Clown Founder Day

Hi folks, we had a fun Sunday at Steel Valley Corps. It was one of our Advancement ceremonies and Sunday Practices. This is me in an old ceremonial uniform. We don't have any of our own yet so I still wear my old one. By the way The Captain has been painting at the Corps. A couple weeks before this stair well was in not so great shape.

This is a close up of the candle arrangement used during the ceremony. Each clown is represented by a candle and we move the candles up as they advance through the rank system. It is a tradition that goes back through the various clown troupes that I have been part of. This is a pulled back shot of the altar after we have set up the clown stiff on it. The advancement steps have been covered with the Barry Scarf. As had become the tradition we display juggling equipment and a Bible on the alter to recognise the nature of the Brigade. Also displayed are the logos for each of the Sessions of Clowns thus far and the Brigade Logo.

After the Ceremony was practice time. His is Apprentice K in his kilt and a pretty pretty balloon hat. Behind him are several other Apprentice Clown and the newly appointed Second in Command of the Brigade Junior Clown and our Music Sergeant JC Stewart

The future of the Brigade is shown here with our first class of Cadets. Until this year we have not had enough people joining at one time to have Cadet Classes. One of the main reasons for the Sunday practices is to quickly train these new recruits. This the basic orientation where they begin to work on their clown face and names. Cadet Wilson on the right has taken the name Silly Lilly. Cadet Thurmon has taken the clown name Alakali.

This is Apprentice Prealu during the balloon section. She is up to eight or so Balloons in less than a month.

A big pile of balloons with Cadet Thurmon at Balloon Practice.

We also had a pot luck diner at this event. This was great fun as usual. See everyone at Hive Knitting. Be safe out there and keep you stick on the ice.

Viewer Mail

Today I wanted to get back to a popular segment around the Knitting Blog Viewer Mail. The old mail coming in has been a bit slower than usual so it took a while to get a few questions.

1} How come we don’t see pictures of your pets? My pets are in the witness protection program. I have web camera that I do not work well. And I am not going to tie them down to take a picture of them. Then every one would send emails to animal friends to have them come and take my animals.

2} Why do you have a Clown Brigade instead of a Troupe? Have you ever noticed people do not ask me knitting question on my knitting blog. Anyway, it is a long standing tradition that small groups of soldiers, officers and cadets in The Salvation Army are named Brigades. In our Training College {Seminary} the cadets are broken up into Brigades for field training. Our Brigade is a special purpose group within the Army. Also keep in mind The Salvation Army’s system is based on the British Army of 150 years ago and not the modern American Military.

3} Is that your real hair? Yes

4} Do you enjoy clowning? No I do it because it makes me sick. Of course I enjoy clowning. It give me an opportunity to be sarcastic without hurting people’s feelings.

5} Do you dress up your dog as a clown? By the way most of these clown questions came from one email. I sent them the number of a good therapist I know in their area. And no I do not dress up my dog as a clown. Firstly she is my wife’s dog. And secondly makeup and fur do not mix.

There were a couple more question with the email that I will not answer because this is a family blog. Not that I think any children are reading this. Still, I would not want to harm them is they were.

6} Have you ever knit a normal sized scarf? Finally a knitting question. First off it is very rude to suggest that The Judy, The Barry or The Marley are not normal. They are normal for long scarves. Actually The Judy and The Marley are not normal for long scarves they are the only two long scarves that I know that are made like they are. That does not make them freaks it makes them special. A lot more special than any other scarf out there. And yes I have knit length challenged scarves.

7} Do you prefer toe up or cuff down socks? Well I was taught that the only proper way top make sock was toe up. It goes back to making clown socks. They were usually stripped and just bellow the knee. We striped them the old fashioned way. So it was easy to knit two of them at once and make sure the striping matched because you could try them on as you went.

I actually go some knitting question. I am as shocked as you are. Well be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Holy Where did all of These People Come From Batman?

Over a thousand people visited here today. That about what I get every couple weeks. I have also received a couple dozen email questions. All of this stems from a chance meeting with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.

