Miscellaneous Sunday

I have a batch of unrelated stuff to report on today. There will be lots of pictures!

Last weekend, Holly and Robin went to Clinton Bay, along with a lot of family and friends.

Here are all the ladies that went. That's Holly on the far left in the front, and Heather at next to far right.

Here's (L to R) Holly, and her sister, Heather.

Here's Holly, Chad (her brother) and Heather.

I shamelessly copied these photos from Facebook. I'm going on the assumption that if they didn't want these on the internet, they wouldn't have put them up there.

These photos are not from Clinton Bay, and some are from a Renfair, but they're more family photos.

Here's Malaia, my granddaughter and her husband, Johnnie.

And the same pair in Renaissance gear.

And Johnnie at a Renfaire.

Finally, for this group, is Malaia.

Next time, she shouldn't ask a dwarf to take her photo!

You've all heard me talk about my friend, John Ellis, and I thought you might like to see some photos of him to give you a better idea about the person I keep talking about.

First, to segue from the above photos, here's a drawing John did of Malaia when she was in her teens.

Here's a cartoon he did of himself.

I usually think of him more this way, though.

This was from a while ago, and I think it was while he was working on I Go Pogo.

Here we have John and Phil Cook with one of the models from Invader, so you can see that this was a while ago, too.

Here he is setting up dailies, and I'm pretty sure this was also on I Go Pogo.

John is currently working on getting out the last Steve Canyon DVD, which I'm doing the covers for, and you can see the finished covers for three of them, and the preliminary cover for the one that will be released real soon now if you click the link.

He's also going to get to go to the San Diego Comic Con! I envy him! I'm going to give him a list of freebies I want him to get for me. I asked for The Middleman DVDs last year, but nobody was giving them away. I don't truly expect to get anything out of it this year, either, but I'll probably harass him with requests anyway.

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In other family news, my sister, Lynn had a car accident the other day. It's almost the same thing that happened to me: someone pulled out right in front of her.

The most important thing to know about this is that she's all right. She skinned her right knee, and got a scrape from the seat belt, but is otherwise fine.

Her car can't say the same:

It's so mangled, it's hard to tell, but that's a Prius, and it's really not too old. I feel sad just looking at it.

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Finally, I'm getting around to the knitting portion of this post:

I got a new garment steamer to replace the incontinent one that I'm now afraid to fill with water and plug in, and I finally got around to taking a photo of it. It's sleek and beautiful, with big wheels, and I will try it out any day now.

I love steamers for blocking knits! Steamers are fabulous for knitters. They can change a knitted item from something that looks clumsily homemade to something that looks skillfully hand crafted! There's probably not much that you can buy that will change the finished look of a garment more than a steamer!

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I hope you read my Tweet yesterday about the Being Human marathon on BBC in America today, because it's almost over, and I wouldn't want you to miss it! They're getting everybody ready and up to speed for their Being Human second season premier next Saturday.

In that same Tweet, I also mentioned the Doctor Who marathon that will be on BBC in America tomorrow.

There will also be a rerun on The Big Bang Theory tomorrow night. Check it out!

I hope you've been having a wonderful weekend and will have a terrific week coming up!

Happy Birthday, Heather!

Once again, it's that time of year:

Happy Birthday, Heather!

I hope you have a great day!

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The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy will be on SyFy tonight!

There will also be some Vampire Diaries rerun on the CW, and a brand new Better Off Ted, which is not SF, but is very good, still. Actually, it's almost SF. Some of the new products they're developing are very SF and so are the problems that humans have dealing with those inventions and products.

Anyway, tonight is rescued as an SF night!

And there will be a new Eastwick on tomorrow night! Save Eastwick!

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I found a knitting calculator, which I haven't tried yet, but put a link to in the sidebar. It will help you know how much yarn you'll need to knit a specific project.

Enjoy!

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I shouldn't be sitting here writing, I should be out getting all the things I didn't finish yesterday done. I made a mistake with something I got yesterday and I have to go back and exchange it. Then I have to go get some things I need to make Christmas presents. All that's after I go donate some food to the food bank and pick up some books that are waiting for me at the Library.

So, I have to get moving. Have a great evening!

