The Marley and other stuff

For those that just started following the blog we are still working on The Marley. the Marley will be a vitually indestructable one hundred foot long scarf. The only draw back as that we will have to turn hundred of skeins of yarn into icord.

Pictured is Apprentice Wilson who is making icord on an icord machine. As you can tell this is the most exciting thing that she has to do today. As I think about it this is the second or third picture that I have put up of her standing on a chair. Maybe I should not encourage children to stange on furniture. It is a very old chair. Still, it is not terribly respectful.

Well what can you do. It is the only way to make it. Apprentice Wilson has turned several skeins of yarn into icod thus far, She say that it the most entertaining thing about knitting.

On other knitting front my wife and I took Apprentie Wilson to her first knitting group outside the Clown Briagde. We took her to the cult meeting in the South Hills. By the way the Cult is a knittin cult ot a religous one. Altough there are somethat would say that knitting is in some ways ti's own religion. Come to think of it if the Knitting cult was a church I would probably join it. I have seen picture of Jesus' mother knitting. It only makes sence if you think about it. Or perhapse it only makes sence in my head.

The Book continued to plug along. For a good long while I have been debating where there first book should end and the second book beging. I have moved around the chapters I have a nd tweeked the story line. I am fairly sure I have figured out how thing should go.

On the up side that means that I have a good sence of where thing should be going with the book. For the last couple months I have had no clue what should go where and how everything should fall into place.

The editing is the killer thing. I am not a person who is any good at finding errors in a text. It is just narly difficult work. I figure if I work at for six hours a day it will take me a month to put the manuscript into something reletively readable. So we will see how that goes.

Well just wanted to check in Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Knitting Stuff - The Marley

The Monday Night Knitting group continued to meet in Homestead. Walt continues to work on his knitting Proficiency. He is almost done with that. It awesome to give out a knitting proficiency. 

 

This is Apprentice Brimage working on the Marley. The Marley is a long scarf project that got put on the back burner for building our set and training a whole bunch of new clowns. On the up side of having a bunch of new clowns we should be able to work on the Marley some.

  

Sergeant Thurman is working on the Marley over the edge of our stair case. It is nice being somewhere that has a staircase. It makes this kind of odd knitting maneuver easier.  

Also on the clowning front we had some promotions in the last week. Apprentices Thurman and Stewart are now Junior Clowns. We also have a new Cadet, Cadet Gable. She is thrilled, really she is. 

Also promoted was Walt. This is the first time that we have trained a Standard Clown from the ground up in the Brigade. As a matter of fact my wife is a Standard Clown. She has been clowning for years and already knew a bunch of stuff when she joined.  This is special time for someone like me. It is not every day that some gets to these loft heights in clowning. It makes me proud to be a part of his training. He is keeping the old ways going. 

Well I have to go the cat is having kittens. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

All Over the Map Today

Long time readers of this blog may remember me talking about some who was joking about flying in Denver to crank on the Marley. Well on Tuesday she showed up. This is Terri Lynn she is from Denver. She thinks the Marley is cool.

It has been a while since I have talked about the Marley. Quite frankly since I have hurt my hand we cannot do the routine that The Marley will be use for. With my wing on the mend I will probably be able to do it by the spring or super. So it is back to cranking on the Marley.

Terri Lynn has a son in the Military who is stationed here. So she was visiting him as mother often do. She looked up Ravelry to find that there was a group meeting at our shop. She called us up and asked if the group was meeting. I said that we were. When she showed up my clowness came up in conversation. She wanted to know if I knew the clown that was making The Marley.

Normally this would be a case a clown profiling. All clowns do not know each other. We do have a secret computer network that ties us all together. Well that is only used for world domination purposes not long scarves. But I digress.

Anyway in this case I happened to be that clown. So she had a dream. And she found me in a shop through a web site neither of which existed when she first had that dream.

On other fronts we had a great Clown practice yesterday. This is Amber she is beginning to master the standard three ball juggling pattern.