She Cranked on The Marley a bit and apparently thought this was all interesting enough to put on her blog. Thus the huge up take in my daily readers. This brings me back to the questions. There have been many and they fall into several categories.

Once upon a time I promised that I would answer any comment left on the blog or email sent to me. I guess I never though more than three people would read this thing at any one time. So here goes. If I don't answer your question satisfactorily please let me know. I have grouped some questions and answer for brevity's sake.

Question 1: Are you Single, Married, Gay? Married to a woman. Once upon a time that would have sounded like an odd way to answer that question. It is a brave new world.

Question 2: What is The Marley? Why the Name?The Marley is what clowns call a Long Scarf. It will be made from 200 skeins of 3oz. worsted weight Canadiana verigated yarn. It is named The Marley because those 200 skeins of yarn will be turned into icrod and then knit into the scarf. The icrod is thought to look like dread locks. Ddancer made up the name. It is the tradition of our Clown Brigade to name every scarf that is longer than 100 feet long. We currently have two long scarves. The Barry and The Judy.


Question 3:What do you do with a Long Scarf? This is clown prop that is used for various routines. There is walking through a mall with a long scarf such a pictured here. There is also a tug of war routine and pulling it off someone and making them spin like a top.

Pictured is The Judy. She is named for Judy Garland and was named by CarlaK. The name works on several levels.

I am the clown in front. Behind me is Segeant Knit Whit {who knits during our stage shows}. Behind him is Sergeant Major Jimbo. We are in our humor Therapy costumes and not our Salvation Army Uniform costumes we use during our stage shows.

Question 4: Isn't using a machine cheating? HMMMMMM....... I just posted something like that. The answer is that you bet your sweet bippy it is. We have two hundred skeins of yarn that need turn into icrod. We would be completely insane if we did that by hand.

Clowns as knitter are what most would call project knitters. Our goal in life is to make a particular thing. Of our two scarves that we have one is very old, The Barry. And The Judy is a springy scarf that is good for some routines but not others. The Marley will be stiffer and better for the routines that The Judy is not. Our clown Brigade is one year old and we still have many things to build and make. We must do some of this very quickly because it will be used in the next couple months for our Spring shows.

Question5: What is with you sign off? Well be safe out there is fairly obvious. It is dangerous world out there and we must keep our head about us. Keeping you stick on the ice refers to Hockey. Namely that you care supposed to keep your stick bellow your knees. If you do not this is called high sticking. This is not a good thing for many reason. The primary reason is that it very tempting to clobber someone with your stick {see picture}.

It is mainly a reference to fair play. I lived in Canada for a while and am a hockey.


Question 6: What is a clown knitting group like? Well is is like any other knitting group with the addition of balloon animals and small children. This is me in the back actually making the swatch for The Marley. Our group is not exclusively for clowns. We have a clown practice just prior to our knitting group. So sometimes there is overlap. Actually the only real difference is that we have more men in our knitting group. Be sides that there are few differences except for the occasional odd project. Only about half our our knitting group is made up of clowns. The rest are just Pittsburghers that come to our group. It is open to the public and meets every Monday at 7:00PM at the Bee Hive.

Question 7: Donations - We have a couple projects we are working on. First is knitting items for our homeless shelters. Basically any knit or Crochet items or yarn can be dropped off at Knit 1 in Squirrel Hill. Those items are given to residents at our family shelter and Men's Shelter. We also have a knit together there on Sundays at 1:00PM.

Donations - Monetary- Several folks have asked how they can support our humor Therapy program. These donations may be mailed to our Corps: The Salvation Army Steel Valley Corps P.O. Box 395 Homestead, PA 15120. Please make Checks out to The Salvation Army Steel Valley Corps and put Clown Brigade in the memo section.

If anyone is interested in attending service at out Corps {Church} we are located at 104 E. Ninth Ave. in Homestead. Church services at at 11:00 AM. I will post our next round of shows once we have all of the locations locked in.

Well that covers most of it. I thank everyone for stopping by. If anyone decides to link here let me know so I can add you to my link list as well. Once again thanks for dropping by.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Z