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Addition:

The Winter edition of Knitty is out, and it has some things I'd like to make! Check it out for some great ideas for last minute Christmas presents!

Happy All Saints Day

Happy All Saints Day!

Although It's All Saints Day, I expect that I'll be dealing with the fall-out from Halloween for the coming week. I still haven't gotten all the photos from Holly with her and Robin in costume.

But her sister, Heather, and her husband, Rob were in the newspaper today! Read the whole story here.

This was the view of their house yesterday.

Rob apparently scared kids with a (bladeless) chain saw.

And Heather posed with her son, Mitchell.

The problem with all this is that next year, we'll expect bigger and better things from them! But then, Heather is only following her father's example.

When we lived across the street from my mother, Al made the house so scary that none of the kids would stop to trick or treat! He finally had to turn off or take down some of the stuff so that kids would come for the candy!

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Well, V is on SyFy! All day! And all day tomorrow and Tuesday!

Today, they are showing the original mini-series (twice, it's on later, if you missed it) followed by the two other mini-series. Tomorrow and Tuesday, they'll be showing the TV series during their daytime rotation.

I have a lot more to say about V, but right now I just want to make sure I don't miss any of it!

Have a great All Saints Day!

Recap of Sunday

Well, as it turned out, the only two to show up for the Renfair on Sunday were Holly and Everett.

The weather people said that it would stop raining around noon, so I thought it would probably be pretty muddy, plus probably overcast (so not so good for taking photos), I didn't want to do too much walking and endanger walking next weekend, and I didn't have any money to spend. So I opted to save Holly two to three hours of driving time and not go. I live in the opposite direction from the Renfair, so she would have had to spend a half an hour or more (depending on traffic) to get here to pick me up, plus the same to drive back to where she would have been if she hadn't picked me up, plus the same to take me home.

I'm really torn about that decision. Holly says it wasn't muddy except in a few spots. She and Everett didn't do much walking, and mostly watched shows. She says she didn't buy anything. Then she adds that she bought a replacement for the sash from her costume (which she lost). Then later on in the conversation, she says she bought Everett a shirt.

The skies were magnificent around here, and I guess that she had similar weather there. We'd have bright sunlight, with a huge pile of thunderheads building up to the side of the sky. Then it clouded over entirely and was overcast. Then there was sun again, etc, all afternoon.

But the part of her story that's driving me mad is the part about a sgian dubh at Black Sword Armoury. That last link to the Armoury will take you there, but a lot of what they have isn't listed. Holly described it as having a hilt with a Celtic knot and a blue stone set into it. At the price, $15, I suspect that the "stone" is glass, but it sounds very pretty! Judging by her description, I want one! Lots and lots!

So, anyway, the two of them had a wonderful Sunday walking around the Renfair and seeing the shows.

Holly told me about a place that has some fabulous stuff made from antler that's new at the fair, too. I can't wait for our visit in October.

But the thing I'm really excited about right now is the Fall Fiber Fest, which is this coming weekend! My mind has been working overtime on what kind of a hat I would make for Heather. She doesn't want me to make anything original, though, so the yarn is going back to her along with the Hermione hat that she requested.

But I've designed at least two fabulous hats in my head, and I want to get yarn to knit them in, along with matching scarves (or wimples), mitts, and possibly mittens. I've found some nice yarn in Knit Picks, too, but I'm excited about looking at the FFF. I don't expect to be able to afford more than yarn for one set, but at least I can look around and have fun.

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The only real science fiction on tonight is reruns of Warehouse 13 (which is always fun), but don't miss Eastwick tomorrow night!

Have a great evening!

I Think I'm Back, Now

I haven't been feeling really good for a long time, now, but the antibiotics and decongestant I've been taking have been having side effects that have had me feeling worse than usual for the last week or so. But I've just taken the last antibiotic pill, and so I assume that I'll be feeling better soon. At this point, I don't think they have improved the general background low grade sickness, though. I was really hoping they would.

So, anyway, it looks like I should be back to posting almost every day soon.

