Balloon Madness & The Radioactive Weasle

 

Sunday was yet another practice. And this practice we spent most of our time working on Balloon Animals.  This is Apprentice Brimage well one of them. This is a picture from our Balloon text books. Actually it is one of the pictures that we are not using. I told her to look like she was happy to be making the balloons for the handbook. She like most clowns and seven years olds can be a smart alec at times. Saracasim is one of the corner stones of our training programs.

 

 This is a bear on a heart sitting on my messy desk. I took the pictures from the practice so most of them are blurry. I should have let one of the young people take the pictures. You would be able to tell what they are. I am not sure who made this one. It was either me or Sergeant Thurman.

  

 This is Apprentice Wilson and Balloon Sergeant Arasin. Wilson is the one standing on the chair. They are showing off our new bulliten board. We decided to do all the board in the Brigade colors. The board behind them is the one we use for stats. It had the chart with all the earn Proficciencies, monthly stats and lists of the Prociencies requirements and such. It is exciting stuff if you are in the Brigade. Actually it is not that exciting even if you are in the Brigade.

  

 This is a Radio Active Weasel. This is an inside joke within the Brigade. When one is making a balloon animal and it goes terribly wrong we call it a radioactice weasel. For some reason when a ballloon goes wrong it often looks like a weasel that has been in a nuclear accident. This one was maded by Sergeant Thurman.

 

 I have made quite a few of these in my time.

Walt is no Lady

At practice today we were tumbling. this is when we throw ourselves on the ground. Since it is not funny for an adult to punch a kid we do it the other way around. So the kids were pushing me over for a good por5tion of the evening. The young folks find this to a very cathartic time.

Anyway during this time one of the young Apprentices said this sentance. "Walt is not a Lady." It was entirely out of left field and I had to menion it here.

But the way I am sorry to suggest that Walt is unlady like. Still, this was the funniest thing I have heard all month. And when I asked the kid why she said this she simply shrugged as if it was obvious. Well I had to bring this to you for no good reason.

Oh an my Kettle is still empty, please fill. My Captain hits me with a switch every time I walk past him because my kettle is empty. I am getting chaffed.

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

Kettles and Sprucing of the Blog

As you may have noticed there is a big huge add above the center column of this thing. This is the add for the blog kettle. My Corps needs money to keep doing to stuff we normally do. As you may or may not know it is getting harder and harder to make money standing out side of store. There are fewer store that are letting us stand. We also have competition from kids with cookies and various other groups. Mmmmmmm..... Tagalongs and thin Mints

Anyway if you can find it in your heart donate something to the Steel Valley Corps of The Salvation Army. Besides the Clown Brigade we have many other interesting and needed ministries. At some point I will ramble on about some of the ministries I am not involved in that we do.

Onto rampling about this blog. When i changed over to the layout thing I never did replace all the stuff that was on the old blog. I added the glossary of abbreviations on the mid right column. I also started adding Army terms. This has made Oliver terribly happy because he made the list. After many years and a dozen computers he feels like he is getting the recognistion he deserves. Apparently running the spell check for me is a terribly taxing thing. Unfortunately Squirells do not have a very good grasp of Grammer. So my comas and periods continue to go stray.

At the moment I am watching the Catherine Tate Show on BBC. America really needs to find a show for her over here. Perhapse something where she is a lawyer. This is a bit she did for Comic Relief with Daniel Craig.



They are running Catherine Tate's Dr. Who episode on BBC America now. So if you have not seen them you should take a look.

Well be safe out there and fill my Kettle.

2:00 AM

Well another evening turn early morning has been spent with the crew of the Tojo Maru. It is odd working on a book like this. Every character has an entry in a lexicon that says where and when they were born and what they should look like. The most important character have a complete biography. Where they went to school who their family is. In a lot of ways I know them better than most of the people in my life.

I know that the church in my story will eventually do the right thing. I know that the people in the books will reach the detonations and achieve the goals that they should. Oddly the same cannot be said for the people in my own corps or church.

For so many years The Steel Valley Corps, my church, has been a neglected part of The Army. The Army in the Eastern Territory has a nasty habit of moving around their officers too much. I am certain there are good reasons for it. Falling church attendance a limited soldiery to get new officer from. It is a terrible cycle that appears next to impossible to break.

In the books it is broken by a group of people that say that it is not good enough. They simply decide that things should be a different way and they make it that way. It is odd how we in the real world choose to complicate things. We say to ourselves there is just one little compromise and then everything will be alright.

