Legend of the Seeker, Happy Birthday Johnny and Grape Jam

If you don't absolutely hate sword and sorcery, you should watch or DVR The Legend of the Seeker tonight on SyFy! There were multiple episodes scheduled for tonight earlier in the week, but, in it's charming, whimsical way, SyFy has chosen to change the schedule at the last moment so that they WON'T be on tonight!

But if you like sword and sorcery at all, this is good stuff! It's based on the Sword of Truth books by Terry Goodkind. I haven't read the books, but Sam Rami tells a good story in the TV series! The first few seem like individual stories, but after watching them, you start to see an overall story emerging, which eventually gets very exciting. It's been playing locally on the CW, sometime on Saturday and/or Sunday. You'll have to keep your eyes open because they keep changing the time, but it's worth tracking down. If you can't find it on TV, I recommend the DVD.

I didn't see a credits on the first episode of the new season, Marked, but it looked like Charisma Carpenter was in it, and, yes, IMdB says she was! This was a really good episode, and shows you can't tell the good guys, even with a score card, although we should have learned that from the last few episodes of the first season.

As of tonight, however, SyFy has returned to showing Doctor Who episodes very late on Thursday night (or early on Friday morning, depending on how you look at it)! They're continuing with The Stolen Earth tonight, which is the second of a three-part story following Turn Left. I really want to thank them for breaking the story up like that!

I want to thank them even more for scheduling Partners in Crime for next week, an episode that is the first one in the adventures of the Doctor and Donna, rather than the last of the three episodes in the story. I always love it when they show parts of a story out of order!

I shouldn't really complain. They show things in order so much of the time. I really want to thank them for showing Firefly in order, but they probably made a point of that since Fox showed them out of order and moved the time of the show, so I never got to see a whole show when it was on Fox, and never got to see them in order until they were on SciFi.

Sorry to ramble on like that!

What is on tonight (and brand new) includes Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, Flash Forward and The Mentalist. They've stopped repeating Vampire Diaries on Thursday nights, unfortunately.

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Today is my grandson-in-law, John Merillat's birthday!

Happy Birthday, Johnny!

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Yesterday, the Encore Tweed in Grape Jam yarn arrived for Christmas presents!

I'm going to start with a wimple, but a very different one than I've made in the past. I'm considering this for a pattern if it turns out well.

Then there will be a hat, and I'll reassess mitts and a second hat depending on how much yarn is left.

Here's the beginning of the wimple, as far as I've gotten:

The color you can see on the left is the most accurate representation of the real color.

Here's a copy of the color as shown online. It looks a bit lighter and not as soft as the real color.

I am absolutely in love with this color and pattern so far.

I'm starting from the top down, so the photo shows the top of the wimple at the bottom of the photo. When I get to where it has to expand to go over the shoulders, I plan to have the pattern branch out and sprout leaves and possibly flowers. The whole thing is quite exciting for me! I keep knitting "just one more round" because the pattern is so pretty as it unfolds! Although the pattern will stay the same to the beginning of the shoulders, so I've about seen all there is for a while. The photo doesn't do it justice!

I need to look up some lavender colored flowers to put on this. Lilacs? No, too small. I thought about real grape flowers, and it's no wonder I've never seen them before because they're so tiny. I don't know. More research is in order.

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Holly felt it was very important for me to know more about the pink flamingo, as it applies to lawn ornaments, so she sent me this:

The father of the pink flamingo (the plastic lawn ornament) was Don Featherstone of Massachusetts. Featherstone graduated from art school and went to work as a designer for Union Products, a Leominster, Massachusetts company that manufactured flat plastic lawn ornaments.

He designed the pink flamingo in 1957 as a follow-up project to his plastic duck.

Today, Featherstone is president and part owner of the company that sells an average of 250,000 to 500,000 plastic pink flamingos a year.

Just thought you might want to know.

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Have a great time with all the wonderful TV that actually is on tonight!