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Holly is coming home today from her weekend trip. I heard from her last night, and the trip was good and bad. She had severe plane delays on the way out, but did get to Hoagie Man at least once, and planned to go again before she left. This was complicated by the fact that her phone managed to quit working, necessitating a trip to the phone store to get it going again. It quit again soon after being fixed, but then was fiddled into working again. The renfair trip on Saturday seemed to be a success. At least she said that she'd bought a really beautiful ring that I can't wait to see.

She didn't want to hang on the phone for long last night when I talked to her, so I got a sketchy report of Sunday's renfair trip, and it wasn't pretty. There was a lot of rain, and it was chilly, which didn't go at all with her pirate costume, which, you may remember from the last post was a bit skimpy on warmth. Her wool felt tricorn hat may never recover. Heather got fed up with it and left, then promptly had a car accident due (I presume) to the bad weather. I get the impression that although there was a lot to enjoy, the general misery from the weather cut into the merriment.

I wish her a safe trip home!

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I managed to knit the entire ankle, a heel flap, turn the heel, and most of the gusset on the last blue sock for Holly on Saturday while watching Children of Earth again on my DVR from last weekend's BBC in America extravaganza. I've gotten the green yarn wound into balls (actually cakes) and am into the heel flap on the first green sock for her. I've discovered that the green dye on the socks is coming off on my hands, so now I have green marks there. That's the first yarn I've gotten from Knit Picks that's done that. So, now I'll have to wash the green socks before I can give them to her.

I washed Heather's yarn in shampoo and conditioner in hopes of softening it, but with no real improvement. It looks like somebody sold her the first yarn they'd ever spun. It's a singles, which can be OK to knit, if the spinner knows what she's doing. A singles is inherently not a balanced yarn, and will tend to skew. Overcoming this tendency is delicate, and easy to mess up. On top of being a singles, as I said, one skein looks like it was the first thing someone ever spun. It's not even structurally sound. Some of it is thinner than sewing thread and overspun, ready to snap at the slightest tension, and it has slubs, which are spaced far apart and not a relatively even design feature, that are thicker than some of the bulkiest yarn. The other skein is more evenly spun. It has some thick and thin, but is nice, stable, handspun.

Whoever spun it tried to make it act like a balanced yarn by boiling the heck out of it while dying it with logwood, which produced a stunningly beautiful lavender color, and turned some perfectly good wool into something that feels like steel wool. While boiling, they didn't put any tension on it, so there are a lot of kinks that are felted into the wool.

I'm thinking about plying the two skeins in hopes of removing a bit of the bias, which is till there, and making it actually structurally sound before knitting it. I'm having a hard time trying to decide how to handle it because it's really bad. I don't think it would look good in the Hermionie's Hat pattern. Actually, once it's plied, I think it would look good in a very plain hat pattern to show off the slubs and inconsistencies of the yarn. I'm thinking it over while I knit Holly's sock before I do anything. This is turning into trying to make a silk hat out of a sow's ear. Whoever ruined this wool should be ashamed of themselves!

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This week will see the beginning of a number of new shows, so pay close attention to your TV guide, and prepare to be entertained!

Being Human is on daytime BBC in America today! Later on, we'll have the season premiers of Heroes, Castle, and The Big Bang Theory!

Tomorrow is the season finale of Warehouse 13! If you've heard about it but missed the beginning and want to see it (and have a way to record it or have the day off) you can watch the whole, entire first season of Warehouse 13 on SyFy tomorrow, starting early in the day!

On Wednesday, the premier of Eastwick will be happening on ABC. This show looks interesting!

Thursday will see the premier of Flash Forward! I've been seeing the trailers for it, and I'm excited! This premise has a lot of potential. The season premier of The Mentalist will also be on!

Also on Thursday, we'll get to see the second episode of the season of Fringe and the third of Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries. Well, you might get to see The Vampire Diaries. I won't. I can only watch two programs at a time, and I'd rather see the second episode of Bones. The premier of Supernatural was as wonderful as I'd hoped. I have the second episode on the DVR, and I'm saving it up for a special treat!

And on Friday, we have the long-awaited premier of Dollhouse! Of course, there's an episode between the last one aired and the new premier that you won't have seen unless you bought the Dollhouse DVD. I think that's really chintzy of Fox, but then they are the same people who managed to kill Firefly, which is one of the best shows I've seen on TV since Babylon 5.

