The Tour de Fleece Is Over!

Yesterday was the last day for the Tour de Fleece, and I finished!

In return for that, I got the spiffy little badge in the sidebar. 

You can see the beautiful yarn I produced in the previous post.

So, now that that's over what next?

Well, I'll tell you. There's a Harry Potter KAL/CAL on Ravelry that I've been meaning to join, but I keep knitting other things. You may not be able to see the page if you're not a Ravelry member.

Anyway, things are supposed to be finished by Harry's birthday, the 31st of July. That gives me until Thursday to make a project and finish it. I'm thinking about competing in the "A bag for all things" category. This will give me a chance to finish my rune bag. You know, the one that I expected to have done around the beginning of June. Yes, that one.

I've started it, but it's my own design, and I made charts for the runes, but I used square graph paper, and the knitted runes look all squashed and short.

So, I'm going to have to make new charts that will actually look OK. And then knit it. Or finish knitting it.

So, assuming that I finish that, that will give me a chance to knit some more bags before the real event begins!

The Ravelympics is about to start! Once again, if you're not a member of Ravelry, you probably won't be able to see this page. If you do fiberarts, you really need to think about joining Ravelry. It's just too much fun!

I have already signed up to compete in the WIP Wrestling for Team TARDIS. This doesn't start until the eighth of August (during the opening ceremonies), but if you are going to compete, you have to sign up now. If you are a Doctor Who fan, you really want to click the Team TARDIS link. It is just s0 funny!

The WIP I'll be wrestling with is the off white tweed Celtic sweater that I started months ago, and stalled out after knitting the hood. You can see a photo of the hood that I'm using as my profile picture, but I'll include it here.

I need to do an EZ type percentage system for picking up stitches at the base of a hood to continue with the body. So far, I haven't figured it out. But I did have a dream about it. That's where I decided I need a percentage system. I just haven't figured it out yet.

But I'll be starting a page for the Celtic Sweater with the directions. This will be a WIP itself until I finish the actual sweater, and possibly a bit after that until I get it all up there. Once I start it, I'll put a link to it in the sidebar, and I'll try to note that it's a WIP until I finish the sweater and the instructions.

For fans of the blue coat that I knitted for the knitting olympics, this will walk you though the same design process that I used on the coat.

For science fiction fans, tomorrow is a big day, at least if you like Eureka. Tomorrow seems to be Eureka day on the SciFi Channel. They will be showing reruns during the daytime rotation, followed by the season premier later. There's a lot to look forward to!

The big news for tonight on TV for SF fans is the Middleman.

My problem with this is that Comcast still hasn't fixed ABC Family so that the closed captioning works.

On the Comcast front, the repairman showed up today in the time slot he was supposed to show up in on Saturday. Well, the saying is "better late than never."

I let me know that the problem with the sound on 35 (which had grown and spread to 45 and 47 by then) could be fixed by turning on SAP.

Acording to Wikipedia, "Second[ary] audio program[ming] (SAP) is an auxiliary audio channel for analog television that can be broadcast or transmitted both over the air and by cable TV. It is often used for an alternate language..."

I guess I'm just so dumb that it never occurred to me that any cable or satellite company would possibly be obtuse enough to require having SAP enabled just to be able to hear a program.

The repairman also didn't fix the problem with closed captioning. He said that it's the network that's not broadcasting it. I pointed out that the network was broadcasting it to DirecTV, and asked why it wasn't broadcasting it to Comcast. He said he'd put in a work notice at the office and get them to check it and call me back either later today or tomorrow.

Why should I have to pay full price if they're not offering full service? I'm really unhappy with them.

I hope to be surprised by them and be able to read what's going on with Middleman this evening. Even if they don't get it turned on tonight, if they turn it on at all, I may still be able to catch tonight's episode later in the week. They run it several times over the course of the week.

I haven't gotten a chance to talk to John about yesterday and the panel at Comic Con yet. I suspect that he's busy putting up a new post at his Steve Canyon blog about it. His computer is online, but that doesn't prove that he's sitting in front of it and is actually present.

More info when it happens!

In the meantime, join the Ravelympics! And expect to see some really neat Ravelympics buttons in the sidebar soon.

And have a great Monday!

Last Day for Tour de Fleece and Comic Con!