In the clown world this is cool stuff. She is almost finished with the Basic Clowning Proficiency. It is kind of like getting the first rank in Boy Scouts. Except that she is a girl and wears more make up than most Boy Scouts. And we don't spend time in the woods unless something has gone terribly wrong. Although many clown have very large tents. Oh never mind you know where I am going with this. And by the way if you do know where I am going with this please let me know. I am not sure.

I apparently also misspelled the name of my shop again. I called it Natural Snatches. Personally I like it better. We should stop pretending that knitting and yarn are not additions. Come on down and snatch some yarn at Natural Stitches or Snatches.

Other interesting things are happening in the Yarn world here in Pittsburgh. They are a secret though. Yes clown and knitter making secret stuff happen. Actually I am serious about this. Stay tuned and I will let you know when there is news.

Fiber Festival Meeting - The Most Evil Thing in the World

Another great couple of days was had knitting. As stated earlier I have been busy spending a great deal of time typing . In addition I have had several meetings.

Moving along the best part of the last couple days is that a lot has been accomplished. Before Hive knitting we had a meeting for the Fiber Festival. Most of the classes were set and so we will be able to get out the schedule for the website and put out literature to all of the local shops. It is not that progress has not been made in putting this thing together. It is just really nice to see a bunch of the people together in the same room working on it.

Good times……..

I continue to make chemo caps. I will have to make a vest or something in a week or two just to make something different.

We are looking around for a place to knit on The Marley when we have the icord all made. Since there are only six stitches on The Marley we should be able to make him in twenty or so hours. This should be the coolest knitting project since the last long scarf. The Judy.

Speaking of The Marley someone has asked me how we alter the Bond Knitting Gizmo to make it able to do worsted weight yarn. Firstly it does not do it incredibly well. It is better than doing it by hand. This goes without saying. Firstly I take the machine apart and take all of the oil from the manufacturer out of the machine. Then with 200 grit sand paper I sand off the upper edge of the inside track. The sanding has to be just a little bit and must be perfectly smooth when done. All of the dust from the sanding must be completely removed.

Then the needles must be altered a bit as well. The metal needles on the machine need to be expanded just the tiniest little bit. They cannot be stretched too much or they will useless. There is also very little play in these needles. If you mess with them too much they can break. Also if they are too large then the yarn will not flow over them in the proper way.

The machine then needs to be oiled in the gears and the tracks. Use need to use gun oil to oil the machine with. This is important. It is much finer than the oil that comes on the machine and is the key to making the whole thing work.

When you load up the machine you cannot do it the way that the instructions say. You must wrap the yarn manually around each needle. After than you must go slowly when you doe the first twenty or so rows.

After you get the machine going to can do about two skeins of yarn on an oiling. The machine can heat up and the guide on the needles can get hot enough to weaken the lower section of the plastic track they are on. When this happens they break through. I have used plumbing goop to fix several machine that had had this problem.
These machines are not designed to do this. They are made of plastic and simply cannot take the strain. Also this thing will have a tenancy to skip stitches. The only way to fix this is to take the icord off the machine and unravel it past the point where this happened. This is also a thing that you have to experiment with before you get any good at it. It took me six skeins before I was able to get the hang of it. Also do not practice with you want to use. While you experiment it will destroy the yarn until you get good at it.

You also need to make apart the machine and brush out the fiber and replace the oil after four skeins. Depending on the weight of yarn you cannot do more than three skeins at once. This is a good time to take apart the machine. You can stitch the bits of icord together seamlessly when you have the all made.

I hope this is helpful to the person who asked me about it in the comment section a couple days ago.

I have a chunk of the second chapter of the fiction book done. For the first time one of these books is moving along at a decent rate. Well we will see how that goes.

Thursday through Sunday I will be away from the computer in lovely Hershey PA. For the Army people out there I am going to our Territorial Congress. For the non Army people out there I am going to a long conference.

The only thing more sacrilegious on a knitting blog than saying you hate yarn is stating that you hate chocolate. I hate chocolate unless it is smothered into something else. I suppose the who chocolate thing has to do with knitting turning into a mostly female activity a couple hundred year ago.

When I have a million dollars I will be starting a yarn shop that will mostly be staffed by biker knitters. There are two women that will be allowed to work in my biker knitting shop and they know who they are. On my job application will be a question about how much they like chocolate. If they say they like it too much they will not be allowed to work in the shop.

