SF Update!

Well, Eli Stone was a bust this weekend. The pilot episode was scheduled, but they showed something about NASCAR instead. I was disappointed. It's beginning to look like I'll never get to see the pilot. It is scheduled for next Saturday evening. We'll see if it's on.

But there is other science-fiction-on-TV news out there!

Special Unit 2 will be on the SciFi daily rotation schedule tomorrow, and Tru Calling will be on the daytime schedule Wednesday.

As far as evening Science Fiction goes, Supernatural seems to be the highlight of the week, with a rerun on Thursday.

Oh well, some shows will be returning in July, although not much.

My Risata Marionberry socks have metamorphed into a pair of mitts and a beret. I've transcribed Crazy Aunt Purl's beret pattern from bulky to fingering yarn. If it works out well, you'll get photos and a pattern. Not that I really expect anyone to want to knit a beret in fingering weight yarn. I'm the only one dedicated enough to do that.

In the meantime, I finally managed to get all the information I need for the IRS (I think I have it all), and need to spend some time filling out forms and getting them xeroxed (I don't trust them not to lose them) and mailed off.

Have a great week!

Science Fiction Update

This evening, there will be two episodes of Doctor Who on the SciFi Channel, Silence in the Library, and Forest of the Dead. Since I saw Silence in the Library last week, I can tell you that it's the first of a two part horror story. Tune in and find out why people are afraid of the dark!

Once again, I don't have a lot of time to write, so this will be short, and I'll get back to photography soon.

I have finished all the feather and fan socks (at least for the moment), and have started on the Marionberry color Risata yarn from Knit Picks. I am not sure if I like it yet. The stitch pattern I've chosen biases. That's not a problem for the top of the sock, but may be if I carry it down the top of the foot as I plan to do. The gauge also seems to be significantly bigger than stockinet stitch. The pattern looks so nice that I'd like to make a shirt for myself out of it. We'll see. 

I have to go.

Have a great Friday, and a great weekend.

Quick Post!

I tried to put up a post, and something with the technology went horribly wrong.

I finally gave up, restarted, and am back to give it a second go.

I've been continuing my love affair with the Knit Picks needles. They're like knitting with jewelry, and they make knitting a joy to do! I may even get back to working on my Celtic sweater so I can use the Options size 8 needle.

I'm almost at the end of the last (for a while) feather and fan sock, and have a new sock design percolating in my head. It'll either be a marvelous triumph, or a total disaster. We'll see. Triumph photos if they happen.

Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy will be rerunning tonight! So will Supernatural. I think ComCast has it's digital TV guide messed up again, because it's showing two episodes of Burn Notice tonight on USA, each with a different episode title, and both with the description of a rerun from last season. One of them might be the premier of the new season, because it's twice as long as the other. And there's an episode of Psych airing in between them.

I had a nice, long post here before technology destroyed it, but I don't have the patience to deal with it all again.

Have a happy Thursday!

*****************

I looked it up. The premier for Burn Notice with be on the 10th of July.

The two hour episode airing tonight is the two-part season finale. The first part of the season finale will air later in the evening.

Oh, well!

Close-up Photography

For those of you who are into knitting, here's a photo of some yarn.

One time when I was at Michaels, they had these  neat, lightweight (and with the coupon, cheap) bins. I snapped one up for my living room. 

I have several containers of various shapes and sizes placed strategically around my place to display yarn. There's a Halloween cauldron on top of my bookcase with a selection of yarns to make Christmas stockings. I bought the cauldron to display yarn, but also because it has a nice, rounded shape, so a ball (or knot) or yarn will spin nicely in it while I'm unwinding it to do something with it. Also, it has a handle, so it's easy to grab and put next to (or better yet, in front of) the chair I'm sitting in so it's easy to pick out colors and yarns.

For Christmas stockings, I know the basic stocking pattern, so I just pick out yarn colors and patterns as I go along, and as I get inspired. So having the yarn in front of me helps. I can lean forward and see how the already completed part goes with something in the stack.

Actually, I should get started on knitting Christmas stockings now if I want to have some to sell. Selling some stuff is something I have to do if I plan to have food for the rest of the month (ending on the 16th of July).

Yarn is decorative, in my opinion. Why should my stash be put away where I can't see it? Most flowers (especially roses) have scents that make me feel ill. I'd rather display my yarn than a bouquet of roses.

Well, on to the topic of photography.

