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pledgebank.com: Tell the world “I’ll do it, but only if you’ll help me do it”

Here’s Hugh’s:

And here’s mine:

I spotted this cute pattern on Ravelry (sorry, still in beta but public soon!) yesterday, dug up my leftover Cascade Fixation, and whipped one up. I love it! I skipped the pocket. I don’t really need a pocket on my head, heheh.

Quick instructions:
use a STRETCHY yarn like Cascade Fixation. Cast on 15. Work in garter stitch, or use a simple lace pattern. I used a Gull Wing pattern as suggested by Ravelry user BethBlueRoom. I worked 22 reps of the lace pattern, then bound off as follows:

Put the cast-on edge behind the left-hand needle. With the right needle, knit the first stitch along with the first loop on the cast-on edge. Repeat with the second stitch, then lift the first newly-knitted stitch over the second. I figure this will be easier to undo than sewing if the band stretches out over time and needs to be shortened a bit.

The last four chapters:

15 – Life of the Monastery
16 – Papacy and Empire
17 – The Hundred Years’ War
18 – End of the Middle Ages

An amazing kinetic sculpture: Steampunk Jar of Articulated Fireflies

This is so elegant, beautiful, and imaginative! Scroll down to the movie and watch it all the way through so you can see the fireflies in action in the dark.
http://cre.ations.net/creation/steampunk-jar-of-articulated-fireflies

So. I’m just about ready to rip out my bpt sweater and re-knit the lovely red Brown Sheep yarn into something better. I’d like to make the Perfect Sweater, of course, so I’m going to jot down some notes to keep things clear in my mind while I design it.

New sweater must be:

• top-down, all one piece. Maybe a new and different shaping, not just plain raglan. Will investigate options in Knitting from the Top
• cardigan, button-front
• somewhat coat-like (hip-length, not tight)
• not v-neck. Maybe crew, maybe shawl collar, maybe standing collar
• Not too plain, not too fancy. Maybe a little cabling, but not overboard (not aran, heheh)
• double-knit button bands and hems! No ribbing! Awesome tute here!
• Work increases into cables, somehow? (thanks, Kristin!)

I’m going to look through my Barbara Walker books for cabling inspiration. Maybe a nice panel down the back and either side of the front? I like those diamond-shaped cables with seed stitch in the middle of the diamonds… And of course, I still need to rip out the bpt and skein, wash, and ball the yarn before I can get started. Hmm, maybe I’ll finish my orange Monkey sock first :)

Kri sent me some handmade knitting markers!

I’m so happy and excited. I need to knit something that needs markers now… hmm, perhaps it’s time to have a spine, unravel the bpt sweater, and make something better :) Thanks, Kri!

Yesterday we went to the fair again! Henry went with Kirsten and Marcos in the afternoon, and I followed a bit later. We met up with Sally, Susan, Jack, Chloe, Bob, Celia, and Julie and wandered around a bit. It’s not easy to get that many people moving. Got a photo of my prizewinning socks in the display case:

And Julie took one of us all together, Keeping America Beautiful:

Very fun day :)

Henry and I went to the Fair tonight. Got there about 7, stayed till 9:30, had a GREAT time. My Child’s First Socks in Shell Pattern won first prize! I didn’t have my camera but we’re going again tomorrow and I’ll get a photo then.

A recent discovery:
The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks
Hilarious stuff. I saw a great potential entry at Lowe’s but had no camera handy.

12 – Later Crusades
13 – Life of the Castle
14 – Life of the Village and Town

09 – The Growth of Feudalism
10 – The Deeds of the Northmen
11 – The First Crusade

A few days ago while we were sick and just hanging around home, Henry and I tidied up the Sitting Room (which is more of a craft/sewing room), made a pattern for a new messenger bag for him, dug up cloth out of the scrap boxes, and made his bag. It’s blue corduroy with a striped interior. It’s got two deep regular pockets inside, plus a fancy zipper pocket with an inset zipper — never tried that before! Henry had the idea to put the Triforce on the front flap, and luckily we had enough yellow scraps to make a good one. Photos!