The women will be exempt from this question for obvious genetic reasons. Apparently there is some sort of female genetic thing dealing with chocolate. I will not get into this. I am not a geneticist or qualified to answer this question. I will say that this is scary on multiple levels.

There will be no chocolate in the public area of the shop. There will be rock candy a popcorn machine. The chocolate will be in a locked room for the two aforementioned women. They will be the ones with keys to room. I am not a sadist nor am I suicidal. I am sorry, I feel that the chocolate thing must be controlled in order for the male knitting revolution to firmly retake knitting. I will dedicate more on the subject of the insidious chocolate conspiracy at a latter time.

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.

Monday Knitting & Mystery Male Knitter Update

A good evening should be had knitting. I have had a couple people contact me through the Yahoo group and another through the email thing. I am glad to see that rather than slowing down in the spring we continue to get new members. We still have a core of half a dozen members. Now the folks that come every so often is growing again as well. Last week we not only had a new person but the Mystery Male Knitter stopped by as well. I look forward to a good evening of knitting.

We did another show yesterday and the children and other enjoyed it. We had many people there that I have not seen before which is the point. As always we continue to make progress. By the end of the summer we should have a very good performing unit.

Th search for new clown goes very slowly. We have done very well with the people that we do have. We have done much better than I thought we would be able to. We do need a few more. We have sent flyers to the other Army Corps in the area and have had no reply. I am sure it would all work out in the end.

James was promoted to the rank of Jr. Clown at a short ceremony before the show. He has worked very hard for the last year and I am pleased that he has accomplished it. The first step is the hardest they say.

Chemo caps continue to pot out at an unnatural rate. I should finish up another one tonight.

On other knitting fronts The Mystery Male Knitter is working on his third double ball. If he does four more skeins than he will be the third person to make a super ball of icord all on his own. Oddly the only people to have achieved this are all male. this may be another male female knitting thing. I wonder if male are more likely to use a gadget than women. Well what ever it is there is also a contest going on between the Mystery Male Knitter and Flo at Knit 1. They are seeing who can make the most icord. At this point MMK is ahead in the race by a couple of skeins. If he does venture out from his secret lair tonight for Hive Knitting we will have more Marley yarn waiting for him.

I have not had enough to to respond to the tagging from the Steel City Knitter. I should have time for that on Tuesday. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

It is Really Hard to Find Title for These Posts Sometimes

The last week of knitting has been busy with preparation for the show this Sunday. By that way our show will be at 6:00 PM at the Salvation Army in Homestead PA. If you are interested email me and I will send you details. It is a free show and fun should be had by all.

Well the chemo Caps keep coming. I have finished five since Sunday. Not bad for a fairly full work week just before a show. A couple double balls were cranked for The Marley and there is at least one super ball to be stitched together. What more could one want?

I continue to to be edited on The Knit List. I put up another post about the festival to see if they will allow it to be posted. Anyway I was posting that we are looking for more teachers and volunteers for the Fall Fiber Festival.

We are also going to need Yarn Angels to help with Knitting Crochet and Spinning Classes. We are looking to have around Thirty classes so we are going to need an awful lot of help. Yarn Angels with assist the teachers with students who need extra help during the classes.

I am very happy with the way that the teaching staff is shaping up. We have several excellent teachers already. I only wish I would have the time during the festival to take a few classes. That is the only draw back or organising such a thing. One does not get to enjoy it as much as someone that bought a ticket would.

I have come to the conclusion that I am definitely a project knitter. I have note that many people have to knit on a regular basis and are constantly hungry to do something new. Myself I am knitting the most when I have something that needs to be done. I am sure that it is a point that means very little in the grand scheme of thing.

I am pleased to note that The Knit list people finaly posted a comment that I have left. Granted I did have to leave out the location and what the Fiber Festival would benefit, still, it is a start if nothing else.

It does make me curous why religion is such are hand thing for some people. i understand that most of the death and distruction that has taken place historically has been in the name of God. Still, that does not explain why it is such a hard thing for so many people in this country. I also realise that we are for lack of a better term involved in a sort of Holy War.