And, just before Dollhouse on Friday is the season opener of Ghost Whisperer!

Whew! My DVR is going to be really busy this week!

I hope you have a great week, and enjoy all the great shows on TV!

International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day today!

You can actually buy a book about the day! It's called The Pirate Life.

Holly will be at a renfair in Michigan (or possibly, Ohio) today, and she'll be wearing her pirate costume, which you may remember from last year.

Whichever fair she's at, she'll be at the other one tomorrow. I envy her! Not only that, but she's getting to see Malaia, John, Heather, and all the other wonderful people out there. I miss them! And she's already gotten to go to Hoagie Man, and will get to go back again before she leaves. I envy her! And she got to fly there on a plane! Even if her flight was delayed and delayed, and even though it was a commercial flight, she still got to fly, which is one of my favorite things in the world!

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I started the fourth and last sock for Holly in the Winter Night color last night. I have to decide if I want to do the green (Kenai) or the purple (Cosmos) ones next.

Heather sent some hand spun yarn that was dyed in logwood, which makes a beautiful lavender color. She wants me to knit it into a copy of the hat that Hermione wore in the Half Blood Prince movie. Here's a photo of the one I made for Holly.

The yarn seems to me to be a little on the light weight side for this hat, though. The yarn was very scratchy, and rough, so I've washed it in a combination of shampoo and conditioner in the hopes that it'll get much softer. It's still drying, but part of it seems to be dry, and slightly softer, although it seems like it will never be something that I would consider nice to touch. I'll have to knit some swatches to determine the gauge I'll want to use.

I'm thinking hard about wanting to do something more interesting with it than the Hermione hat, though. Something that will show it off at it's best, which I don't think the Hermione hat will do.

Well, it has to finish drying, and get wound into balls and have some swatches made before I make any decisions.

Heather says she really wants that particular hat, but I think this yarn could be so much more.

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In case you haven't noticed, BBC in America has started to do the same daytime thing that SyFy has been doing: they're picking a series and showing several episodes of it each weekday. On Monday, they'll be having Being Human: the first episode, and then the last few of the first season. This past week, they showed some of Torchwood and some of Doctor Who. Keep your eyes open for the future.

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I had planned to go do some things with my friend, Nancy this weekend, but I'm still not feeling too good. The antibiotic should help in the long run, but it's making for some side effects at the moment that made me want to stay home and just exist until I can manage to feel better.

Yesterday, everyone in the world wanted me to be up early and be busy doing stuff. I wasn't really too enthusiastic about it. One of the things was a series of blood tests, and these make me think that I may have found a doctor who knows what she's doing. She ordered some very intelligent tests, and one no doctor has ever thought to do for my thyroid problems. So far, I'm impressed!

So, I'm probably going to spend the weekend knitting and watching TV. I have Children of Earth on the DVR that I recorded last weekend, and I'm thinking about spending the day watching it.

I hope you're going to have a weekend that's at least as much fun as mine, and with any luck, as much fun as Holly's!

More Tour de Fleece

I haven't been doing much for the Tour de Fleece, but I didn't set myself a very difficult goal, either. I have been doing a bit of spinning, although not as regularly as I'd like. But I'm starting to get back into the swing of things.

After a look around today, I found a total of four regular (plastic) bobbins for my Majacraft Rose wheel. I had one, and bought one at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, and found two more today. 

I am spinning my current project on the baby bobbins, and I've discovered that I don't like the fact that the center of the bobbin is so thin. No matter how much I back off on the Scotch tension, when I first start on an empty bobbin, the choice is between tug-of-war or no intake onto the bobbin at all. Once I ply the current batch on the baby bobbins, I'm going to see if I can find something to make the center section a bit thicker. I was looking at the photo of the baby bobbins in the link I provided above, and it looks like the updated bobbins have a thicker center, so that probably won't be a problem with the new ones.

While on the Majacraft site, looking at the baby bobbins and their improvements, I found another improvement. Majacraft has out a spindle that works with their wheels, and even has a bobbin that works with it.

Photos tomorrow.