Here are the two bobbins of singles, ready to ply.

Now there is a full bobbin of plyed yarn.

And a finished skein, ready to wash and dry! That means I met my goal for the Tour de Fleece!

OK, I realize that this is not an enormous amount of spinning, but it's more than I've done in the past year.

It turned out all soft and yummy. Well, it should, considering that I started with Merino wool. I'd have had to do something awful to it in order to mess it up.

I've been looking at the skeins that the Yarn Harlot has been churning out, and I feel like I'm going to have to do a lot of spinning to catch up to her beautiful color combinations. She really does beautiful work.

The last day of Comic Con is here, and it's the big day for John and Steve Canyon fans.

It's a long ride for him to get there, a long day, and a long ride home, so I probably won't know how it went until tomorrow.

In the meantime, G4 is not covering the con today, and although I thought I told the DVR to record days 1, 2 and 3, it only recorded 1 and 2. I couldn't find day three anywhere on their schedule, and I could've sworn it was listed earlier.

I haven't gone through and watched what I did record of Comic Con yet. From Thursday night on, there have been so many things I wanted to watch on TV that there isn't enough room on the DVR to store them. So, I've been watching all the things that I wanted to get off the disk and then removing them. 

But today isn't helping, because the SciFi Channel is running Eureka during the daytime. They'll be doing that again on Tuesday, followed by the premier of the new season. I love Eureka!

More knitting news tomorrow! This is exciting!

Have a great Sunday!

More Comic Con Fun!

I hope you've had a chance to watch the Heroes marathon on G4 today. It's just about winding down now, but I'm so thankful to G4 for showing it!

A lot of really good TV has been on over the last 3 days. I recorded it all on my DVR, but haven't had a chance to watch all of it yet, so I'm not as informed as I'd like to be while writing this post.

The SciFi Channel keeps sending me text message bulletins about what panels will be shown in which room at Comic Con. I just wish I could be there to see it all!

I have been recording the live coverage of Comic Con on G4, and I could have sworn that there was going to be another episode of it today, but the digital TV Guide says there won't be. I can't wait to catch up on all of the SF news, but I've been too busy watching Tru Calling and Heroes and clearing them off the DVR so it will keep recording all the good stuff that's out there on TV.

On the television front, the cable repairman was supposed to show up to day and fix my connection, but never showed up. I called one of Comcast's local numbers, and finally got to talk to someone with some sense. When I told her that channel 50 wasn't displaying closed captioning, and that channel 35 didn't have sound, she said "Wait a moment. Let me check something." Then she turned on the TV at the station. 

Guess what? Her TV was doing the same thing mine was!

It's just what I told them it was: they're not transmitting those signals on those channels.

She said that she would send the technical people in charge of all that a message to check their settings, and what was wrong. It hasn't solved the problem yet, but it may, once they get the message and actually check it.

And for the Tour de Fleece, I still have enough to do to keep me busy this evening. I've been doing a lot of TV watching and knitting the past three days, trying to keep up with all the information generated because of and including Comic Con.

I want to get all of the blue merino at least spun so that all I have to do tomorrow is to ply it.

One of my favorite bloggers included a URL for photos of telephone sheep. You really have to see this to believe it!

Comic Con Just Keeps Rolling!

What an exciting weekend! 

Comic Con is running all this weekend, and the Tour de Fleece is finishing up. 

By Monday morning, it will all be over.

Check the listings for G4 this weekend. They don't seem to be covering Comic Con on Sunday, which is a shame, especially for Steve Canyon fans, because that's when all the news about the new DVDs will be coming out. I don't have the details yet, so I'd love to be there and get to see the panel John will be on.

Speaking of the schedule on G4 today and this weekend, there is still day 2 of Comic Con today and day 3 tomorrow, as well as a Heroes marathon on Saturday!

I really should have started at the beginning with what's happening today, but Comic Con is so exciting!

Today, the channel to watch is SciFi! They're in the middle of a Tru Calling Marathon at the moment, and this evening there will be a new Joan of Arcadia, followed by the first of the two-part finale of Doctor Who for the current season! Not to mention a new Stargate Atlantis.

A large group of people on Ravelry were raving about the trailer for the Doctor Who finale, and I hadn't seen it until this morning. There's a lot to rave about!