I was going to cover a lot before my excursion into displaying yarn distracted me. Now, I think I'll just cover picking a camera.

The most important thing is to read all the technical gobbledegook and find out what the manufacturer says about close up photography with that camera. This will usually be something that says how far (close) the lens will focus to. So, if it says close-up to 1 inch, you can get the lens as close as 1 inch to the thing you're photographing.

If you plan to take photos of rings or other small pieces of jewelry, that may be a good thing. If not, and you just want to take photos of a flower or something, you may only need two inches or even more may be adequate.

Bear in mind that a lens may focus closely enough to record most of what you want to do, and you may want to get an auxiliary lens for real close ups. Also, telephoto capabilities may make up for not being able to get close to something you want to photograph.

For instance, the Canon Powershot S5 will focus down to about 4 inches in macro mode. But with the addition of a lens/filter adapter, you can put a close up lens on it.

I'll add more to this post later.

Care Package!

In spite of everything, I did manage to get one good photo at the Celtic Festival of my sister and daughter. I think that's Holly's Cristmas present camera Lynn's looking at.



Yesterday, the care package from Knit Picks arrived. If I had known what my financial situation this month would be, I never would have sent for it.

I have to say, though, that it really made me happier to get it.

Let me tell you about what I got!

First, there's a size one (2.5 mm), nickel-plated, 40 inch circular needle. You can see it in the photo with a partially-knit sock on it. I have one of these in a 47 inch length from Addi (one of their lace needles). I loved the Addi lace needles because I liked their points, which were copied from the old Baleen needles. They make regular needles feel big and clumsy to knit with. Until I tried the needles from Knit Picks. They make the Addi lace needles seem big and clumsy. I can do the K2 togs, and the SSKs so much more easily and quickly on the new needles! Knit Picks recommends a 32 inch circular needle for socks because their needles are so flexible. I think that 32 inches would be short enough to make extra work for me. But the 40 inch needles  eliminated enough extra length that they are no longer catching on things and making problems, while still being long enough to use them easily. In short, I love them! And, I like the nickel finish so much better than the ugly plastic-coated brass, and the purple connector is also nicer than the red ones on the Addis. And they're only $5 as opposed to close to the $20 mark.

While we're on the subject of needles, there is one of their Options circular needles curled around the sock-in-progress in the photo. It's made of size eight tips with a 24 inch connector. And now that I have them, I'm thinking about all the projects that the Options needles will make easier.

I've been thinking about getting a set of Options needles for a while. I have a set of Denise needles, though, and although there are some wonderful things I like about them, there are also some things I'm really not happy with.

I like that they've never been banned from aircraft. You can take your knitting on a plane with relative confidence. If knitting circularly, you can put the size needle you need for knitting on your right-hand side, and use a size smaller on the left so that it's easier to advance the stitches onto that needle. Every once in a while (actually, often), there is a project that just doesn't want to slide up onto the left-hand needle. Well, now you can fix that! Then again, you can go further and make condo needles out of the components. Condo needles have a big needle tip on one end, and a smaller one on the other tip. They're used when knitting back-and-forth to make interesting effects with certain stitch patterns. And Denise needles have the sharp points that I like so much. Sharp points make decreases, lace and cables so much easier to do.

But Denise needle tips are short! There is not enough in your hand to control them easily. You don't notice it at first, except for a bit of awkwardness, but your hands tell you about it later.

I have put off buying the Options needles because I was afraid they'd be too short. But they're not! Knit Picks, in it's wisdom, made them 4.5 inches long instead of 4 inches. That doesn't sound like much, but it makes all the difference. When you add the connection, the whole needle tip is 5 inches long, precisely.

And the Options tips are sharp, just the way I like them.

In a couple of days, when I feel better, I'll be going through everything I own to try to find unneeded possessions to sell on Craig's List. With any luck, maybe I can raise enough to offset the money the IRS took out of this month's income, my sudden medical costs, and maybe even enough to get a set of Options needles!

I live in hope.

Now that we've covered the left side of the photo, let's move to the middle, where you see a ball of Telemark sport-weight wool in Royal Heather. See how light it looks in their photo? See how dark it looks in my photo? I was hoping that it would actually be a little lighter than it appeared on screen. It was actually darker. I made a pretty shawl in a lavender yarn, which went to a friend, and I liked it so much that I wanted to duplicate it, only in wool rather than the acrylic it was in. So I'm reassessing things.

