Next Episode.

Finished taping another Yarn n'at. It is even better than the first one. It should take me a couple days to put togeher the video thing.

This edition will have a yarn review, news and an interview. Good times. I threw it together this evgening and it is saving as I type this entry. It takes an hour to save the thing and then even longer to upload the thing. If all goes well it will be up on the Vid Cast Blog wednesday.

We had a great time at Ravelry Night. And the Dolittle hat crawls along at a super slow rate.

I will keep you all posted. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Good Times

I am back in once peice more or less. As a reletively healthy person I almost never get colds and flu type things. This one was really nasty. I would like to thank who every covered me at work at work and I sorry to who ever's class i missed.

I woulkd also like to list some of the things that I accomplished while sick.

Watched every star wars movie. Watched six submarine movies 2 with Ernest Borgnine {He is a running theme in my illness, long story}. Watched American Gangster. Watched two McHale's Navy Movied on AMC. Then I remebered hulu.com {Thanks Ddancer}. I watched the first two seasons of McHale's Navy {69 Episodes of EB goodness}. Watched the first Season of Voyage to the bottom of Sea. Some of WKRP and two seasons of Barney Miller. And to finish it off the first two season of Airwolf. That is over 70 hour of Ernest Borgnine goodness. Did I mention I don't sleep much when I am sick.

Just for fun this is my favorite episode of WKRP

Part 2 of 3015 * Super Dolittle Scarf * Two Trash Cans

This is the next thing that I hate on my list. Yup this cute white dog. This dog sell Cesar Dog Food. Now you may be saying how can you hate such a cute little dog? Easy, this little guy is the result of generation or forced genetic mutation. This abomination is just another footnote Humanity's genetic medaling. We have all heard stories about Pit bulls attacking people unexpectedly. We these little guys are the ones that you have to look out for. In this furry little body beats the heart of a viscous wolf. He is only waiting for the proper time to strike. They will exact their revenge on the cruel world that created the deformed little frames.

This is why a wear Doc Martins at all times. When they have completed their recruiting and training they will strike. Packs of horrible little poof balls will charge out into the streets. They will bite every human they come in contact at the achilies tendon. They will drag people down and feast in horrific orgy of revenge and retribution.

Alright the actually reason is that a just prefer medium sized dogs. And the whole three thousand part series is just a put on. I suppose i am not as good as a running gag as i once was. I thought it was going somewhere funny. I was wrong, but, I digress.

For some actual knitting news this is the finished Super Do Little scarf. It comes out to just over five feet long. Perfect for Apprentice Stewart and her tiny little self. After the next practice i should have some pictures of her using it. We are still not certain how it will be added to the show. We need a bit more slap stick.

With the serious bulk of this thing it really does a good job flopping around. I have been considering hug pom poms on either end. We will see how that works out.

We have been looking for a way for her to know over the larger clowns in the Brigade. We have been working with a foam hammer. Unfortunately she cant hit them in the head because of the height difference. At the point we have been practicing her hitting them in the knees. This needless to say is bit violent. By the way I would like to thank the Mafia and Tony Soprano for messing up a perfectly good clown bit.

Well anyway I will keep you apprised on future development on the Super Dolittle scarf.

Onto some entirely irrelivant stuff. People have been asking me if the shop in East Liberty or Shady Side. Well I suppose I could look up in the ward map of the city. Still finding a real answer is a very boring way to solve this problem.

So I looked toe the ultimate authority of what a neighborhood is named, trash canes. Lo and behold there are two trash cans on Liberty Ave. They are situated at the entrance to our shoping complex. As you can they are on the boarder of East Liberty and Shady Side. This tells me two things. First there is no such thing as the East Side of Pittsburgh. If it were a real place it would have a trash can. That is just the natural order of things.

Also it tells me we have very lazy tagger in our neck of the woods. On the south side they climb the tenth street bridge to draw little pictures. Now those are taggers. Just a wanna be cursive name on a ground level object with a flat side. Please, my granny follows behind moving trucks and buses on a skate board to tag. If it is a long enough stretch of road she can do a whole mural. She just finished on of Milford Brimly beating up Donny Osmond. Grands Ma Ma does hate that new rock and roll so.

If you have been brave enough or board enough to keep reading to this point you might want to know one thing. Which side of the Trash can demarcation is the shop on. I supposed that would be the third peice of information I learned from the Trash cans. Well there is also the fact they about half full of McDonald Pie boxes. Interestingly the Shady side one is more full of them than the East Liberty one. No wait that is the third thing and the Shady Side pie eaters is the fourth.

So the fifth thing would be the fact that Natural Stitches in on the Shady Side side. Well I get off the bus at East Liberty Station. So even though the trashcan say one thing I am going with East Liberty. Besides you would have to be silly to judge thing by trash can.

We have a good night everyone. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

All the things that I hate.

O.K. so thre is not enough room in blogger to list all the stuff I dislike. There perhapses might be enough to list the things that I truely hate. maybe there is enough room if I don't use pictures.

So this will be part 1 of 3015 part series. Number 1 on the list of course is Mimes. I figure I do not have to explain this one. Everyone knows why they are evil

Number 2 is the flu. I have only gotten it back two or three times. This time is the worst. I am past the sick to my stomach part. I am still congested and incredibly soar. I have even been too grumpy and soar to knit much.

I did manage to finish the last cast off row on the super dolittle scarf. When I feel less like trash I will take a picture.

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

Sally & Me and Viewer Mail

This is Sally and I at Natural Stitches. We are in the Malabrigo section after the store closed today.

It is a good thing I am a Red Heart Knitting. One could get in trouble alone in the Malabrigo section of a yarn shop.

Well I wanted to take a couple minuted to answer some viewer questions. Lou asked if I wear the kilt often. Well I wear it about once a week. And it is the Gunn tartan.