None of this explains why a group of people would be so picky that they could not even have the name of a church listed on their site. If I had another alternative I would take it. I even tried to join the Christian Knitter to find a like minded internet group. It turn out that I am not Christian enough for them. I really wish I was Christian enough or secular enough to be in one group or the other. What a weird place to be in.

As stated more than a year ago part of the reason I started this blog was to look at the knitting world on the Internet. The role that sub groups play in the whole enterprise is fascinating. I am always amazed at how something as simple as knitting can be used and transformed in so many ways. We may all be kniters but we bring the distinctions we have in life to our craft. That may sound like a simple thing to say. It may even be an obvious.

Well the wonders of internet aside this is a valuble asset.The festival that we are trying to set up would probably not be possible without the internet.

As I continue to ramble on about this an that I also have a kitten update. The critters are doing well. My wife has found homes for the kitties. They will probably be ready for their new homes in a month and a half or so. Back kitten is much larger than grey kitten. Grey kitten is eating well enough and if growing and healthy looking. Black kitten eats so much more than gray kitten though. She is much larger than grey kitten.

I am think about opening a Kitten Orphanage. People could come to my house and the little fur balls would line up hoping for a family to tak them. I would be like something out oliver twist. Cute little critters would waddle up to my chair waiting for their bottle. I would let them have as much as they wanted. a small herd of happy little kittens would bring me my slippers and the evening paper. And I would read my little freinds bed time stories.

Maybe I am thinking too much about this. Well that tends to be my way. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Short Posts

It is less than a a week before out first full show. I have been practicing with every spare moment. That and making chemo caps. Anyway life moves alone.

My brigade is think about doing the male version of the race for the cure. We would only have a month to make caps. Still, those are the punches.

Another odd twist has entered my journey in knitting. My mother has asked me to teacher her knitting. Time and time again the narrative of people learning to knit includes their mother teaching them. Not learning from clowns and then teaching their mothers. Still what can one?

I would like to note that classes at the bee Hive are plugging along and interest in classes at Knit 1 is growing even if slowly. We have several guests to the Hive Knitting group. A new woman who lies in Mt. Oliver and the famed male mystery knitter stopped by to work on The Marley. All and all an eventful day was had.

The Hive Knitting group is also another odd twist. With the addition of Tom and the male members of the Brigade who come regularly this group is now mostly male. To the best of my knowledge this is the only time I have been part of a group that is mostly male. I know there are male knitting groups in other larger cities. Still, I have never heard of a group being open to all and being mostly male by accident. Not that i am saying that male knitting groups are closed to women. the only male knitting group that i attended was in Toronto years ago. And even though it was billed as a male knitting group girl Friends and wives often out numbered the men. I don't know how that worked but it.

I would like to note that we will still be meeting Monday the 28th. Also we will be celebrating our 1 year anniversary party at The Hive. There will be a cake what more can you want. I would like to invited every one that come sporadically or who has not come for a while to come. i good time will be had by all.

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

More Chemo Caps

I am sick of Chemo caps. That is all I am going to say.

The Marley made some progress as another couple balls of yarn were transformed into icord. If our hope is that have it done before the Fiber Festival it should not be a problem. The only problem that i am having is that it takes signifigantalteration to the gizmo to get it to work. I was hoping that people from elsewhere could work on The Marley.

Well it is a busy day. I will post later if I get home before midnight

be safe out tehre and keep your stick on the ice.

Hello

It has been a long week end. I was away at our camp for a retreat. When I came back I found that my internet was not working. And when my ISP led me through fixing it they killed something in my Service pack 2 that let something else go wrong and so on. I am will spend the better part of this evening arguing with the people at verizion telling me that this prblem is not theirs. Well what can one do?

Over the week end we cranked on The Marly and knit Chemo Caps. We have a dozen or so Chemo caps done and another superball of Marly icord. Life is good.

We had a good evening at Hive Knitting. Much icrod was made and another cap here and there.

We are going to be having the first planning meeting for the Fall Fiber Festival this thursday. If you are someone that i talked to and a forgot to email you let me know. I don't want to miss anyone but it appears that I have lost several email addresses. As before we are looking for volunteers to help.