Finished Objects 2008 Part One

I noticed that some other people are posting year-end photos of what they've accomplished knittin-wise during the past year, and it seemed like a good way to make myself feel better, even if nobody else cares.

So, here's the beginning of what I did this year, not necessarily in chronological order.

Multicolored watch cap.

Cotton towel for Towel Day.

Dickie. This was actually finished around the beginning of the year, possibly last year in December, so it might be cheating.

Feather and Fan Socks. I made four pair of these.

Tour de Fleece spinning.

Ravelympics wimple.

Wool Shawl.

More tomorrow!

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Tin Man will be on the SciFi Channel tonight. There won't be much science fiction competition for it.

Tomorrow, the SciFi Channel will be showing Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King starting at 8:00 am (here). It's the story of Sigfried and Brunhilde, it's a classic, and this version is very well done. Worth watching if you haven't seen it, and maybe even if you have.

There will also be a new Eli Stone and a new Leverage. Check your listings!

Have a great Monday! I have a dentist's appointment tomorrow, so you may not get a post then.

Not Enough Time

There are a ton of things I should be doing today instead of writing this, so I'll try to be quick.

Yesterday, disaster struck my Celtic sweater. 

I was nearly out of stuff to drink, and pulled a 20 ounce Coke bottle out of the refrigerator to take some pills with. I set it on the coffee table without it's cap. Then, I went to pick it up and put the cap on, and bumped it instead of picking it up. It fell over sideways with it's open top directly above the sweater which was waiting for me to continue knitting.

I mopped it up pretty quickly, but there were big, brown marks directly across the cross on the back and one shoulder.

It's now washed (circular needle and all) and drying in my bathroom. It smells like wet sheep.

So, I was looking around for another project to knit while it dries.

Fortunately, I had just come across some yarn I bought about a year ago, made a poncho from, and forgot about the rest.

I had been looking for some nice, natural fiber yarn to make a Christmas present from for two people on my list without success. I can find some beautiful natural fiber yarns, but not in lavender. At least, not a nice lavender. Most of them look almost pink.

So, I started the first of two wimples which will be Christmas presents last night at about 7 pm. Here's what it looks like this morning:

So, the stain from the Coke seems to have washed out, and I have a wonderful project while it dries. There may be other accessories to go with the wimple. We'll see how much yarn is left.

And my friend James, over at his blog, is showing off one project he made from one of my patterns:

He also has another post showing off what he did with my mitts pattern. I love his yarns and the things he does with them!

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After the general unpacking surge that went on here recently, I've found some things that I want to sell, so I'm telling you about them first.

There's a really cute little loom. This is an older loom, and no longer really sturdy. It folds flat, and would be a wonderful decoration, or an actual, workable loom, if you don't feel that you need lots of tension to weave. If you're interested, make an offer in the comments.

I also have a distaff for sale. Made by Ashford, this was intended to be used on an Ashford Traditional wheel, but could be attached to any upright, 1 inch thick piece of wood (table leg, whatever). I have a photo of it somewhere, but have misplaced it. If you're interested, leave a comment.

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Reading other blogs today, I was confronted with this photo:


Which is titled "Famous Steve's balls."  You can see why. Read the whole article at Turtlegirl's Bloggy Thing, and read Famous Steve's blog for more info on the creator of the hat.

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There is a rerun on Fringe this evening, but a brand-new The Mentalist tonight. Sorry about the lack of links. I have to go and get some things done before it rains again.

Have a great evening!

Ravelympics Is Over

Well, I did finish one event in the Ravelympics. They had this to say about the winners:

Congratulations on a successful challenge accomplished with effortless grace! Please accept this Ravatar bouquet from the beautiful Bobicii Nereids for a job well done,
and this medal from the head of the International Ravelympic Committee, Adonis Dionysius Bobicus Maximus.

And now please rise for the Ravelry International Anthem.
dum…dedumdum..de…dummmdedumdidoh…..(crescendo)…Dah!!!

