Towel Day!

Today is Towel Day!

And it happens to fall right in the middle of Memorial Day weekend. Make sure you carry your towel with you today!

Holly's sister, Heather has joined Ravelry! Please feel free to bop on over there and welcome her.

For any of you who don't know, Ravelry is the place for knitters and other fiber artists on the internet. You can see what others are doing, talk to them about what they've done, get to know new people, find someone who might be willing to part with the ball of yarn you need to finish a project and much more.

There are groups for people who are interested in Firefly, Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Torchwood, Red Dwarf, bad movies, typesetting, publishing, making movies, reenacting, felting, spinning, fans of particular spinning wheels, and much more. 

If you're making a sweater and can't figure out the directions and what you should do next, you can get help here. You can find many (usually hundreds) others who are making the same pattern.

And patterns! There are tons of free patterns, and a few that cost a bit.

At the risk of repeating myself, it is the place for knitters on the internet!

Well, Doctor Who is on BBC in America at the moment, and I want to watch. They're showing Human Nature, The Family of Blood, Utopia, The Sound of Drums, and The Last Time Lord.

Those last three are a series (one story) and include Captain Jack Harkness as a companion, and at the end, we find out more about Jack. The kind of information that makes me want to go back and watch all the Doctor Whos and all the Torchwoods over again!

Holly and I went out yesterday, and had fun admiring rolling thunder. We decided that our best strategy would be to wave and flirt.

For those of you who don't live around here, every Memorial Day weekend, DC is host to Rolling Thunder, which is a gathering of veterans to honor other veterans. They all ride motorcycles, which is where the name comes from. It's also a great opportunity to flirt with guys and admire motorcycles. There was a guy who went by on a blue chopper that caused Holly and I both to forget about what I was saying. Beautiful!

One of our stops was at AC Moore. Holly was looking for origami paper, but didn't find any. She did, however, get the Beadnik yarn she was looking for to finish her shawl. She actually owned enough to finish the shawl, but it has mysteriously disappeared. 

I found the knitting needles I had been looking for.

Well, I thought I had been looking for them. Susan Bates has a new series of circular needles out called Velocity. I'm not sure why they made them. They're exactly the same as their Silverado needles, except that the "wire" is navy blue, and they only seem to be available in one length: 29 inches. Silverado is available in 16, 24, 32, and 40 inches.

I need a size six needle to knit the rune bags I'm designing, and I thought I could use this with the magic loop method, but no, 29 inches is too short. The bag is a bit bigger around than a sock, and the needle is much too short. It's possible to knit a bag with it, but not pleasant. I think I'm going to try to get some double points and try again.

When I came home, I raided my stash to make a sample bag before committing the beautiful silk yarn. I'm glad I did. The design and construction seems so straightforward, but is proving to have a few kinks to work out.

Off to watch Utopia!

Have a great weekend!