Our first date appears to be the same week as Rhinebeck. I would preffer not have our festival the same week that they do. It looks like it would be the last week end in october or the first week end in novembers. Suggestions would be helpful as always.

On other subjects my wife and I are looking after a couple of three week old kittens that were abadon on the South Side. They are cute and cudly as well as really noisy. Still. they are eating well and will probably be able to be adopted out in a month or two. The no kill shelter here in Pittsburgh is full so wer can be certain they will be alright if we take care of them ourselves.
For some reason blogger is not letting me post pictures. I do have pictures of the kittens and will post them when this thing is working again.

Also back to crazy ideas clowns have. We are think about making a giant Chemo Cap and filling it with Chemo Caps. I am not sure how one would make a giant Chemo Cap. I am thinking some sort of rope. And no we are not going to make more icrod. The Marley will be enough ircod made for a lifetime. Any way i will post later if this thing is still working.

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

More of My Opinion on Stuff Everyone Should Care About, Kind Of

A good day was had knitting at Knit 1. I am least half way through the Prayer Shawl for the Brigade. I will post pictures when I finish it. We want to have it finished for a weekend church event. This will give us a chance to show some people in our denomination this new ministry.

Both Flo and our Mystery Male Knitter worked on icord for The Marley. We are a quarter of the way through the yarn for The Marley. Even at the rate we are going we will have The Marley done by the Fiber Fest. Life is good.

To ramble on a bit Knitting on the Internet. I am writing an article on Clown Knitting for the KnitWiki site. I hope to post the basic explanation tonight. After that will be sections on Long Scarves, Multi person Sweaters and Long Sweaters. I am digging through my old equipment looking for examples of each of these items. I am sorry to say I don’t have any of the sweaters any longer. Well I suppose that is a good excuse to make some up. I will have to check on my terminology and such to make certain I am presenting everything as it should be.

When I have a bit more time I will add a link to this site KnitWiki site. Never the less it is an important thing for the greater knitting community. I cannot go enough about how there should be this type of resource. This is the sort of thing that gives longevity to something like knitting. You may have heard me muse from time to time about whether knitting is a fad or making an honest come back.

Knitting like many things has gone in and out of fashion over the years. Still, there are things that were once unpopular that have made a permanent come back. I myself will always have to knit because I need unique items. Hobbies that last have an infrastructure that keep them going strong. At one point it was hard to find a good yarn shop in some cities. Now a city the size of Pittsburgh has several. We always had a couple. Yet the ones that we did have were a niche. Now they are a destination for so many. For many year I have always hunted yarn shops when I was in a new town or city. Many times I was disappointed because there was not one. That sort of disappointment is now rarely the case.

My point, as a wander away from my point, is that knitting is starting to get the depth that will maintain it over many years. It has always had an incredibly strong following of die hards. You simply cannot deny that. And they alone would make certain that someone would always be knitting somewhere. Now like NASCAR knitting is finding converts in places that it never did before. People who did not have parents or grandparents that knit are now knitting. Men who were told that it is girly as children are doing it. The KnitWiki is yet another layer of that depth. I encourage everyone to contribute articles and tell your friends about it. This is a good thing.

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

A Quick Comment

I love the Internet and I love the TV Shows that are now on the Internet. I am settling back into my clown practice schedule nicely. It has given me time to blog and write my various books. As I type this thing I am watching an episode of Raines I missed. I am still awed by the whole internet thing. I love this show. It has Jeff G. a Pittsburgh native and one of the best crazy people actors ever. It also has Linda Park as a jr super detective. There are a lot of placed for this show to go.

Anyway back to the wikiknit thing I got several hits from it today. A couple helpful souls even added some Marley related icord projects. A clown wig and such things. I am impressed by how things get around on the web. I believe the phrase is viral. Well I am probably thinking about this too much. Still, it is cool how these things go around.

Work progressed on the prayer shawl today. I am pleased with what it. I hope to have it finished by the end of next week.