Raucous applause and cheering erupts from the stands and mmm chocolate bars are thrown to the Ravlympians, and a cacophony of various Ravelry Anthems are heard across the stands…!

They did post all this almost precisely 10 hours before the end of  the Olympics closing ceremony, though. I can only guess that they wanted to get a head start on it.

And, once again, here is the photo of the finished wimple:

I'm missing Lord of the Rings on TNT by posting this, so I'm going to get back to it.

I hope you've been having a good weekend!

Hopelessly Overcommitted!

The Ravelympics ends sometime tomorrow (I've got to look up the time), and I'm not anywhere near finishing the Celtic sweater. I'm beginning to think that the end of the month might be doable, but tomorrow is just not going to happen.

I have made a bit of progress, i.e., a lot of knitting.

This is the side of the sweater. The top shows the opening for the sleeve, and on the right you can see the front of the pocket on the right side. There will be more on the knots on either side.

It's going to be beautiful when it's finished, but it won't be in time for the Ravelympics.

I did, however finish the wimple in the Cowl Jump and Designer Discus for Team Hogwarts, Team Middle Earth, and, appropriately, Team Hopelessly Overcommitted. I put a picot bind-off on the top edge of this.


And while I was blocking that, I took the opportunity to block the shawl that's been sitting here waiting to be blocked for about a month.

Finally, another finished object! This is a bit smaller than I had planned, but I really like the picot edging. This shawl is what renewed my love for that kind of bind-off.

For all the Harry Potter fans out there, don't forget that Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire will be on today on ABC Family.

The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy will be on TNT tomorrow. Some of it will be on today, but if you follow this schedule, you can see it all!

As far as the Renfair is concerned, Malaia and Johnny will be going on Sunday, but they'll be going alone since Holly declined to go.

Don't forget about my Amazon Store if you're looking for super yarn. I've found some really great stuff to put in it, including the yarn I'm using for my Celtic sweater.

I have to get back to knitting. Just because I don't have a chance to finish on time doesn't mean that I should give up.

Have a great weekend!

Progress Is Slow

Well, I'm below the waist on the Celtic Sweater, but haven't done the sleeves yet. If I had been able to finish the sleeves and get just a little further, it would be a race to the finish, but I haven't and it isn't.

I finished the front part of the pocket on the right hand side. 

As you can see, the pocket opening will be at an angle. I think that looks good on most people, and it seems to help keep things in the pocket rather than spilling out onto the floor.

There is a simple, narrow cable forming the edge of the pocket. On the right, you can see just a bit of the cable for the front.

I am finding more and more reasons to love the Options needle I have. I've bought a set of size 8 points, and several lengths of cable, and they are wonderful!

The two front sections each get knit in a separate piece, and the back, sides, and pocket linings get sewn in another piece. Normally, I would put each pocket lining on a piece of yarn to hold it, but with the Options needle, all I have to do is take off the needle tips, and replace them with stoppers, and don't have to thread them onto the yarn, and later have to pick them up again. I love them.

I've shifted the points to the other project, the wimple. I want to finish at least one of the projects I started for the Ravelympics, so I want to get this done. And I want the 24 inch cable from it for the other front pocket piece. You can expect a photo of the wimple tomorrow.

In the meantime, the SciFi Channel has run out of current Doctor Who episodes, which has downgraded their Friday evening offerings.

There is still Joan of Arcadia, which is wonderful, and Stargate Atlantis, though.

Somewhere, yesterday, I read that SciFi has canceled Stargate Atlantis. Ah, yes. It was on Joss Whedon's blog? Yes, it was!

I'm not happy about the cancellation, but not as upset as I was about the cancellation of Stargate SG-1.

Not much else happening around here except for more and more forms to fill out (and the universe finding more and more ways to separate me from my money) and lots of knitting to do.

Don't forget that I now have yarn and lots of knitting stuff in addition to books in my Amazon Store. The various yarns have been selling out quickly, and you need to grab the bargains when you see them because they may be gone soon. There's lots of wool, including the wool I'm using for the Celtic sweater, and lots of silk.