Another viewer asked if I had ever thought of a clown version of the Baby surprise sweater. Well I don't recall if I have knit and adult version of that. I have knit a couple baby versions over the years. At least one was in insanely loud color and it was knit for a clown's baby. I will say that this person's suggestion has gotten me thinking. I will have to get back to you if I do some experimenting.

I am just about to finish up the second color on the Dolittle scarf. I will post some pictures when I start the next color.

Happy Easter everyone. Be safe out there.

The Actual Dolittle Scarf

After much playing around with the original design I have finally settle on what will be the Dolittle Scarf. It will be two of the original Dolittle scarves with the cast ons intertwined. Instead of two ruffled there will be four. Also it will be made out of the Old Stand by Red Heart. The Colors will be Mexicana {Like you had to guess} blue, red and yellow. The last three are Salvation Army color and the first three clown rank colors of the Brigade.

The picture is of me working on it a Men's Knit Night at Natural Stitches. You cannot really make it out, Still, I am wearing my Bad Knit Girls Tee Shirt. It just came in from Cafe Press. I am thinking of using this service for the Clown Brigade. They do have a nice product.

Just for fun there is a picture of me in a kilt standing next to the Malabrigo in the shop. We go in several new colors today. If you are a Malabrigo junky this is a good time to stop into the shop.

Well Airplane II is on the televisor. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

A Vicdast or Vlog or Something

I am not sure what you call this thing. and a couple people who know more about it then I do have a couple different names.

Any way Walt and I have taken some video of this and that. Most of it even has to do with knitting. The idea for Yarn N'at was hatched at the Tuesday evening Ravelry group at the shop.

Each episode is going to include and interview and some other yrany stuff. We are still not sure what other yarny stuff is. I am open to suggestions as always. If you would like to be interviewed or have a neat project you are working on drop me an email, leave a post that sort of thing.

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

Busy Busy

I have been working on several pointless things over the last week. First among them is another Dolittle scarf. The Punk Rock Girls on the Ravelry are work on a fund raiser type thing. I am making this scarf for that.

See it is punk rock type colors with the pink and black. It is made from Dark Horse Fantasy. Actually I am having a great deal of fun making this type of scarf. This is the second or third one that I have made. After I finish this one I am going to make the one for Apprentice Stewart.

Also on the strange project front I am now the proud host of a vidcast. At least I think that is what it is supposed to be called. I am going to do skits and interview knitters. The first knitter had been interviewed and the episode is just about to come together.

We have called the vidcast Yarn N'at. I has not take that long to put one of these things together. I am truely disturbed by how little talent and skill one needs for one of these things. I can see why the youtube thing. I don't know what half the stuff involved in making it is called. And still, I am able to put one of these things together. Truely amazing stuff.

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

Random Stuff - Pom Poms _ Clown Practice

Something that I know is troubling all those folks out there is how do you get a good pom pom out of red heart.

Well over to the side here I have a sort of step by step picture thing. And if you are wonder yes we get very snap happy with the camera at Hive Knitting.

Anyway you get this plastic thing and you wrap yarn around it. They you cut the yarn at the edge of the gizmo. Then you tie some more yarn around the center of the mass of yarn you have made. Then you have yourself a pom pom.

I am sure that is the informative rant about how to make pom poms If you honestly wanted me to go on and on about Red Heart Pom Pom I am sorry. Come into the store and I can sell you the gizmo and a promise I will talk to you about endless for at least ten minutes.

By the way this pom pom is the largest pom pom that you can currently get from Clover.

For anyone that is interested this is a large pom pom that will be going at the top of Apprentice Stewart hat for her costume.

Of course being a clown hat it must have the largest and bestest pom pom that you can get.

Onto other very important things. Someone wanted to know where I got a cut out of a Boston Terrier.

I printed out a dog I downloaded from the interweb. I then glued it on some corrugated cardboard. Moving on.

For those of you that are keeping up with the picture over to the left I am tying off the mass of yarn there. I have found that to be one of the most interesting part of the process.

Since this is such a long series of picture I am taking this moment to have an intermission. So the next thing here is a clip from our practice tonight.



Practice was fun tonight. As you can see , if you bothered to watch the pointless video, I started juggling torches again. So I am not back to where I was, still, it is nice be moving along to regain ground.

By the way if you are still following the pom pom action you pull the gizmo apart and fluff the ball. Great Stuff I know.

Back to the clown stuff. I may not be the worlds greatest juggler. Never the less I have always liked it.

One of the best parts of being a Clown is sharing the knowledge with other people. Having Apprentice Prealue just starting out on her juggling is great. Even in my beat up state I can still pass on that knowledge to others.

Life is good at the shop. I still have a hard time believing that I get paid to sit around a big room full of yarn. What is not to like.

I have also been have a couple people take classes. No men yet but a few kids and the Machine classes are doing well.

Well life is good. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

O Bobmas Tree O Bobmas Tree

Ahhhhh it is that magical time of the year that time when little yarnie people get together and celebrate their stringy craft. You may be saying to yourself there is a holiday for this. Why yes, yes there is. That wonder and perfect time of year is a called Bobmas.

Those of you that are not using the Ravelry may be saying to yourself has Z hit his head or something. The Bobmas is the anniversary of the Ravelry.

At Natural Stitches we will be getting together at 6:00 PM on April 12th to give thanks for this yarnie goodness. We will do so with offering of food in pots. Yes the traditional Pot Luck of the Bobmas season.

Alright so there are no traditions and we are making it up. That is the best kind of holiday. I mean who picked Santa Claus. What were they thinking? Fat guy in a suit flying around in a sled.

Anyway if you want to show up for this send an email to the shop at shop@naturalstitches.com. Isn't that clever shop at Natural Stitches. Well I think it is clever. Back to the subject at hand. If your would like to some to the Pot Luck bring a pot of a tasty food and let us know that you are are going to be there. That way we will have enough chairs.