Well I just wanted to leave a quick post. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Charity Knitting Book & Online Knitting Resource

Life is good in strange ways. I check the people who visit this blog mainly to see what other people are doing with their knitting. It also helps me to know that my mime filters are working. Anyway back to the point of my entry.

There is a site that I ran across called http://www.knitting-and.com/wiki/Main_Page. It is the beginning of what could be the Wikipedia for the knitting world. On occasion you have heard me muse that it would be nice if there was an all inclusive internet knitting resource. Well this looks like the beginning of such a resource. I browsed around it a bit and it is very good start. It may not be all inclusive yet. Still, with the support of the internet knitting community it will be some day.

Oh and I can across this page because The Marley is listed on the 101 things to do with icord section. The Marley is number 22. I am so proud. They did forget a p in Zeeppo. Which is the nice thing about this format, I could fix it. I am going to add a link to it on the side bar and probably add articles about all the clown knitting stuff the world needs to know. It is the only way we can protect ourselves from the Mime menace.

On the Charity Knitting front I have noticed that my last entry was vague. Actually the half dozen people the emailed me pointed our my last entry was vague. So here is a list of free uncopywritten patterns I am looking for. And if you made up the pattern or know who did let me know. I would like to attribute it to the person who wrote it. I am looking for Crochets and Knit versions as well.

Mittens, hats, sweaters, cardigans, socks, baby blankets, full sized blankets or any suggestions. I do have enough scarf patterns, unless someone has a cute matching set.

When I have enough patterns my Clown Brigade is going to publish this book. It will probably sell for a couple bucks and the proceeds will be used for our Charity Knitting Project. Since we just got into Prayer Shawls I will be adding a section on that as well.

I have been playing around with this for a year and it is time to get serous about it. Everyone in Pittsburgh has been so kind about donating items to Knit 1 for our Shelters. I only hope this book will in a small way will give something back to the knitting community that has been so kind to us.

You may be surprised to know that a group of knitting clowns is not always welcomed by polite society. I am just pleased that we have found a comfortable little place here in Western PA.

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

Back at my Computer

I have been away for the better part of this week at a place that does not have computers. I am going to have to get one of those phones that you can send emails with.

Any way, I was watching a set of kids this week on last minute notice. They are good kids and it was fun. It did give me a chance to get fix a couple knitting machines and play around with my Bond knitting machine. I knocked off several squares for a blanket.

I have been out of the loop for a week and missed two knitting groups this week. I am a very bad knitter. I am going to go into Knit 1 today and set up some more classes. Dudes you need to get out and knit. I will post my classes when I have them put together. CarlaK found a sweater pattern for the knitting machine that is a lot nicer than the one I was going to use. It is one of the things I experimented with with week. It has inspired me to come up with my own MK sweater pattern. I wish it inspired me to come up with a good one. Still, what can one do.

I did figure out what machine I used in the Circus. It was an insanely expensive Brothers machine. I can see why I have a love hate relationship with the Bond. I was spoiled at a young age. Still, with the knitting of The Marley I have found a great deal of respect for Bond gizmos in general.

So far my Brigade has broken 1 machine and we have been given two machines for spare parts that were broken. Each of these broken machines was able to repaired and are currently working. There is some thing to be said for simplicity of design. With a little plumbers goop and gun oil these machines can be brought back from inoperative to humming like new in a matter of minutes. We thought we were going to destroy these things at an alarming rate.

Sure we have altered them a bit for this project. Still, they have proven that this little gadget is able to take much more abuse than they are designed for. And in my experience that is the sign of a good design.

I only wish the Bond people replied to my initial email. I should probably send them a testimonial.

Hello Bond,

I am clown that had to knit 200 skeins of yarn into icord. My friends wanted to commit me to a mental institution. But one of my friends {DDancer} sat me down and told me about what she did when she had too much icord to make. She assured me that this was nothing to be embarrassed about. It happens to people from time to time.

She told me about the Bond Embelishcord Knitter. Now I can live life with confidence that other knitters seem born with. Thanks Bond, you saved my knitting project and my marriage.

