up the instructions for the Screaming Knitfit version of the plain mobius set. Hopefully, that means that there will be some photos on my blog soon.

Here's a photo of the original:

The new and improved instructions will include a star as well as the heart, which is shown on this hat (for my granddaughter, Kyle, whose last name is LaHart.


I spent Saturday charting out a double-sided cable for the cowl and I've started that part of the knitting. It's going more slowly than most knitting since there are a lot of cable crossings!

I also spent a while trying to chart a double sided cable that starts at the beginning of the scarf. That really twisted my brain into Celtic knots all by itself. In other words, I'm trying to make it a stand-alone cable, whereas the others are continuous.

I still haven't gotten it right. The problem is that you really have to write the instructions for the cables on both sides at once.

I'll be back with another post soon.

In the meantime, it's Summer! Get out there and have some fun!

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Pennsic

Pennsic started on July 24 and I didn't even notice it until today.

Maybe I'm starting to get over the SCA.

What a sad thought.

Actually, they started it early this year. Usually it's still happening on my birthday, and I've spent a few happy birthdays there. But this year, even if I were going, it's over on the 10th.

Clan Lurkr is on the list for land along with Chez D'Argent. I miss them all.

So I guess it's time to reread Murder at the War.

I just went to Amazon to find the URL for Murder at the War, and found out that they are releasing a copy of Beedle the Bard! Actually, two copies, a paperback and a real treasure!

I can't wait for December now so I can buy a copy of my own!

The timing of Pennsic is making me think ahead to the Maryland Renaissance Festival, too. I can't wait for that. I got their flyer in the mail yesterday.

In the meantime, I've been looking at cables in various books and thinking about the design for the Celtic sweater, but no decisions yet. I have to make some decisions soon.

I have some business to do tomorrow, and I expect to have to take a bus to the bus and then have a half mile walk to where I have to go, so I doubt that I'll be posting tomorrow.

Have a great weekend, with what little is left of it!