Onto other things we have Ravelry night and had a good time as always. We decorated the Bobmas dog. By the way that is the lit up thing in the picture. It has pom poms made from Mexicana. What more could you want?


Someone sent me a Lol Cat that inffered that cats do not know how to use entertainment equipment. Be safe out there and keep you stick on the ice.

Apprentice Vest.

This is an Apprentive vest for Apprentice Speigle. I am at the putting on the trim stage of the vest. I know it is terribly exciting. By the way putting on the second peice like this is done so that it is stronger. It will have a zipper so I would like it to be a bit stronger.

In finishing my sweater everyone decided that they did not like the snaps very much. So everyone wants to switch to zippers. So we are just going the way of Mr. Rogers and will be doing the zipper.

If I get the thing done my Wednesday we will see what it looks like on someone.

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

Party Time

I did not make it to South Hills Knitting tonight. The cult had to meet without me. Their next meeting will be the same night as the next Men's Night

On the up side. the guys have been talking about meeting more than once a month. In April we are going to intentionally schedule them on the opposite evening from the Cult Meeting. It will be nice to get to those meeting on a regular basis.

Jamie from Hive Knitting interviewed for a job a Natural Stitches today. That is her dancing there. I suppose the interview went well.

I did get to mess around with the apprentice Vest against today. The vest has a slightly different design. We will see how they go.

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

No Pictures Good Machine

I am not able to post pictures again. Some day I might get annoyed enough that I actually move to a better thing. At this point I am not that annoyed.

I had a class in the Bond knitting machine today. It was the first class where the person liked the machine and had used it. Up until this point everyone that has taken the class has been having trouble with the machine. It was like having an advance machine class.

If I am not mistaken I even have people signed up for other machine knitting classes. It is nice that the classes are beginning to have people signing up for them.

I am going to look for a baby sweater pattern and put together a class for it.

On other subjects a new knitter out there has started posting a blog. Jamie, who attends Hive Knitting, has a started a blog. Jamie gets in Trouble is the name and if the gizmo worked it is also the link. If you get a chance stop by.

And on a slightly related subject Jamie just had her hair done. It is braided and really cute. Compliment her hair if you get the chance. Our manager Melissa also got a hair cute that is really nice. I never did feel right complimenting women's hair. Still, it is like new shoes it always has to be noted.

We got in a bunch of Denise stuff at the shop. Long time readers will know that I am a fan of the old style Needle Master from Boye. Incidentally when i make billion of Dollar I am going to buy Red Heart and Boye from who ever own them and turn them into a super knitting corporation. My Red Heart Boye Cooperation will buy Malibrigo and slap a big Red Heart on it so we can sell it at Natural Stitches.

Oh that brings me back to the stuff we are selling at Natural Stitches. I am not much for hucking stuff on my blog. By the way that will change when i have a book to sell but I digress. They have started to sell individual needles. This is something that I have always liked about the Needle Masters. I just like that sort of thing. If you haven't tried them give them a shot.

And like every good wreck this post will now come to a sudden and abrupt end. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Apprentice Vest

Work continues on making uniform for the Brigade. Since most of the clowns would rather have vests we have switches to making vests. Pictured is we working on the yellow trim that goes on an Apprentice Vest. If I recall correctly this one is for Apprentice Speigel. If I am lucky I will be able to finish it before practice tonight. If not then it will be another week.

Hive Knittting had a small group this week for our first cup cake night. Still at one point we only had myself and my wife. With the move to Joseph Beths we are starting to climb out of the cellar. None of the old people have returned but we are getting new people.

Ravelry K2tog was huge. We had around thirteen people. I do think this may have been our largest knit together to date across the boards.

Just checking in be safe out there everyone and keep your stick on the ice.

I Can't Seperate the Little Paper Things

Once upon a time I used to make cup cake a great deal. Marrying a diabetic that doesn't like it when I use the kitchen has curtailed this to a certain degree. I discovered today that I cannot pull the little paper cups apart. No great horror could face a cup cake day.

I am fairly certain that each of my cup cakes has five or six paper cups. I wonder if this will effect their baking time. Each of the cup cakes is turning out even though there is half a tree around each of them.

I imagine that there is a machine out there that would do this for me more efficiently that I can do it. The only problem is that it probably costs a ton of money.

Various books continue to move along. The last week I have been concentrating on Knitting For War. AS I throw together the text together I must now look to getting stuff knitted. I have a couple scarves, hats and mittens already done. This leaves a few more hats, helmet liner and the sweaters that need to be done.

In the up side I have more of the items done for the clown section. Although I think we are going to add the Dolittle Hat and Scarf to the mix as well. We have also been kicking around knitting and crocheting squares that will be used in blankets. That would probably be another section.

With all of the family stuff calming down I should be able to be able to move forward on that fairly well. The Etsy should should also be a useful thing in this endeavor. Being that I do not have a chair of book store that will probably be my best place to sell this thing.

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

Strange Stuff

It takes a lot for me to think something is odd. With my background there is usually not much that surprises me. One of the things that has surprised me is something that we are doing in our newsletter. We have a couple of these newsletters under our belt. So we are closing in on a fairly good format for the thing.

In the last issue we added a new feature. An advice column that is supposedly written by the shop's cat Raven. Only one human responded to the article. Everyone else wrote message from their pets. With the popularity of LOL Cats I should have guessed that the pet people would take this thing to an odd place. So here I am responding to email from Cats and dogs.

Oddly this is the first thing that we have had several people respond to in the Newsletter. We have asked for finished objects from customer and have only received one with pictured. The cat wants to say something and we get half a dozen replies.

This is the URL to get the shop's newsletter. Even if you do not live in Pittsburgh it is a good little read.: http://www.naturalstitches.com/Newsletter.html

Also if you would like to send your own question to Raven you can send that at raven@naturalstitches.com

We are also going to be posting responses from Raven on this Ravelry group. At the moment Raven is waiting for Ravelry invite. Never the less he has his own group at : http://www.ravelry.com/groups/raven-the-shop-cat

Feel free to join in the fun. Be save out there and keep your stick on the ice.