Sincerely

Zeeppo MC

Well I suppose my wife would not have left me if I knit all of that by hand on a knitty knotty. I think she has figured out that she got the thin end of the wedge in this relationship. Perhaps I have spent too much time talking to 2 year olds this week.

And did you see I used the link gizmo. I am really proud of my self. I know every man should be an HTML expert. I am a poor excuse for a blogger. And a terrible excuse for a webmaster.

Ahhhhhhh..... Glenn Miller just came on the Yahoo Radio. I have not listened to adult music all week. Not that there is anything wrong with Hanna Montana. Well actually I think there really is. Still, I digress. I do not want to disillusion the Disney fan that reads this blog. And I suppose I can not talk about people who have a secret identity. And by the way, Wishing does make it so. If you are a Glenn Miller fan that was terribly witty.

I am thinking about getting a camera. I have had lots of people ask me for pictures of finished projects. I have a web camera that does not get along with this computer. I suppose I have not put the effort into making them get along. Still, that camera is from five computers ago and was not top of the line a decade ago. Maybe I will stop by circut city and see what they have.

I am also going to have to do a pod cast for The Marley. Reworking the icrod machine is not hard but there is an order. In addition knitting with it is terribly hard if you have not gone through a month a trail and error. I suppose I could write out instructions. Still, in about twenty minutes I can show someone.

So for those that wanted to knit on The Marley long distance I have not forgotten about you. I just need to catch up with the times. I must admit I do not like cameras. I do not know why.

Ohhhh Boy........ Stevie Wonder....... mmmmmmmmm.......

Have I ever mentioned I really like the Yahoo radio. I do not know how I got along with only FM and AM radio. My wife grew up with only AM. I cannot understand how people of that generation are not damaged from the experience of living through disco and no FM radio. One or the other maybe, but not both. Nothing could be more horrible. I salute you folks I could not have done it.

Back to knitting. Or should I say blogging about knitting. I suppose if I move my Knitking near

the computer I could do both. Give me a minute......................

You see if I have a camera I could show you me blogging and knitting at the same time. All right I am being just silly now.

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

Another Good Day Cranking

Another good day was had cranking. We have enough double balls for another super ball. We should be able to know out another super ball tomorrow. I think we will have enough for our first Mega ball. The Double Ball is two skeins, Super ball ten skein and Mega Ball 50 Skeins.

This looked like an insanity daunting project when we first started. Now we know that it can be done in short order if we need to. I dare say we might be able to make The Marley in less time than it took to make The Judy if we had to. Fortunately we do not.

I continue to be pleased with the progress of the Apprentice Clowns in the Brigade. Most are close to finishing their basic clown Pro and a couple are almost finished with two Pro. This mean we could have a couple of Jr. Clowns by the time of the first full show.

This week will also marks the first time that we are going to extend membership in The Brigade outside of our Corps. We are going to send out a flyer to the other Salvation Army Corps in the area and see if anyone is interested in joining us. We will see how it goes. In order to keep up with the production schedule we want to do it will require 15 clowns by this time next year and 22 the year after.

After our most recently planning meeting we decided that we need to make a long scarf a year until we have four completed. We will also need to make 4 tandem cardigans and half a dozen long stocking caps. We currently have one long scarf, The Judy, finished. So we have a great deal of knitting to do.

Our ultimate goal is to be able to do two stage shows and send out two hospital teams at one time. Currently we can only do one thing at a time. This is partly because we have only seven clowns. It is also because we do not have enough equipment yet. Hopefully after this fall we can make dramatic progress on all of these fronts.

Beside the evangelism from out ultimate goal is to have a Clown on Call Service.Basically if a hospital has a sick person who needs cheered up they call a clown and we are there in 24 hours. This will involve pagers and and organising the Clowns in out Brigade to be ready at a minuets notice to go out and do a show. This is not the sort of thing that clown traditionally are trained to. Usually a clown show is arranged ahead of time and every thing is planned to the last action. This will definitely be a new dynamic and I hope we are up to. We hope to be able to offer this new service next winter. At least to the City of Pittsburgh Hospitals.

Well I know this did not have much to do with knitting. It is nice to go on about such things. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Warp Them While They are Young - Charity Knitting

This young lady is in training to crank on The Marley. Are You Ready to Crank on The Marley?