I sometimes think that is how the Devil works. Oh the old guy with horns is an easy scape goat. It may even be romantic to think their are demons fighting over us. Much like CS Lewis wrote in the Screwtape Letters. I am begining to think that old Satan does not have to interfear nearly as much as we would like to beleive he does.

We as Humans appear so able to latch onto the smallest detail of religion, nationhood or some other obscure beleif. Then before we know it we are ready to murder or kill for something abstract.

I suppose that is one of the things that has made writting these books so enjoyable. None of the characters are truely heros in white. They are simply people trying to do the best they can in uncertain times.

What brings this on is the character Mason. All of the other character appear so simple to me. If I want Fleet Lord Jefferson to do something I know what his character should do. I know what he as man is capible of. Mason I am never so sure. To clarify her character in this book I had to write a meeting between her and her adopted father. I had a clear goal explain her past enough to make her character understandable.

As I wrote about her I realised she had always been conflicted by her duty and doing the right thing. She is not able to do everything that she wants to. She knows terrible secrets that must remain secret. It is a taxing burden on her and she has no one to share the load with. I found myself thinking it druel that I had painted a character into such a corner. I suppose in many ways she is the savior character in the book. And like Christ she only has her faith to get her through.

I get the feeling that the more she goes through the less faith she has. At this point she is simply doing it because it was she is supposed to do. Even if that is her motivation it cannot be any other way. A character tragic in her solitude.

Well that is enough rambling for now. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Saturday Blogging

Work on the sometimes infernal book continues. There are a couple chapters that have yet to be written. Actually they have been written three or four times. I then throw them away because i do not like them enough. Someday I may come up with a couple chapter that i like and then i will be able to finish the book.

On the up side I have solved the ending problem. Being that it is a series of several books I do not feel the ending it that important. Still there needs to be a smooth transition into the next book. I think the way i have moved a couple things around in the first three books gives the first book a better ending. At this rate i may be done with it by the spring. I do feel sorry for the person that has to edit it. On the up side my typing has greatly improved the last couple months. i do not know if my spelling or grammer have improved any. Still, the speed that i can stick stuff into the computer is fater.

On the up side on other front I am working on yet anohter clown hat. I will have to take pictures of them and put it on the blog. i suppose this is after all a knitting blog. At least that is what it was supposed to be.

Another interesting thing is that the clown brigade now had an office. For those that know about old Salvation Army Corps many of them had apartments that the officer once lived in. Steel Vally Corps has such an apartment or quarters as it is know in Army speak. Any way the Brigade has been using the stripped out kitchen from the apartmen as a storage room. It is truely the ugliest room in the entire building. So it fits well that we are using it. That way the public does not have to see it. It is your basic one room apartment with a living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. Well it has a kitchen once upon a time. Now it has a clown storage room. Or a storage room for clown stuff. It is not nearly large enough to store clowns in. they need a great deal of room.

Any way i driftying away from the not too terribly exciting news. The news is that teh bedroom in the arpartment is not the office for the Steel City Clown Brigade. I am seriously considering getting a fancy sign. Well by that I mean photoshopping something and taping it to the door. We are not the kind of Corps that had brass name plates on everything. Although it would be nice to have a brass nameplate on the door. Still since it is not a very public part of the building no one would actually see it. Still it is the thought that counts.

The up side of having an office is that it has a computer. The mean that other people can start posting things to the clown blog. With all the shows and the infernal book I have not been spending that much time blogging. Perhaps when i send it off to the editor i will be able to get back to rambling on about silly stuff. worse yet someone might actually buy the book and will want the rest of the written. It is an evil cycle.

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

Another Show Today

We headed out to the Homewood Corps of The Salvation Army Today. This is us before we got out make up on. Ten of use went out and nine performed. It was our first show outside. It was very interesting experience and when we have our own sound system we may do it at Steel Valley Corps.

The next picture is us during the show. Kiddo is to the left then me as the Brigadier. Leeddo is in the back and Lucy Dolittle is in front of him.

This is the scene when we are planning to shoot the ship's chef with a bazooka. It does not really have to do with preaching the word of God. Still we have to shoot the Chef so that we can do the sermon. If you the see the show it is the only thing that can be done. When you just come out and say that someone gets shot with a bazooka it does not sound right.

I have been having a hard time find the time to post to the old blog. It takes me a good while to edit what I am typing so that it is not complete drivel.