The Blankets Square Contest

Stephieface asked about the blankets that we are making. We are making them in 6 inch squares out acrylic or synthetic materials. We want to make them as easy to care for as possible. There is no set pattern they can be as plain or as complicated as you like.

We are going to be stitching them together so we are asking for no really strange colors. Neon Green Hot pink that sort of thing. Other than that any other type of color is just fine.

I still have to work out a few details, a drop off point and that type of thing. If any one else had any type of contest suggestions I would like to hear them.

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.

Blogger Issues Planning a Blog Contest

Blogger is once again not letting me open pictures. It is at times like this that you realize that you have not uploaded that pictures that you want to.

I have not put up pictures of the kids or the Dolittle scarf. I also took a sequence of pictures making the giant pompom for Lucy Dolittle's hat. Oh well

On other fronts book work continues slowly on various projects.

I am thinking of running a contest on my blog. I am trying to get blankets for our shelter here in Pittsburgh. We have been getting squares to make blankets. They are six inches square I think. I will have to look up the paper work. What sort of prize would make you all want to knit or crochet squared of cloth and send them to me?

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

Stuff

Fun was had at Hive Knitting this evening. I have been up to my eye balls in books and clown stuff. So it was nice to get away and knit with some folks on The South Side. Walt has started postng to the Hive Knitting Blog it looks as if the Hive Knitting group may be turning the corner. For a while there it was Walt me and my wife.

I am still playing around with the shop thing on Etsy. Several people have sent me notes reassuring me that paypal is safe. I sometimes think that I am becoming one of those people that thing a little gremlin lives in the conputer waiting to mess my life up. Although it is is better safe than sorry.

I have had several people tell me that they have been burned by people that did not send them checks. I wonder if there are enough people using pay pal that one would not need to take checks.

Ravelry night on tuesdays has been going like gangbuster though. It is amazing what you can do when you advertise something through and internet site that his hundred of people on it at any one time. That group should be having it's own surprise sometime soon. I will keep you posted on that when I have something to post about.

I have been working on Vests for the Clown Brigade. I should have one finished in the next couple days. We will see how they go. Be safe out there everyone and keep your stick on the ice.

Good Times

As noted I was suggested that Natural Sitches would have a surprise for the Pittsburgh Knitting Community. The papers have been signed and everything is in place.

Natural Stitches has decided to sponsor Knit and Crochet Today on PBS. It will start on MArch 17 at 2:30. With our sponsorship WQED has bought all 13 avalible episodes. This a great a shop much better than anything that has been avalible in recent years.

As stated in our slogan Where Pittburgh Knits Together, we would like to improve the Pittsburgh knitting community. I didn't learn to knit in any of the tradition places that people learn to knit. In fact after I learned I decided that I wanted to take my knitting to the next level.

Now this was a few years back and many of these people have moved on or are not around. But when I went to the shops in the area I sort of felt like a freak. I suppose a few years back male knitters was an oddity. So without a shop to call home, (I used to hang out in the Woolworth's downtown. Yes I am a Red Heart Junky, you want to make something of it?).

Back then there were not many public groups of people just knitting. So I went to the guilds. I went to two of the locals guild. One turned me away outright and the other made me feel like trash.

That is the nice thing about this show. It has a freindly feel and is exceptionally informative. It also pay Crochet it's dues.

With the exception of classes at your local yarn shop there are few places to learn to knit or crochet. I remeber a really freindly guild in Toronto that attended craft fairs and even had a couple folks that would come out and speak at your organization.

Grumpy knitters should be on notice. We want everyone out there to be knitting. WE are going to be freindly and give you the best information that we can.

New Charity Knitting

This was the first day of a new knitting group at Natural Stitches. I beleive it has been named knitting for the soul. We had Walt, my wife and myself at the first meeting.

I do miss the knitting at Knit 1 and will probably drop in from time to time. Still, they are not knitting for the Army anymore and about hald the time I am the only person there actually knitting for a chairity. It is sad to see thing pass that were once good. Still, time marches on.

On a personal level I have be very disapointed by how thing have transpired in the knitting world recently. I have to admit the Knit and Crochet Festival was a let down. I was mostly disappointed by the number of peopel that thought the event is some sort of charity fund raiser. There is nothing wrong with someone wanting to make a profit off knititng. I am very disappointed that the old websites are still up suggesting that it is a non profit event.

I also deeply regret my part in getting The Army involved in this event. Even though we do not get a portion of the procedes we had a drop off for yarn and items for our Fabric Fair. On Ravelry there were several people that thought the Army was getting money from this thing. This is one of those things that bites you in the rear eventually. I just hope the Army does not get slammed by this when it finally does go south.

I am waiting to find out the last couple detail about that suprise that Natural Stitches is working on. If all goes well I should be able to post about it Monday evening.

It is getting late and I have some work to do on the books. Be safe out there and keep you stick on the ice.

Just Checking In

It has been a while since I have posted. After I go back from Illinois my basement flooded taking out our phone and internet service. The Water Heater is replaced as is most of what is damaged. I still have to pick up some phone cord to get my internet back on line so I am posting this from the shop. If I have been really smart I would have thought of typing at home and uploading at the shop a couple weeks ago.

Anyway, I have lots to talk about and I will try and keep it to knitting relevant type stuff. We had a Knit and Crochet festival here in Pittsburgh over the weekend. It was a packed no room to breathe event as it was last year. The truth is I am not much of a festival person. I had to be there this year with the shop.

On the up side I did get to see a lot of people that I do not see on a regular basis.

On other knitting news. I just wanted to mention that there is something that Natural Stitches is going to be bringing to Pittsburgh. It is a nice little thing for the knitting community at large. It is also a surprise. Well it is a surprise because I do not know if I am allowed to tell people yet. Any if Martha or another shop person reads this don’t spoil it. I have like a whole production number thing I want to do to announce it. It will be really cool if you are into knitting.