By the way we are getting together this Friday at 6:00PM for a pot luck Diner at The Salvation Army 104 E Ninth Ave. If you would like to drop by send me an email. Or just show up with a pot full of food. I am thinking of making some nice manigotti.

Any way in addition to Charity Knitting. Which is the stated purpose of this gathering. We will be experimenting with knitting icord off a balcony. We just want to see how it goes in our own building before we do it in someone elses'.

By the if you are a machine knitter you can bring it along to help us make blankets. Good times will be had by all.

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

A Good Day of Knitting & Cranking Exspected

It will be off to South Hills Village again after a day of the work type thing. I have two machines going well and more than a dozen skeins to take with me. Hopefully we will be able to knock out a super ball today. For the new found fans of The Marley I hope to not only have more information up on The Marley Scarf Blog but also to have some of the other clowns in the Brigade posting about it.

For those that are just tuning in my Clown Brigade is celebrating it's one year anniversary this month. With the exception of my wife {who crochets} every member of the Brigade knits. Since there are only seven of us this helps us produce things. We will be doing out first full stage show Sunday the 20th of May. There will be a special ceremony before the show to commemorate our first year and the accomplishments of the apprentices thus far. This is very exciting time for us.

By the way this is the working version of our logo. It is a bit different from most Army logos. Still, I suppose we are different from most Army ministries. Still. it is fairly simple and should translate easily into a patch. Which is the main place that we are going to see this thing. It may look like a lot of white but it will really stand out on a clown uniform. And since our hospital uniforms are all different colors white is the only way it will match everything.

It will also be cheap to reproduce since it only has three colors.

Well I have some more blogging to do. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Supporting The Marley

I have had several people ask me how they can support what we are doing. We will be putting together a booster badge and that sort of thing. I must say I am a bit surprised by the support that everyone is willing to offer on this thing. We didn't really have a way for people for help out. We are working on it and will have something soon.

The Marley Badge

This is the actual finished version of The Marley badge. I am working on getting it to a size that will fit on the side bar of a blog. It has a darker green section than the first version. The picture has also been cropped and is a bit larger.

There will also be another version for those that knit on The Marley. It looks as if we will knit the entire Marley on one 24 hour period. To the best of my knowledge this is the only time that a long scarf has been hand knit in such a short period of time.

We did knit a regular long scarf over three days with people knitting 24 hours from both ends.

We did have two other versions of The Judy Badge. A portion of one of the braids on The Judy was Crocheted. My wife does not knit. And as a member of such a small clown group we wanted everyone to participate. Also LaurieG crocheted on The Judy. So there are two people who have that badge.

There is also The Baby Lion Killer's badge. She protects the Long Scarves of the Steel City Clown Brigade from Lions. For some reasons Lions like a long scarves. I personally think it is a mime conspiracy to train lions to attack clowns. I could spend all evening on the evils plots of mimes so I will digress.

Any way that cute little bundle of joy likes to chew on yarn when she is not hunting lions, tigers, bears, wolves, gorillas, sharks, alligators and other vicious animals. Here she is protecting The Judy making sure that unauthorised people do not touch her. After all of the effort we put into her we will stop at nothing to protect our long scarves.

So don't mess with our long scarves or else.

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

Good Morning Knitters

Well good morning everyone. I spent the better part of the night working on the Knitting Machine. I am trying to come up with some felted bags to sell on Etsy. I should probably put some effort into getting an Etsy shop. Well chick or the eggs stuff.

It is a warm day here in Pittsburgh or at least it is supposed to be. We are looking forward to a frosty Easter. Pittsburgh is one of those cities that has a variety of weather. Often times in one day.

We had a good practice with the Brigade yesterday. I figured out how to make the firing pin for our confetti cannon. We will see how it goes. We only have two props that still need to be built for the show. So we are doing well on getting ready.

We finished another super ball for The Marley. So that is twenty skeins done. Not bad we would like to have the icord done by the end of the summer so we are on track for that as well.

Well I have to go out into the world and do stuff other than knitting. I know, it is a terrible thing. But what can you do.

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