Perhapse I will go back to making video posts like I did after tha hand surgery. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Practice Practice Practice.

It was another exciting evening of practice at The Steel Valley Corps in Homestead. You can't see it in all of the pictures but this is juggling practice. Since I am taking the pictures there are none of me juggling. I should probably take the video thing of people juggling. It would be more interesting than the pictures. Amazing that we are going into out third year and have no video of us juggling.

This is my wife juggling. You can't see the balls because they are over her head.
This is Sergeant K and he is blurry because I am a bad photographer.
Sergeant Chasko is doing very well at this. Cadet Harris was also doing very week at juggling. She has only been juggling for a week or so and she is up to three balls. This is impressive in the juggling world.

And just for it's random torture value here is my progress on the accordion. After this you will think I should have taken Juggling video and not the accordion. This is going to be last segment in the Army Clowns video.

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

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.

Brigade Practice April 30th

Practice Practice and some more practice.

A fun day was had at the shop and during practice. Looking down at the last couple entries i realize that I have not posted a picture of the finished clown sweater. Since the blogger is still giving me heart burn I have gone to the old standby photobucket. So if these pictures show up funny let me know. I probably wouldn't do anything about it. Still, it is nice to know these things


By the way this is the full duty/ practice uniform as it stands now. We are still debating what sort of hat should be worn with it. The hat in the picture is the hat I wore with my uniform from my for profit clown troupe. We have been thinking that maybe we should be wearing Salvation Army hats.

This would lead us to another interesting dilemma. Male and female clowns were the same hats. At least they did in the troupe that I ran and the one I came up in. We don't have to decide today. Still, I am not going to wear a female hat. So that means all the women in the Brigade will have to wear male hats. In the Eastern Territory the man do have much better hats.

Any way that brings us to other uniform stuff. Apprentice Aarasen just got his first full uniform from trade. As with every piece of clothing you get from trade there is some assembly requires. In most Corps you have one of the kindly ladies from the Home League alter your uniform. Here at Steel Valley Corps we do things a bit differently. You have to ask the kindly Master Clown from the Special Service Brigade.



Moving along we have a new apprentice with us during practice today. Apprentice Prealu was working on the all important selecting a clown face. This is her trying to find a wig type.



She is still working on it. We finally did settle on a Doris Day style wig for her. She is still torn on weather the wig will be red or green. She has settled on white face and a blue nose. Ahh a girl after my own heart. At this point we I am the only white fact clown in the Brigade. Everyone else is Auguste or a Carpet clown.

There is still hope for Apprentice Stewart and Apprentice Speigel. Neither have settle on a face yet. One of them might choose to be a while face.

Before I had the beard I had a blue nose. Unfortunately with the blue beard there was just to much blue in my face so I switched my nose color.

Well that is probably more than you ever wanted to know about clown noses and such. Be safe out there and keep you stick on the ice.

New Soldiers

This Sunday was a special time at The Steel Valley Corps and for the Clown Brigade. Two of the Soldiers in the Brigade were recognised at new Soilders. Bobby was enlisted as a Soildier. He is the one to the left getting his rank insignia. My wife and I were the flag bears in the ceremony. Bobby has been working on this for several months and I was proud to see him receive his rank insignia.

The thing that he is holding is the Articles of war. These are the rules that Soldiers and Officers promise to follow. At the moment I believe that makes every clown in the Brigade a Jr. or Sr. Soldier. Also over the the right is Jasmine. She was also recognised for enlisting. She became a Jr. Soldier a couple months ago.

The Junior and Senior soldier thing is about their age. Kids are Jr. Soldier and Sr. Soldiers are adults.

On knitting type fronts I have been experimenting with dish cloths. On Ravelry there has been a conversation on a local group about gray dish cloths. This got me thinking about what sort of yarn I would use for such a thing. Well we have a couple cotton yarns at the shop that would do. The most expensive if Cotton Classic that does come in gray. Being the cheapskate I am I went with Aracunya Cotton. This is a nice little yarn that has a great hand for a cotton.

Those who know me know I am all about the acrylic yarn. Still the one down fall of the Dinosaur yarn is that it is not very adsorbent. Well cotton is good for that. Anyway I am rambling about this. This is a picture of the work in progress. I know it is not that exciting but it is what I am working on.

I am knitting it on my newly beloved square needles made from palm tree. I have been collecting a set of these for six months now. There is only one shop in the area that carried them and they sold them at a decent click and it has taken me a while to build up a set. The shop I work at special ordered me the nine millimeter needles that I have been having a hard time getting. they are the perfect size for the Prayer Shawls I have been working on. Aren't they pretty?