As I said, I seem to be picking up speed, volume, and interest on this spinning project for le Tour de Fleece. While finding the bobbins, I found some pretty roving, some wool (in a soft blue and other colors), some wool and Tencel (in a very soft light and very dark green), and some pastel multicolored silk (really beautiful stuff). 

I was reading over the article in the Spring issue of Spin-Off about wrapped yarn. The woman in the article uses cotton crochet thread for a core, but it strikes me that wooly nylon might be a better core, and I'm thinking about trying that. If you're not familiar with wooly nylon, the photos at that link won't give you a clue. It's nylon thread, suitable for sewing (on a sewing machine or serger) with. When under tension, it looks like regular thread. But when the tension is released, it bulks up a bit, and looks remarkably like wool (hence the name). It's strong, and has elasticity that's very similar to wool. If you're interested, check it out in a fabric store.

I'm getting down to the end on the triangular shawl I'm knitting in Knit Pick's Telemark (royal heather). The royal heather color looks darker in person than I anticipated from both the printed and on-line swatches.

After ordering this yarn and knitting with it, I realize that Knit Picks doesn't really carry any sport weight yarn. Telemark is listed as a sport weight, but I'm finding it isn't really.

If you look at the yardage for their worsted yarns, they average around 110 yards for 50 grams. Skip to their DK weight yarns, and you get more like 160 yards for 50 grams. DK is thinner than worsted, so the finer yarn yields more yardage. So, you would naturally expect the sport weight yarns to have even more yardage per 50 grams. 

Wrong. Telemark is listed at 103 yards. I thought that was a typo, and that there was actually more yardage, since it's even finer than DK. So, I ordered the amount of yarn by weight, expecting to have a generous amount of yardage, but I think that what they did was take their worsted weight yarn and just give it more twist to make it thinner (and shorter). The yardage they claim is probably correct, and the shawl is turning out kind of skimpy. It's also stiff, being over-spun/plyed, scratchier than a more softly spun yarn would be, and still really worsted weight. I usually use a size 6 needle with sport weight, and get 6 stitches per inch, but a size 6 needle was giving me something that would stop bullets with this yarn. I had to go up to a size 8, and the resulting fabric is still stiff. I'm hoping that blocking will cure it, but I'm not happy about blocking because it isn't necessary with this pattern (my simple triangular shawl pattern).

Oh, well. Photos real soon now.

Doctor Who on Friday evening was outstanding! The episode they showed was Turn Left. I hope you got to see it, but I won't discuss it in case you didn't, except to say that Rose was back, and it's starting to build up to the season finale.

My granddaughter, Malaia, is moving to Baltimore tomorrow, and I'm really excited about it. Her aunt, Heather, is very upset that she's moving away from Toledo.

Oh, and John corrected me on my post about him yesterday. He will be at the National Cartoonist's Society Booth #1307 at Comic Con, and "I'll be hanging out there off and on when I'm at the con. Laura is tagging along with a big HD camera and is going to videotape the panel and stuff for me to use on the DVDs." 

Laura is my friend from so far back it's hard to remember. She's the reason I have a computer to blog on instead of my phone. She's been at a lot of the SF Cons I've gone to, and worked on one of the movies I worked on. I cannot wait to hear about it all!

I hope you're all having a great weekend!

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!

Movie, Family and Knitting News!

Here's a photo of my granddaughter, Malaia, with her Aunt Heather's new baby boy, Mitchell. There's not much to say here except aaaaw.

My sister, Lynn, who is the best sister in the world, sent me an email that I saw just a little while ago.

It turns out that Karen Allen, who will be in the new Indiana Jones movie is a knitter, and also a knit designer. You can find out more about it all at www.karenallen-fiberarts.com. There's a lengthy introduction which is the best part of the whole site. Enjoy.

As if that wasn't enough, she also sent me a link for more information on the movie at http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/. The information on Indiana Jones is at the bottom left of the page, and there is a little sidebar next to it with a link to an extended trailer for the movie.

But wait, there's even more information on the new Sex and the City movie at the top left of the page. I haven't even read that article yet, but I thought you'd want to know.

The towel is a bit more than seven inches long at the moment. That's nearly 1/4 finished! It looks like I'm going to make it in time for Towel Day!

Oh, and there's a new pattern right after this post.

Have a great day today!