Have a great Friday, and a great weekend!

Pennsic is Over, but the Ravelympics Goes On...

Well, Pennsic is officially over. There's just enough time today to pack stuff into the vehicle and get on the road before you have to be off the site.

And the trip home isn't always fun.

One year, we were so disorganized, that it took us most of the day to get ourselves packed and on the road. After a week out in the ragweed (to witch I'm allergic), I carried/moved/dragged a lot more stuff then I should have that day, and went to sleep in the back of the van.

Steve woke me up and told me that I would have to drive home because he was tired. Then he climbed into the back of the van, leaving me half asleep, disoriented, and whining "But where are we?" in the middle of a snow/sleet storm.

Well we were somewhere near Breezewood, but all I could do was drive out of the parking lot he had stopped in (after I tried to clear the snow/sleet off the windows) and keep driving until I saw enough road signs that I could guess where I was and figure out how to get home. There wasn't much visibility with the precipitation, and it was almost dark when we left Pennsic, so it wasn't really easy. 

So, this is the one day of Pennsic where I can feel smug because I don't have to drag an entire encampment home in a six or seven hour trip. Especially when I look out the window at what the weather's doing. It's not overcast. Overcast is bright and cheerful compared to the day outside my window. It's raining, and it looks like it's going to develop into a storm any time, now.

Ooooh! Lightening! Yep, a storm for sure.

Well, so much for my plans to go to the grocery store.

But the Ravelympics is really just getting under way.

The wimple is up to a point where all the shoulder decreasing is done. I have pulled the needle tips off the Options needles in the wimple, and put stoppers on the cable. I'm going to have to go somewhere on the bus sometime this week, and it'll be a good project to take with me for the half hour ride (each way) to anywhere nearby.

In the meantime, I've picked up stitches around the bottom of the hood, and I'm knitting a band around it which will eventually have a button at one end and (when I get to the other end) will have a button loop knit into it.

Here is the hood with the stitches picked up.

This is something I should've swatched for, but couldn't really without reknitting the whole hood, which isn't something I was willing to do. 

So, I've ripped out the band twice, and I'm about to have a third try at it.

If I get too frustrated, I may go back to the wimple for a bit.

There are going to be two ribs from a 2x2 rib running around the bottom of the hood, and one rib is going to circle back and continue into the other rib at the end, making a buttonloop.

I bought some really beautiful buttons, but I've lost some of them since then. I have found some more on the internet, and I plan to buy them, but it's possible that when the Ravelympics deadline arrives, the buttons may not have. So, the sweater may not have all it's buttons at the end.

You can see the buttons here.

All the buttons down the front will be the same size, but I think the one that's going to be right at my neck may do better with one of the slightly smaller ones I bought at the same time. I'm glad I thought to buy some smaller ones. And I'm glad I was able to find them on the internet. They look so pretty with the yarn! 

I'm starting to love everything about this sweater!

Tomorrow and Tuesday, around 5 or 6 in the afternoon/evening, there will be the two-part episode of Stargate SG-1 called Mobius on the SciFi Channel. It's very good. And if you look at the schedule, you may notice that Charlie Jade is on every Monday night (actually, Tuesday morning).

The Sarah Connor Chronicles is back in reruns on Monday night, too!

I need to get back to another stab at the band around the bottom of the hood, so wish me luck!

Have a great evening!

Pennsic, Ravelympics and Bureaucracy

I can tell this post is going to have a lot in it already, but it can't be too long because I have Ravelympics knitting to do.

Before we even get into the main part of this post, John finally put up some information about Steve Canyon at Comic Con! Click the link, or check the link in the sidebar for all the information! 

The first episode of Primeval will be airing on BBC in America tonight. Check schedules. Somebody on Ravelry was talking about it, and they liked it. I haven't had the opportunity to see it yet, but pass on the info in case you're interested.