When I was born, my mom had a name picked out for me. But when I arrived, she decided that I didn't look like that should be my name, so she named me Johann. Well, this yarn is like that. It looked like a pretty lavender shawl in the photo (to me), but now that it's arrived, it looks like a vest for me. So, now I have to design a vest. I have lots of ideas, but some of the cables and things I'd like to do wouldn't show up well in this color. But maybe a general texture would work well.

More thinking is needed.

On the right-hand side of the photo, we have the Risata yarn in Marionberry. It's very pretty, but it's much darker than I expected, too. Comparable to a navy color in blue, but purple.

I hadn't decided what pattern I wanted to use for this, but I was leaning toward the horcrux socks. This shade is dark enough that I don't feel that the horcrux socks would be shown to their best advantage. So, I'm still thinking about what pattern to use. Suggestions are welcome. Lace might be nice. Or not.

Photography stuff real soon, now.

Have a great Tuesday!

Still Here!

I am so much better than last week!

I still have a sore throat and earache, but I can breath (most of the time) with my mouth shut and without breaking into a string of coughing. The literature with the medicine kept talking about how I would feel OK almost immediately, and that I shouldn't stop taking the medicine because I feel OK. I think I'm going to get to the end of the medicine before the OK part. I'm supposed to go back to the doctor for a check-up, to make sure that it's really gone, but I can't afford that. I may try to see if I can get more of the prescription by calling the office, but I don't know how I'm going to buy it unless I skip paying the phone bill. Or eating.

They Live was on TV today, on one of the Encore channels. Check your local listings. If they run it once, that means it'll probably be on a few more times sometime soon. The movie applies more and more to what's happening in the United States these days. The economy is collapsing, and all the money is going to a group of rich elites who turn out to be aliens (come on, this is a science fiction movie!). Whereas in real life, it's just a bunch of humans who act like aliens. It's a great movie! Don't miss it!

There are at least five other great things coming up on TV that I wanted to tell you about, but I'm too muddled by this group of infections to remember them. I'll have to take notes for tomorrow.

I thought I'd get the instructions for the Horcrux Socks. They say you have to sign up with some group in order to get the pattern (which is free), but you have to give out all sorts of information about yourself, and also (it transpired) write an essay about your skills as a knitter, current projects, etc. Apparently they're very picky about who they give patterns to.

I like the basic design of the horcrux socks, but I can already see lots of stuff that I'd rather do differently, so I may just write my own pattern for them.

But the essay I wrote reminded me that I've made some scrunchy socks, and I haven't put up a pattern for them. I'll have to do that when my body stops trying to leak out of most orifices.

Holly and I went out yesterday so I could do some basic shopping. Then we went to Chilis restaurant. 

She was telling me about the Sex in the City movie, which she loved, loved, LOVED! She threw in lots of spoilers, which I won't repeat here.

She said her sister didn't like the new Indiana Jones movie. Apparently, the ending wasn't archeological enough for her.

Holly and I got into discussing the crystal skull mythology, and went on to discuss how recently some archeological discoveries have been made (notably, the iridium layer at the KT boundary), and how that has changed the way people view the world. We wandered through the show, Cosmos (because it was on TV yesterday, and was pertinent to the discussion of scientific censure, specifically in relation to Immanuel Velikovsky). Carl Sagan felt called upon to ridicule Velikovsky because his theories didn't catch on with the scientific community. When I first saw Cosmos, he felt it necessary to add this (without reason, in my opinion) to the show. I saw the show again later (after Sagan had been ridiculed for his nuclear winter theory) and the part that mentioned Velikovsky had Sagan saying how sad it was that closed-minded scientists had chosen to denigrate him.

I told her about two really wonderful and fascinating books by him (Worlds in Collision, and Ages in Chaos) that have garnered a lot of censure from the scientific community. I had forgotten at the time about his other book, Earth in Upheaval. I think I was actually thinking of Earth in Upheaval rather than Ages in Chaos, though. I read them when I was 12 or 13 years old, during the portion of the summer before Mom lost her temper, took away my library card, pointed at the front door and yelled "Go outside and play!"

We had a lot of fun!

The Weather Pixie is once more under the weather, and I hope to see her back here soon.

I keep promising to tell you more about photography, but this being sick thing is taking up all my time and brain-power at the moment. I haven't forgotten the photographers out there, but I'm really not up to writing about anything coherently at the moment, so I will do it ASAP. Sorry.

Have a great Monday!