Any way that is all I have for the moment. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

I have name my Knitting Book

For those of you that have been following this blog you now that I am writing a knitting book.

Now before I reveal the name I want to explain the book. First there is a famous quote from the founder of The Salvation Army, William Booth.

William Booth entering the Royal Albert Hall - 09 May 1912 to give his last public address - accompanied by Colonel Theo H Kitching.


While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight; while little children go hungry, as they do now, I'll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I'll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight-I'll fight to the very end!

Anyway that has basically been my attitude about the Army since I joined it several years ago. The bottom line is that The Salvation Army is fighting against every kind of suffering. Now as a clown there is an extra imperative to fight against things that are not funny. That is one the principal reason clowns hate mimes, but I digress.

Besides you did not really want me to make a list of things that I do not think are funny. I am looking at you Carrot Top. Moving along, moving along.


Now what might this important quote have to do with naming a knitting book. Firstly I would like to state that this title came to me and someone else pointed out the irony.


I have decided to name the book KNITTING FOR WAR.

Once again I would like to state that is not a dig at the book knitting for peace. Although I am certain that I will not have a pink cover on the book.


I do have a list of the types of patterns that will be in this book. They are as follows:


Knitting for the Troops : Wolly Bully and Heavy Socks

Knitting for Primeies: Primy Cap, Booties, Small Baby Blanket

Knitting for the Homeless: Watch Cap, ribbed scarf hat combo, scarf, gloves, unisex sweater

Knitting for Cancer: Chemo Cap Basic, Chemo Cap Fancy, lay blanket

Prayer Shawls: Heinz 57 Shawl, Steel City Clown Brigade Shawl, Brigadier's Personal Shawl, Steel Valley Corps Shawl

Knitting for Clowns: The Judy Scarf, Tandem Sweater, Really Sleepy Hat


By the way as always I am looking for suggestions. And if anyone has a really cool pattern that matches in this section I would like to use it. It must be available to be published.


I do have to have samples knit for many of these things And I have to write eight of the patterns. The clown stuff and the shawls are done. As you can tell many of the projects are fairly simple.


I do hope to have most of the text typed in in a couple weeks. I will be harassing local people to read it and check the patterns. By the first of the year I hope to have the book completely finished.


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

Heading to Homestead

I am heading off to Homestead to help out with our Corps Vacation Bible School. This year I have the first through third graders. Kids are cut at that age. They are just old enough to get into trouble and not old enough to completely know that what they are doing is wrong.

And since kids are wicked smart now it is sometimes hard to put them in time out because they so easily show the hypocrisy of our adult world. I would seriously work with kids for the rest of my life if I could.

Not that I do not think adults need saved. Far from it. It is just so much easier to teach them when they are young and the world has not had a chance to get at them.

Moving on from my rambling about this and that. I am working on a short sleeve Lopi sweater. It has been a while since I have worked with wool and it came into our charity knitting bin. It is nice in a raping the world and disturbing sheep way. I suppose it is slightly more natural than the dinosaur yarn that I prefer to use. Remember a dinosaurs that is dead and decomposed feels no pain.

We can keep telling ourselves the lie that sheep enjoy being grabbed by the ankles and shaved. Remember when they rise up against their Human Masters you heard it here first.

Well I could ramble on about the evils of wool forever. But I have to get going. be safe out thee and keep your stick on the ice.

Messing About

Well today I have been playing with some Lopi Yarn that came into the Charity Knitting Bin. There is enough of an off white color to make a sweater and I have been playing with that. It is nothing terribly interesting, just something that is not a chemo cap.

I am looking for a Hat Scarf pattern to make scarves and hats for our kettle workers. I am thinking of something in red and white. Perhaps a burgundy and Navy Blue. I am not sure. Being that I am not rich I will have to find an affordable yarn for this project. On the up side we have so few kettle workers that it will not be hard to make enough of them.

On another, slightly related subject, if you live in the Pittsburgh area and enjoy standing outside in cold weather. I have the volunteer oportunity for you. There is a hand knit scarf and hat in it for you. Email me if you are interested.

I am definitely not putting the Corps name on the hats. Steel Valley Praise and Worship Center. that is just a bit much. Homestead Corps would have been doable. Although Steel Valley Corps is not that hard. Maybe on the Scarves.