Interior view:

Fancy zipper pocket:

I’ve just finished the first mini-monkey sock. Thought I’d better jot down some notes while I still remember what I did, so the second sock will match (more or less).

48-st toe (12 st each needle), then 7 reps mini-monkey pattern. Inc. every other round for gussets to 24 st. on each heel needle (72 st total at this point). Heel flap is 12×12 (6 edge chains)

When heel is done, four more reps of pattern, then 5 rounds plain, picot row, then one round plain, then dec to 40 st and work 3 or four rows, turn sock inside out and attach loops to inside of hem.

Photos soon.

After a year and a half we’ve finally finished our Ulysses audio book — and just in time for Bloomsday!

http://librivox.org/ulysses-by-james-joyce/

As the catalog page notes, we bent the rules on this one — editing was not required; recording in pubs was encouraged. You’ll hear lots and lots of bloopers and background noise. A few of the sections were read as dramatic works with sound effects and everything. Hooray Team Librivox!

Well, I’m still sick, Henry’s still sick. We were planning to go the The Fair today, but that’s off — luckily it runs till July 4, so there will be plenty of other opportunities to go.

So, let’s see, what did we do… Henry watched some cartoons, I ran errands, we played some WoW, we tidied up the Sitting Room, and we planned out a new messenger bag for him. Made the basic pattern already and dug through my stash for appropriate fabric — he chose a medium-blue corduroy for the exterior, and red-and-white striped stuff for the lining.

Watched Episode 9 of Rome tonight with Dan! What an AWESOME show. Every episode is gripping and over far too soon. The only thing we don’t like is the title sequence, which is dull compared to the title sequence for The Tudors :) Other than that, it’s perfect — well-written, characters we care about, fine acting, amazing sets and costuming. I suppose there are plenty of wild historical inaccuracies, but oh well, we’re learning a lot about ancient Rome anyway, and it sends us to wikipedia to look things up and compare reality with TV.

Another photo of Henry at the Rockola concert:

He was singing and playing guitar on “The End” (Abbey Road).

Still sick, but feeling better. I felt well enough today to run some errands, teach my piano students, and do some desperately-needed housework. Moved the long Ikea sofa from the teaching room into the sitting room (i.e. craft/hobby room) so Henry has a nice place to lounge after “bedtime” while he’s waiting to get sleepy. Also vacuumed & dusted, etc. Henry has started to feel sick again, poor boy.

Working the Widdershins heel on my Mini-Monkey socks, but I started too soon and had to rip back, so no photo yet.

Season finale of The Tudors tonight. Poor Cardinal Woolsey. We can’t WAIT until there are new episodes!

I have skinny feet. Not short, just really REALLY skinny. Also, I knit relatively loosely. Also, I hate baggy socks. Also, I don’t like to knit with needles smaller than US 0 (2.0mm). Add these facts together and you will see that I have problems following other people’s sock patterns.

I usually get about 8st/inch with fingering yarn on my 2.0mm needles, which is a typical sock gauge — but my I need my socks to be an inch or two smaller around than the pattern size. Therefore, I must re-write every pattern. This is not a problem with a pattern that has a small repeat, say, a 6, 8, or 10 stitch repeat. I just figure out how many repeats I need to leave out, and go from there. But there are a lot of cute socks with larger repeats — Cookie’s “Monkey”, for instance. It’s got four repeats of a 16-st lace pattern, so 64 stitches around — far too big for me.

So last night I scaled down and re-charted the lace pattern to be a 12-st repeat, made a 48-st toe, and tried out my scaled-down pattern. So far it’s looking REALLY good, and it should fit properly. Not all lace patterns can be successfully scaled down, but Monkey can!

Photo of original chart vs. scaled-down version:

And the toe of the first sock:

Here’s something you should know about:
http://recaptcha.net/

A captcha that not only stops spammers, but also helps to digitize books correctly! It’s a win-win combination!

I find their email-hiding service to be especially useful:
http://mailhide.recaptcha.net/

We plan to install the phpbb registration plugin on the LibriVox forums asap. Maybe it’ll be easier for regular people to cope with than the captcha we have now, plus it’s just so suitable for our project!