Also in knitting type news stuff. I have had several people as for pattern for some of the strange things that I make. So I have decided to drag out the idea of the Etsy shop again. One again I would like to state that Natasha is my hero in the knitting world. She make really cool yarn and there is link to her on the right over there.

Anyway back to the subject at hand. I have decided to make up pattern and sell the on line for several of the projects that I have done over the years. The first one that I am going to roll out is my newest pattern, the Lucy Dolittle Scarf. This is a great little pattern that I will be talking about more as time goes on. I just made up one of these as a test bed for Dark Horse Fantasy as a yarn for clown props. It has made it through the first couple tests and we will see how it does over time. In the mean time I think I am going to make one out of the old standby Red Heart while I am waiting. I will have pictures of it after our next practice.

As for where the shop is I will let you know when I have finished setting it up. I did all the Etsy stuff a couple weeks ago before everything when haywire at the homestead.

Just as a question for poling. How many people out there use Pay Pal. I thinking of making it the preferred payment method for Zeeppo’s Store (Inspired Name Right). I have not really used it much so I am interested in what other people have to say about it.

I am still in the middle of doing some project for the nieces and nephews. I am going to finish a hat for Tank today. I am still working on Sierra’s scarf. It is a pink thing with a ribbon carried along in the center of the scarf. It is doing a funky curving thing as the moment. I will have to crochet an edge or seam it in some way.

There is men’s Knitting tonight at the shop. We have consistently had a few guys in for that. I don’t know how many we have had thus far but it is nice to see the thing doing well. If I think about it I will get some pictures.

Well that is just about it for the moment. I did want to talk a little about the nephews but I don’t have that post done yet. Be safe out there everyone and keep your stick on the ice.

The Good Adolph, The Good Whitey and Cute Kids

The Quad Cities is a town like many others in many ways. Yet unlike most town they stradle the boarder of Iowa and Illinois. It is the home of John Deer and my seven Neices and Nephews. It is also were my wife grew up.

In a lot of ways it is trapped in the 50s. One of these ways is the popular ice cream stand Whitey's. I can't imagine that you get away with calling an ice cream stand Whitey's in Pittsburgh or New York. Still, this is the Quad cities where anything goes. It is like Vegas without the sin.

Anyway this is Carol inside a Whtiey's in Moline. By the way the Quad Cities is Moline and Rock Island Illinois and Bettendorf and Davenport Iowa.

And like the Man or Whitey who has been oppressing people for generations this Whitey's has the best of everything. Look at how happy Carol is with her Sugar Free Moose Tracks ice cream.

Person ally I have met moose in the wild. I would not want to eat anything they left behind. This even trandlates to things that they are named for.

Another Quad Cities thing that you will not fine anywhere else is Adolph's Mexican Food. I have been looking around trying to figure out how a Mexican kid got the name Adolph. No one has been able to answer this question. Still, the man knows Mecian food.

And unlike the Adoph the rest of us know and loath this guy appear to be a good guy by all reports. He also opened his first taco stand long before that Austian Idiot went goose stepping across Europe.

One of the draw back of Pittsburgh is that we do not have access to great Mexican food on every corner. This is not the case in the Quad Cities. Besides Adolphs there is also Rudy's {Yeah I don't know why a guy named Rudolph opened a Taco Stand either}. There are also tons of mom and pop places all over. With the Exception of El Campencino and a Taqueria on the Sotuh Side Pittsburgh are stuck with Taco Bell and Quedoba.

Onto some picture of my neices. I have three neices Charae who is picture bellow. She is athletic and laughs at my jokes. What more can you ask for. This was unfortunately the first time that I have gotten to meet here. At this point she is in the final stages of her adoption.

She plays basketball and her favorite color is blue apparently {She had me make here a blue hat}.

She is also a better bowler than I am. I could claim that I was handicapped by my bad hand. Still, even if my hand was just find I am fairly sure she would have beaten me. All of this kids have a bizzare attachment to bowling. When I was I kid I suppose it was not that popular. In the Cities it is like a minor religion.

Another kiddo that is waiting to be adopted by my sister in law is Sierra. She is the quiet studious one that does not like to have pictures taken of her. Out of respect for her I will not put her picture up on the blog even though I sneaked a couple when she was not looking. She is also a better bowler than I am.

I will probably have to find some one to tach me how to bowl, but I digress.

My last neice has been adopted for a while. And as you can tell by her picture she is a shrinking flower that does not like attention. Tasha {who think I pronouce her name funny} makes is a Disney Cartoon look reserved. She was the flower girl at both our weddings and is growing into a lovely young lady.

She got robbed during bowling and still managed to get more strikes than I did.

She is bouncy and bubbly and life of the party where every she goes. She reminds me of a what I thought I was like as a child.

She also got a red hat {So there was knitting on this trip}. I am currently working on a pink scarf for Sierra and a blue hat for her brother.

Hopefully my wife and I will be able to bring them to Pittsburgh during the summer. They are great kids who are going through a rough time at the moment. Still, even though they are not biologically from the same parents you can not tell that they haven't been a family since birth.

I write about the boys in my next entry. I am still going through all of the pictures that I took on this trip. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

The spell check is not working on this thing. I hope it is not that hard to read.

In Rock Island

Hello everybody, I have not posted in a few days. I have been busy visiting with my neices and nephews. They are the ones I have talked about before.

Anyway I am here with a couple of them. I have not asked their mother's permission to put up pictures of them. So I will not at this time. I did take a few pictures and if I am allowed I will put them up when I get home. I also forgot to pack the cable thing that will take the pictures of the camera. They are currently laughing at my bad spelling and grammer. Believe it or not I acutally edit this thing before I put it out. I am just a lousy editor.