Churches do have rather long names. Well it looks that may to me. If I ever have to start a church it will just be Zeeppo's Church. Simply, easy, you know what you are getting. A clown preaching to you every Sunday and Tuesday {Feel Free to insert your own joke}. I would have Tuesday service just for the heck of it. Hundreds of years later it would become something that fanatically people would fight to the death over. I would make sure that I make it clear that Tuesday service is only because I like to golf on Mondays. That way we could avoid holy wars down the road.

Oh and if you are into clowns preaching to you I will have the pulpit again this Sunday. I have no idea what I am preaching about yet. I set aside a block of time Friday afternoon. I will write up a sermon then. I have been reading Mathew this last week so it will probably be something from Mathew.

Well I must be off to do something useful with myself today. 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

Blanket Knit Along

We have received a request from the Major that runs our Family Crisis Center for blankets. She would like to give every family that leaves the shelter a blanket to go with their house warming kit.

As always with Knitting for Charity anyone can drop off a donation at Knit 1 in Squirrel Hill. I am planning to have a special Knit Together at the Bee Hive on the South Side. It would probably be a thursday evening close to the end of the month. That will give us some time to assemble the yarn and such.

We are looking to make your basic bed blankets. And I know that takes a lot of yarn. I have had my Bond out and will be using it to make square. One of the nice things about the Hive is that where we knit is made up of old kitchen tables. And I have not found a table that works better for the Bond than an old kitchen table.

The Army Men's Fellowship had a Bowling Tournament today that myself and the Steel Valley men attended. We did not do very well. Apparently I am still not the world's greatest bowler.
We did not place. Still, the point was fellowship.

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

Sunday Knitting

I good day was had knitting at the Knit 1. The usual crowd was there and fun was had by all. Life has been plugging along here.

A great deal of time has been spent working on routines for our spring variety show. We are looking to perform it at a couple of our area Corps. The Brigade has been working very hard and I am pleased with the progress that they have made. For those that know me you know I have been persuing an illusive goal for the last five years that does not appear any closer now than it did five years ago. As part of persuing that goal I gave up my last Clown Troop.

The last nine months that I have been working with the Soildiers and Adherants of Steel Valley Corps have been nice. Well no need to get mushy.

Work continued to progress on other fronts. I am working on a pattern for a wavey scarf. I started knitting a wool version so I could block it.

I will post pictures someday.

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

So much Knitting I Can't Blog

There was so much knitting to do today that i did not get a chance to blog. Everyone come this Saturday to the Steel Valley Salvation Army for Knitting on the Judy.

More Long Scarf Knitting and the Long Scarf Knit Along

Some serious knitting was done on the long scarf this evening. Jimmy, Bobby and I put at least five feet on the long scarf in one sitting. This is super impressive considering how slow the three of us knit.

Last Friday I visited the good people out at the Barnes and Nobles in South Hills Village. They are still meeting out there and a good time was had by all. I do believe I will go again next Friday. And I recommend that anyone else in the area.

This Wednesday I will be having a free evening to go out to another group. I am not sure where I will go but it will be somewhere. No one is safe. BEWARE

And most importantly the details for the Long Scarf Knit Along on the sixth of Januarys are set. The Start time will be 10:00 AM at The Salvation Army Steel Valley Corps in Homestead, PA. We are asking everyone to bring a side dish or desert for a pot luck that we will be having. If you would like to attend leave a message on this blog or email me at zeeppo_the_great@yahoo.com

By the way the Corps it located just a block from the Homestead High Level Bridge at 104 E. 9th St. 15120 if you are going to Mapquest it. This is a unique knitting experience and knitters of all skill levels are welcome.

More details to follow.

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

The First Long Scarf

Yesterday was the start of a knitting odyssey for the Steel Valley Clown Brigade. The Brigade began their first long scarf. We are shooting for 90 feet with the little guy. It was thirty stitches cast on. It will then go to ten stitch garter stitched strips that will be braided together. The braided sections will be three feet long with four inch block. This design will make the braiding stable enough that we will be able use it as a prop for sketches. It will also give the scarf a unique look. To the best of my knowledge this sort of design has never been used for such a prop.

It is knit in Red Heart Mexicana and pictured you can see myself and Troop Adjutant knitting on it at the same time.

The knitting of this scarf will at times be done my three people at once. It is something that every member of the troop will have a hand in doing. Very few knitting projects are communal like this one will be. These scarves have a special place in the creation of a Clown Group. As the first one we are making it will have a special place in the history of our group.