Pennsic

Today is the last day of Pennsic. Yes, I know that tomorrow is officially the  last day, but there's just enough time tomorrow to get your stuff shoved into your vehicle and escape before you have to be off the site.

So, today is the day that you hunt down friends to say goodbye, check out the merchants to see if they still have those beautiful buttons/trim/knife/etc. It's a time for finishing up and making sure that you do all the things that you wanted to do at Pennsic. It's an intensely happy time while still being just the tiniest bit sad that it's over.

I'm still reading Murder at the War, which means my personal Pennsic experience will continue for a little while.

Ravelympics!

The Bejing Olympics opening ceremonies started last night at 8 pm their time. I live exactly 12 hours ahead of them, so it started at 8 am here, even though the ceremonies weren't broadcast here until 8 pm.

I woke up at almost exactly 8 am, so I lost no time in casting on the wimple for Team Hogwarts and Team Hopelessly Overcommitted. I had a lot of things to do yesterday, and wanted an easy project where I wouldn't lose my place, and was small enough to drag around in my knitting bag all day, and the wimple was perfect for that.

This is the wimple at this point. The bottom border is done. The bottom border alone is about 1/4 of the project, so this is off to a good start. This is the result of knitting on the bus, and a little knitting last night. I was too tired when I got home to do any knitting on anything that required thought.

I watched some TV programs and switched to the Olympic opening ceremonies during commercials. I had planned to watch more of it, but every time the president blinked, the news people had to cover it, and they missed a lot of the ceremonies and drove me crazy.

Bureaucracy

I did a lot of riding on busses yesterday and a lot of walking and accomplished nothing!

I had talked to someone at Social Security that suggested that a little more information might get me more money on a monthly basis. The people that saw me in person at the office said (basically) "In your dreams!"

So, I bopped on down to Comcast, and, once again, they treated me as though I had just arrived from Mars. Obviously, all their other customers are masochists! So, showing up in person was obviously a waste of time.

Etc.

I got up this morning, in pain everywhere from all the walking. The Aleve is starting to kick in, so I'm feeling better now than I was earlier.

Holly and I went out this morning. I had a coupon good for $15 of merchandise there. I found a really neat little clip-on light in blue with stars on it for about $10, and also bought a copy of Knitters Magazine. It cost a total of $.99! Knitters has several shawl patterns that I love in it, plus one shawl in a star shape! I've seen several star shaped shawls/afghans/blankets, but this is the first knitted one I've seen.

As you can tell, stars are my favorites.

So, I got some really neat stuff!

Holly gave me my birthday present early. $50!

I plan to use it to live on for the nearly two weeks coming up, and then get it together as if to pay her back and buy my real birthday present from her then. I expect to add $10 to it and buy a set of Options needles from Knit Picks.

I need to go, now. I need to do some knitting on the Celtic Sweater for the Ravelympics.

Have a great weekend!

More Ravelympics

You are going to be tired of this even before it starts!

So, I have signed up to make three projects: the Celtic sweater, a wimple and a poncho.

The Celtic sweater's event is WIP Wrestling, and I'm doing it for Team TARDIS, Team Hopelessly Overcommitted and Team Middle Earth.

The wimple's event is the Cowl Jump, and it's for Team Hogwarts and Team Hopelessly Overcommitted.

The poncho's event is the Shawl Relay, and is for Team Browncoat and Team Hopelessly Overcommitted.

I'm not joining any more teams or committing to knit any more projects in any more events.

That's what I said earlier today, and wound up joining Team Middle Earth because I just couldn't resist!

I've been having trouble all day getting to post on Blogger. I finally have it straightened out, but I really need to go out and do some errands, so this will be a short post.

The SciFi Channel is going Dragon Crazy this weekend. They'll be showing Dragon Sword again, so here's your chance to watch it if you missed it not long ago.

Tomorrow evening, the very last episode of Doctor Who of the season will be shown. If you saw last week's episode, you'll be on the edge of your seat as the Doctor regenerates!

I don't have time to add links to all of this.

Gotta run!

Have a great Thursday evening!