Also as I type this thing Sierra is reading it outloud over my shoulder. It is like I am having my life narrated. It is kind of neat. If I had the money I would hire a narrator for the rest of my life. It might get annoying after a while. Still, I have not reached that point yet.

Is there anything that the two would like to say to the people who read this blog?

Well I am waiting. Is there anything you want to say?

Sierra says "I don't know"

Tasha say "OOO OOO"

"Tasha says I would love to meet them sometime." She said the whole line including that she said it. Sierra is continuing to read as I type. She is really good at guessing what I am trying to say even though I am mispelling stuff.

Monogahela, Duquesne, Allegheny, Juniata. I just wanted to see if she would try and say those words. She did even though she pronounces them wrong. It was really funny. I suppose you had to be here.

Anyway, I am still working on the sweaters. I took a break to make some hats. I made a couple on the train up here. Or I suppose it over here. the Quad Cities is not really that much further north than Pittsburgh. It was more of a lateral move than an north south move. Although i did get to go to Chicago on the way.

I have always loved Chicago. they have great pizza. You know the deep dish style that you do not see very much around Pittsburgh. We have been contaminated by New York too much.

On to some knitting news. I visited The Yarn Shop in davenport Iowa today. It is just called The Yarn shop. It is a small little shop with a ton of yarn packed into it. It is in the Paul Reever Square shopping area. If you are in Davenport it is worth a look.

The staff was very freindly and did not assume I was looking for yarn for my wife. This is always something that i look for in a yarn shop. Also they had a good selection Plymoth Yarns and a couple other that i like. I did take a picture of the outside of the place. Still, once again I cannot up load it because I forgot the cord.

Well I am going to hang out with the kids while they are here. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Sweater Saga Continues

I put the first sleeve on the first sweater today. It has been a while since I worked on a sweater. I am aware that this is a actually a cardigan. I am not sure why I keep calling it a sweater. I suppose if I were English I would be calling it a jumper, but I digress.

Well as you can see there is a single sleeve on this sweater, I mean Cardigan. You can see the broad rainbow Mexicana strip I was rambling on about earlier.

There is also that purple bit that goes where the snaps are going to go. In case any one cares. That bit is the rank color of the clown. Purple is the Master Clown color and so that makes this my sweater. This is good because I had myself there to try it on as i was working on it.

Moving along, This type of sweater will be worn for practices and going to and from shows. Those that know the Army know that we have uniform that are like modified suits. In the case of the Eastern Territory of the United States out uniforms are evil. They have been made from some sort of indestructible polyester that never breaths. On the other side in the winter they do not hold in heat. But in the summer they will not let it escape. It is as if someone designed a uniform that was uncomfortable at all costs.

This is part of the reason for the Brigade to have Uniform sweaters. They are more comfortable and will allow us to move as we do stuff.

The arms in these sweaters are larger around than average sweaters as is the space under the arms. This give you a greater range of motion for juggling and other activities common to clowning.

The extra space in the arms also helps to keep the sweater in place at the bottom as well. This helps keep it from ridding up during juggling. There is nothing worse than having your jumper ride up while you are riding your unicycle. that is another story that was told to me by and English person. But, I digress

You may not be able to see it but there is not ribbing around the arms. This also adds to the free range of motion.

I am a bit happy with the ribbing around the bottom of the sweater. I may undo it and redo it in a smaller needle. I will certainly change it on all of the future versions of the sweater.

Also added to the sweater is place for shoulder loops. This particular shoulder loop is the still unapproved shoulder loop for the Brigade. It is your basic Salvation Army loop with clown rank added.

Also barley visible is a pleat just bellow the rank insignia that takes up the slack in the shoulder. This is useful and important. It makes the shoulder less puffy. One does not want to do the pirate thing while in uniform.

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

700 Post Train Wreck Message

Ahh the 700 installment of the mind bendingly silly and pointless Zeeppo's Knitting Blog. Actually I believe it is the seven hundred and first.

As is the tradition with important mile stone in the Knitting Blog I have added a video thing as well as actually pictures of my knitting project of the moment.

The video is a public service message about one of the most dangerous scourges of our time. Enjoy

Featured in the warning is the forgotten long Scarf of the Steel City Clown Brigade, my personal Kettle Standing Scarf. I was knitting that scarf when I met my wife at 9/11. Ah if that scarf could talk it would need years of therapy. Anyway Jasmine is a trained Professional and you should not try that at home. Even a short long scarf is a dangerous thing and must be handled with extrema care.

We are playing around with making video shorts of routines and stuff we are doing. I will put them up as we go unless there are a lot of complaints from my viewers. And even if there are complaints I will probably still do it. That is one of the blessing of having a short attention span.

Well onto actual real knitting stuff. This is me wearing the beginning of the first Uniform Sweater for the Steel City Clown Brigade. It is made from Red Heart {Of Course}. The Burgundy is a traditional Salvation Army color for sweaters. Burgundy or red is also frequently used for Special Service Brigades which is what my troop is according to the rule book.

The stripe of color is of course the perennial clown favorite Mexicana. The multi color yarn is not just just pretty. It symbolises humor in it's entirety. Green for it's regenerative effects. Orange for it's fire of humor and it's ability to change the world. Also in the color way is all the rank colors. Yellow for Apprentice Clown, blue for Junior Clown, Red For Standard Clown and Purple for Master Clown.

The sweater will have sleeves and shoulder loops. The Loops with be standard Salvation Army Shoulder Loops with clown rank rick rack added.

I am also wearing the rest of our practice uniform. A tee shirt in your rank color, khaki pants and black shoes. For more formal events we will wear a standard Army Uniform under the sweater. Still, for going to and from shows and practice this is very good.

So all I have to do now is make one for everyone in the Brigade. This is definitely a machines knitting project. I know some knitter scoff at the machines. Still, you would have to be insane to do all of these by hand.

This is a behind view of the sweater is any one is interested. I am going to add the ribbing bellow. And there will be a collar of purple for my rank color added on the opening of the cardigan where the buttons will be.