I watched it as a recording and slowed it down so I wouldn't miss anything. The characters I saw in it were Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen, Ianto (from Torchwood), Martha Jones, Rose Tyler, and, of course, Donna Noble and the Doctor. I suspect that last week's episode, Turn Left, is something that will help understand the grand finale. I can't wait!

And now for the second part of this weekend's excitement: The Tour de Fleece.

I've had some slow going on the spinning front, but have most of the singles done. Finishing the singles tonight and tomorrow and then plying on Sunday should get me to my goal with time to spare.

On the knitting front, I've actually blocked the Shetland lace shawl and the Christmas hood, but I plan to take photos outside, so they'll be taken either this evening or tomorrow and posted here ASAP. The shawl turned out particularly well. I just love my steamer! I hadn't blocked a lace shawl with the steamer before, and I have to say the blocking went off like a dream. knitted lace looks like a wad of tangled yarn before blocking, and then turns into the most beautiful, magical web!

John called last night to let me know that he was all right. He had some dental work done yesterday. He had a dental problem that he thought would make speaking on Sunday an ordeal, but the dentist fixed everything painlessly without having to give him novacaine or anything. He said it was the best dental experience he's ever had, and he's now willing and able to smile and talk without worrying about malfunctions.

I sounded off again about my current cable problems, and was particularly annoyed about not being able to hear The Middleman, which looks like a really fabulous show. He said I should tell you about it.

It's beyond description, but here goes: It's got a very comic book feel, and the general tone reminds me of Get Smart, with a lot of SF in-jokes and general fun. 

In the first episode, Wendy is working as a temp answering phones in an office with a big window behind her. Through the window you can see lots of technical equipment with many scientists rushing around. 

Then they start running frantically, there's an explosion, lots of smoke, and one of the lab-coated technicians gets slammed up against the window behind her and dragged away. In the meantime, Wendy is cheerfully and efficiently answering phones. 

An enormous monster gets slammed against the glass, and it starts to crack, and then suddenly breaks with explosive force, throwing her and the monster across her desk and onto the floor. Wendy says into her headset "Please hold." and then gets up to battle the monster, who has grabbed her around the waist and is trying to drag her off.

Comcast is not displaying closed captioning for this channel, though so I can see the pictures and catch part of the dialogue, but I know I'm missing a lot of it.

I called and complained to Comcast again last night, and they finally talked me into letting a repair person come out on Saturday for free. This is going to drive me crazy because he'll be here during the Heroes marathon, so I'll miss some of that, but maybe I can get him to report the problem to the office once he figures out that it's not the box or my TV. 

A TV that's delivering sound on every channel but one, and closed captioning on every channel but another one isn't malfunctioning. They're not broadcasting it.

Check out  The Middleman. The bits and pieces I can decipher are so much fun!

Have a great weekend!

Comic Con is Here!

Well, Comic Con is not here, but it's happening

John went last night. He said he thought it was supposed to be for people working at the con, but it seemed like everybody was there!

He also said that there's  a panel sometime today about Stargate SG-1 with Christopher Judge, Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping, and more!

I wish I could go!

If I have John's schedule right, he won't be able to get back there until Sunday.

And thank, you John for your generous contribution to the dental fund.

Other than that, I have spent the day dealing with entropy, as I have for the past month.

The particular mess I've been trying to fix (mostly) today is ComCast Cable. They just keep creating tons of problems. I don't get what I've paid for, and they won't do anything to fix it.

In the past 24 hours, they've displayed a "weekly test" during prime time (they don't have to do it in prime time, but they'll probably do it again during prime time tonight), a weather warning that says to go to channel 21 for more information instead of channel 101, lack of closed captioning on ABC Family, and lack of sound on the USA Network (I won't be hearing Burn Notice tonight).

The problems with the weekly test have been going on all this year, the weather warnings have been that way for a year and a half (ever since I got ComCast Cable), and the closed captioning problems have been going on for more than a month. USA became silent just today.

ComCast insists the sound and closed captioning problems are the fault of the networks, even though they're broadcasting sound and closed captioning to every other TV provider.

So far today, after three complaints that brought no help from ComCast, I've also complained to USA, ABC Family, Saab (whose commercials are going out without sound) and the FCC. And then complained to ComCast again. And I plan to write down the names of all the advertisers whose commercials I can't hear during Burn Notice tonight and let them know about it, too.

