Knitting and Other Relevant Things

Anyway as the title of this blog might suggest there is some knitting in my life from time to time. Something that long time readers of this blog will know is that knitting is a useful skill for clowning. You can make all kinds of things with a couple sticks and some yarn. Well this is one of those things. This is a lap blankest made from some red caron acrylic yarn. At least I think it is Caron. the label has been lost to the sands of time from our various moves over the last decade. There was enough of it to make a nice little lap blanket. There really isn't a pattern. I made it until I ran out of the yarn that I had.

The actual pattern it out of one of the Vogue Knitting Books. The knitters out there will know the ones that i am talking about. they might even know what book I am talking about. As I type this I looked across the room to see a pile of knitting books. They have been displaced by a reorganization of my library that is incomplete. So I am a bit too lazy to go through them and figure out which book it came from. I know that a good knitting blogger would have the pattern on had to share it. Still, I never claimed to be a good knitting blogger.

On other fronts the strange growing pattern of the Brigade continues. With the Brigade office half way put together we have around six cadet clowns here on the South Side Slopes and several more interested. They are mostly young people but it is a wider age range than the last couple time we had a membership jump. We have a couple seven year old a couple teens a a couple in between. There might even be a parent or two in there.

On another odd twist over everything I am starting to like Justine Beiber and Miranda Cosgrove. At least I think hat is how their names are spelled. The computer does not agree with me. In addition there are some Japanese band that Miss McBride from the internet has suggested. So not only do I have the musical tastes of a teenage girl they are the tastes of a Japanese teen age girl. Yep that is normal for a man of my age. I blame being exposed to Bob Dylan at a young age for my musical mental issues.

Well be safe out there everyone and keep your stick on the ice.

Juggling Clubs in Pittsburgh

When you look for a juggling club in Pittsburgh five clubs come up. All of them are no longer meeting. Some have not met for several years. The other thing that come up is the Cuckoo 's Nest which is the local magic show that also sells juggling equipment. Towns have the size of Pittsburgh have had juggling clubs that have been meeting for years. It boggles my mind that we are unable to put something together in this city.

It has gotten to the point that i am looking into starting a juggling club.

I have spent a couple days randomly looking for some kind of internet juggling network. Sadly i have found a couple websites that appear to be ignored by the people who made them. Apparently jugglers are the only people that do not like to talk to one another on the internet.

I will keep you posted if anything interesting happens. Don't hold your breath though.

Making Juggling Batons & Number 10

It is two in the morning and I am cutting out pieces of vinyl to make a juggling baton. At Tuesday practice Apprentice Brimage {There are five Brimages at this point} used a juggling baton for what I think was his first time. He did rather well so I am making him one for him to practice with.

On an interesting note his favorite type was the kind that I use. This is the one that Walt and made three years ago. This has become the most popular stick that we have been making for ourselves. This will be the fourth or fifth one we have made for a member of the Brigade. I have also made a couple for people outside the Brigade.

The particular stick is your basic two foot long flower stick. Apprentice Brimage has requested that it be red and black. I think that it is going to be an attractive stick. The nice thing about making the same kind of stick is that you can be sure of the balance. One of the people in the Brigade wanted a rather special stick that was longer and had head that we had never used on a juggling baton before. The sad thing was that it took me three attempts to get something that had the right balance.

On another subject an interesting question as possed to me. If you could choose a handful of people to make immortal who would they be? I am pondering a list of ten people. For a place to start I think I am going to choose the Emperor Charlemagne.

He was an enlightened leader who believed in education in a time when the average King was a brutal dictator by modern standards. I think we would be living in a more enlightened and interesting world if the Holy Roman Empire had not fallen apart.

Well be safe out there everyone and keep your stick on the ice.