All in clown knitting news Bobby has almost completed the Knitting Proficiency. All he has to do is learn to knit socks, make an original silly hat and do a sweater. He is already working on each of these.

Even though it is Bobby doing it there is a great deal of personal satisfaction. He is almost finished with The standard clowning Proficiency and will be a Jr. Clown soon.

everyone and keep your stick on the ice.

A question for members of my Church, The Salvation Army

Long time readers of this blog will know that i am writing a series of books about the fictitious exploits of a Salvation Army Star Ship.

In the book I have a descendant of the Booth family names John Booth. His father and mother emigrated to the United States. He is a retired Major of The Salvation Army who had served as a Chaplain in the US Marine Corps.

Through a complicated and convoluted series of events, an alien planet of Salvationists is discovered. This planet is made up of former slaves who want to know God.

The planet is of strategic value to the US Navy {They have space ships}. To appease the inhabitants of the planet, and gain their trust, they appoint John Booth as a sort of Ambassador.

They give him the rank of Major General {two star} and send him to this planet. Is anyone offended by a fictitious General Booth that is outside The Salvation Army?

Hello All

Just checking in. I have been spending a great deal of time working on various writting projects. This leaves little time for blogging.

Men's knitting night went very well. We had half a dozen or so. The Ravelry Knit Together had over a dozen, so that was nice. All and all a good week for knitting groups.

I did come up with a great ruffle type scarf thing. I will take pictures of the test swatch. It is more ruffly than the potatoe chip scarf and is ideal for clown stuff. It is not very manly though. Someday I will make up something really cool that I can actually wear.

My Lucky Charms came with a popper dice thing to play the game on the back of the box. It is sort of like a parchese except with marshmellows. These sorts of things make me happy.

Clown Practice with Balloons, Tigers

This is another train wreck of a blog entry. As I put this thing together I have too many things to say and an unlimited amount of space to say nothing in.

I once heard it said blessed is the man that has nothing to say and does not have to be asked to say it. I may understand what that means but I do not practice it.

Over to the left is Jasmine she is working on a balloon dog. She has been at the balloons for a couple weeks and is really moving along at it. Now that I look at these pictures we really need to tidy up the book shelves at my church.

In our defence we had just finished with youth programs. Our Cub Scouts are really hard on the Corps Library. They always hit the Harlequin Romance section like you would not believe. I suppose I should digress at this point.

Moving along. It is the playing around with the camera section of the blog. So for fun I went back to making little videos. I have also noted in the video that my Corps also has very high ceilings. I think that in all of the places that I have worshiped we have higher ceiling that the average church. Of course the traditional church type setting has a really cavernous sanctuary. My corps does not have that. We win in the average ceiling height category. Our heating bill must be really outrageous.

Fun was had at practice this evening. We worked on balloons and a bit of juggling. For some reason more than half of my clowns do not want to appear on this blog. Luckily Jasmine does not mind. Perhaps they have taste or do not want to be associated with something that is so poorly edited and maintained. Oh well what can you do?

I have noted that blogger is not putting the spaces between my paragraphs if I add pictures. I have not clue how to fix that. I suppose there is that html br thing.

Work on various writing projects continues. Someday I think it would be nice to have some sort of attention span.

I have not mentioned this. Still, we have the Tiger stripe Opal Sock Yarn. I am told that this is really a popular color. So there is the tiger display.

Yes I stole the line from Tony the Tiger. I elongated a different word. He is a cartoon what is he going to do?

Anyway if you are into the Opal sock yarn come by the shop and buy some. I wonder is this constitutes a commercial in my blog.

I don't know. And I suppose I don't really care. I thought the tiger was cute. Although from this picture he does look a bit mean. Perhaps he is grumpy about the Opal people infringing on his trademark stripes. Well they should have thought about copy writing them when they had the chance. And tigers have hucked everything from gasoline to frosted flakes. The tiger the media whore of the animal kingdom.

Hmmmmm that went to a strange place. Well tigers are great, so put a tiger in your tank. Actually don't put I tiger in your tank. I don't want to read about one of my misguided readers placing a tiger a tank. Tigers do not like that. Also if one of my readers went to jail that would reduce my readership by fifty percent.

What else can I weigh in on that no one really cares about. Well certainly no one cares about my opinion on the Presidential Election. I have had half a dozen people ask me who I am voting for. Number one the Pennsylvania Primary is mostly irrelevant. The candidate is almost always picked before they get here.

At this point I do not have a candidate to support. Number one I have not really paid attention to it. The pundits say that everything is blood bath. Yet when I watch the debates it looks like a love fest. So if you work for one of the candidates I am sure you are waiting to find out where Zeeppo's Knitting Blog is going. I will be putting up a post office box where bribes can be sent. I will give each of the campaignes three weeks to send in their bribes. I will keep you posted.

Well I figure I have wasted enough of your time. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Ravelry Knitting

A great night was had at Ravelry Knitting. We had fourteen people and wide rang of projects. I was working on a clown hat. Three people were working on sweaters made from malabrigo and there were sock and scarves.

Walt was working on his two strand scarf. It looks like it is made from Cascade 220.

I continue to be amazed by Ravelry and the people that are part of it. We started a group for the Knit together and a dozen or so joined it over night.

Also on knitting fronts I had a nice machine knitting class today. It was nice to get out the Bond and use it some today. I do need to get back to making those sweater for the Brigade

It has been a long day and need to get a bit of sleep before more knitting in the morning. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Noro hurts Me.

Star Ships and such

I have been insanely busy with the book and my various other projects. There are several ships that are in the series. The one to the left is the one ship that is in most of the books that i am working on. The H.M.S. Lt. Col. Yanni Tojo Maru is Brigadier Mason's ship and a Salvation Army Rescue Cutter. A rescue cutter is basically a hospital, church, soup kitchen, ambulance and fire brigade rolled up in one.