ComCast wants to send out a repairman and charge me for it. My viewpoint is that I'm already paying for TV, why should I pay them because they don't just send out the signals like I'm paying them to do already?

I'm thinking about doing what one of the people at ComCast said to do on the phone: go over to their office and complain in person. Loudly. In front of other customers.

That usually works, but I have to take a bus to get to the bus that will take me to their office, and then do the whole thing in reverse to get home. It's about a four hour round trip. They're disgusting!

In fiberarts news, I spun some more last night on the bright blue merino for the Tour de Fleece, and blocked everything in the queue. The Shetland lace shawl is particularly nice. I didn't get around to taking photos before I became embroiled in the ComCast fiasco.

Fiberarts is my lifeline to sanity during all this chaos.

I hope you're having a better day than I am!

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

Don't forget Tru Calling on the SciFi daytime rotation tomorrow!

Tour de Fleece and Knitting

Here is where I'm up to on the spinning for the Tour de Fleece.

Not very encouraging.

But my enthusiasm for spinning is starting to revive. I haven't lived anywhere with enough space for a spinning wheel for more than 4 years. When I moved here, I had the space, but everything except my wheel was all packed up in boxes from when it had been in storage.

Little by little, I'm starting to find all the stuff, and the Tour de Fleece is starting to remind me how much I love spinning. I just had to have a little push to start spinning again. So, I'm actually making progress toward achieving my goal, even though I haven't actually spun very much.

I've been looking at this bag of silk that I found in a stash of fibers yesterday. It's very pretty. It's very inspiring. It's making me want to try new techniques. I may try the new techniques on some other fiber first, though. I don't want to mess up such pretty fibers.

And here is the shawl I'm working on, nearly finished. It's not going exactly the way I planned, but it should turn out nice. That's the good thing about the pattern. It's very flexible.

I'll probably finish the shawl this evening, so there may be a photo tomorrow.

I hope you've been having a great weekend!

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!

Start of the Tour de Fleece

I haven't gotten off to a really good start on the Tour de Fleece, but things have gotten underway.

So far, I have managed to get my wheel set up in the living room in a location where it can stay. This will make it so much easier to achieve my goal of doing some spinning every day (or at least almost every day). I finished filling up the bobbin to a point where it was level with the bit I had been spinning, and start on the next level of building up the bobbin. 


See how the yarn is built up level on the right? Well, I filled in that section and started on another level last night.

This is a project I started a while ago, and am continuing, so I have a photo of the first bobbin that is partially filled, and here it is:



The bobbin on the top is the one with fiber for this project, and the bag shows the rest of the fiber. There is a total of four ounces of merino wool for this color of the project.

If I finish this, I will start on a fuchsia color merino I have for the same project. I'll need two more colors of fiber, and the background will be done in  black commercial yarn.

I just checked the schedule on the SciFi Channel and discovered that SciFi hasn't totally eliminated Charlie Jade, they just moved it. It will be on tonight (actually tomorrow morning) at 3:00 am.

Lots of stuff to do today, so I gotta go.

The Start of the Tour de Fleece

Here it is on the first day of the Tour de Fleece (check button in the sidebar) and I haven't spun yet.

I did, however, take a photo of the progress I'd made before starting, so all I have to do is spin a bit this evening and I'm OK.

I finished two mitts, and plan to make a third, but I've revised my opinion of what to do with the other two balls of Risata in Marionberry. I plan to make socks. Actually, it's more than a plan, since I've finished turning the heel and the gusset of the first one. I'm now on the straight-away to the toe. These socks will be plain old 2x2 rib for the leg and the top of the foot. Expect photos tomorrow and a pattern soon.

I hope you've been getting a chance to watch the Star Wars movies on Spike and the Harry Potter movies on Family this weekend.

In about an hour, Eli Stone will be on. If all goes well, that is. The pilot was scheduled for last Saturday, and it never showed. Instead, we got a documentary on NASCAR racing. What a disappointment!

I watched for the planetary alignment last night, but we've had a heavy cloud cover for the last two nights. Early this evening, the clouds started breaking up, but they still cover most of the sky, so it'll be possible that I might see it tonight, but more likely I won't.