I am still working on the color scheme of the ship. She will be all white probably with a red stripe that runs the length of the ship. Much like the Duster Response Units that The Army uses in my area.

She is a fairly big ship by our standards with 9,500 crew and three hangers with over a hundred away craft. The arm things above and bellow are docking ports for two larger rescue corvettes capable of dealing with a small regional disaster on their own.

I fist came up with the ship sixteen years ago when I first read In Darkest England. there is a brief chapter about something Booth called The Salvation Army Ship. I am not sure if one was over commissioned. I do know that there have been and continue to be Salvation Army Naval united. The Lole, De Febe and Queen Maud to name a few.

Also in the story I am working on is the U.S.S. Churchill an American Naval Battle Cruiser named for Winston Churchill. I am still working on a picture of that one. The Churchill is Commodore Jefferson's ship.

By the way I do know that the U.S. Navy does not have Commodores at the moment. The Navy has had the rank on and off for years in one form or another. The navy does currently have a ship named for Winston Churchill. To the best of my knowledge the Navy does not have star ships at the moment. Still, I am betting this is only a temporary set back.

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

The Cult

I could not get away from spinning wheels today. At the shop a group of spinner where meeting. I would have stuck around but I did not have classes and was able to go to a cult meeting.

The Cult is the half joking name for the Friday Night Knitter at the Boarders. Evenb there I could not get away from the spinning wheels.

This is Sarah taking a picture of her wheel.

Walt is working a new scarf made with Aunti M pattern I am not sure what yarn he is using. He is knitting with two strands. I am still surprised by how advanturous he is with his knitting. Many new knitter have to be pushed onto harder projects. Some even get stuck on once thing.

Well I just wanted to check in. Be safe out there and keep you 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.

Rumors and Such

Hey folks it is me again. Here to ramble on about this and that. As many of you know I am now working in a Yarn store called Natural Snitches. I may be bias but I believe it to be one of the finest yarn store in existence. And it has the largest selection of yarn and the most knowledgeable staff in the area.

Long time reader may remember my response to a whisper campaign started by a local blogger against the store. Well there is another such attack against the store that has started.

Some one is saying that Natural Stitches has very little yarn. This cannot be further the truth. We have every color of Cascade 220, Dark Horse Fantasy, Dark Horse Desert Rose, Comfort and that is just what I can remember off the top of my head.

We have the best use of space and the best organization of any yarn shop that I have been in Western PA. Anyone that says half our selves are empty has not been in the store and is a liar.

And anyone that has any thing bad to say about the staff should also think again. We have four dedicated knitting, crochet and spinning teacher. Combined we have over sixty years of knitting spinning and crochet experience. Very few stores can make such a claim. Figuring the entire staff I am sure we have around eighty years of fiber arts experience.

We have also dedicated ourselves to providing the best yarn for the best price. So many stores get into the name game. We have Malabrigo and Rowan but we are not going to push it onto you if that is not what you need.

I had a customer last week that wanted to buy something to knit something for a toddler. I suggested the Fantasy from Dark Horse which she had never heard of before. She told me horror story of the first sweater that she made for this child. She had been sold a bundle of Malabrigo. The child's rushed mother washed it with everything else. ruining the sweater.

Another thing that bothers me is a bushwhacked attitude has toward their LYS. People come into the store and comment on how comfortable it is. They then say they wished they had a place like our store where they could knit. When I tell them they can knit in our store they look like I just hit them with a brick. It never occurs to them that they can knit in a Yarn Store. What kind of jack up thinking is that.

I hang out at my local Magic Shop { for clowns that is the LMS}. I bring a frosty beverage and shoot the breeze with my magic dealer. We talk about God Children, the fact that David Blain is weird and what every else strikes out fancy. Why do Yarn People think they can't knit at a LYS.

The reason is clear. There are a bunch of unfriendly LYS out there. Any if you don't think your store has a problem. Ask yourself, do people ask to knit in your store?

Well I have rambled on about this enough. IF you hear a rumor about a LYS go to that LYS and check it out for yourself.

Fuzzy Picture

Well this is a fuzzy picture of the finished gray face cloth. Id did not need a dish cloth so I made a face cloth. I know, swanky.

Anyway the shop continues to be full of yarn. We had to take down the Christmas Tree. So it is sad to see celebrating our Lord's Birth with bold faced commercialism pass. Nothing says I love Jesus like a new toaster. By the way I did not get a toaster for Christmas, my toaster is fine.

I wonder what toaster Jesus would use? Hmmmmm, we better not start that again. Still, I think he would use a Toastmaster. But I digress.

Well I just wanted to state that I finished something. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Project Updates and Stuff

It has been crazy busy as the Christmas season passed through. Besides the shop I have been working on the book. So I have been neglecting my poor blog. Well now that things have slowed back to normal I can get back to posting.

Well as you can see my skills as a photographer still leave something to be desired. Never the less there are picture of what I am working on at the moment.

This is a hat that I am making for Miss Dolittle. It will look like a fez cap when it is folded up. When it is stretched out it will look like a giant stocking cap that will drag on the ground behind her.

This is a new version of a standard clown hat. Like the Victorian sleeping cap this one will have a pom pom on the end. We will have to see how it goes. I will probably make several for her. This one will be twelve or so feet long. It should have great visual impact on stage.

I will have to make another hat for our Music Sergeant. Both will be made from Red Heart Mexicana. I am considering needle felting Mecicana to regular felt and lining it and seeing what happens. I might be able to make a good looking few cap with the method. We are after all looking for head gear for the Brigade.

Bellow is a Needle case that I am sewing our of Black PVC. I have a few old cases that were made out of deep burgundy fabric. They have faded and a couple of them are now pink. So it is time to make something more manly that does not have holes in it.

These are the pieces that will go into the case. This case will be made for my Boye 14 inch needles. I will need to make cases for my Bryspun Needles and square needles.

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

No Good Reason for This