Savage Chickens

Really Really Behind on New Flags

I am really behind on flags that I should have put up on the Blog.


Vietnam has had a few people stopping by.


Venezuela has had a few people stopping by as well. Hugo please send us some tasty oil. We are running out of countries who have oil that are talking to us.

United Arab Emirates, Hello

Taiwan we know that you are not part of China no matter what those people to the west of you say.

This is a really cool Flag

Qatar, Hello

Peurto Rico, all the benefits of America and you still get your own Olympic team.

Moldova, Moldova, Moldova the dance of Moldovia. I am writing a theme song for Moldova in my head

Mauntius, Hi. These folk are bucking the tri color flag thing. Way to stick to Russia, France, Spain, Germany, Ireland and all the rest I am not going to list

Latvia good evening

Grenada, cool I am watching Heartbreak Ridge as I am typing this.

Cyprus the only flag that is a geography lesson too.

I am still astounded that this many people stop by to listen to me ramble about all kinds of irrelevant things. Be safe out there everyone and keep your stick on the ice.

For the people from Saint Lucia and Grenada that is a Hockey reference. It is a game you play on ice. Saint Lucia that is something the frozen people in the Commonwealth do.

Edited Again and A. Nonymous and Don't Make Me Out to be a Dixie Chick

As I have found to be the case the List Moms edited me cutting out half my message. One person did respond with an email and invitation to their group in Texas. As she suggested that is a heck of a commute for someone from Pittsburgh. I will keep it in mind if I am ever down in Texas. I don't travel as much as I once did. Still, you never know.

I had two people leave anonymous and very disparaging comments on the blog. One was so offensive that I will not repeat what it said. They both suggested that I should get over breast feeding. I myself was breast fed at one time. So I have no objections to the practice.

There are many very healthy and important functions of the body that we do not do in public. And before you suggest that I am comparing breast feeding to flatulence or worse your mind went there not mine.

If we cannot be honest about making a group comfortable for both genders than we are not going to have men joining the ranks of knitters. Or if it does become popular in some circles of men they will exclude women.

On a personal level I could care less what the conversation is about, for the most part. I also do not care if children are being fed. I am not the bashful sort. But if you want to attack new people to something you must get them while they are young. And you will not be able to count on their level of maturity.

Also not to put too fine a point on the subject there are some women that no longer feel the need to cover up while feeding their babies. This even makes some women uncomfortable. And before you send me a rude message stating your position please remember the point of the conversation.

I understand that suggesting that breast feeding may make some people uncomfortable is like the Dixie Chicks attacking the President when their fan base is the NASCAR set. But many men are worried about girly thing infiltrating their lives. I like to call these men pansies, but I digress. How many of those who attacked the Dixie Chick really cared if what they said was relevant or not? Or even cared if they had the right to say it?

We are trying to make men comfortable with knitting not defend Breast Feeding. And perhaps the men who cannot stand to sit near a woman while breast feeding should grow up. That does not change the fact that if they have come out of the knitting closest they can go back in.

Also in the unclaimed comments was one about the food I suggested. I am sorry but that is way out of line. You can attack my possition on partial nudity by don't you dare say anything is wrong with Spam and Ranch Dressing. I will defend my right to kill myself with high fat foods to the grave. Carrot Sticks and whole grains is crazy talk.

They told me that I should be encouraging healthy food alternatives. This person also called me a Jerk so I am not going to post their comment. Knitting is supposed to be fun. Very few people really need to do it in the United States. If you are going to go and relax somewhere you should be allowed to do it with a cup of tea and some biscuits {Alright that is my time in Her Majesty's Service talking}. In the case of American men would it kill you to have a pizza? On behalf of all the men out there I will compromise on the anchovies. You will just need napkins.

Bellow is the pleasant email that I received about the post. Enjoy, I did.

Sounds like fun. And don't count baseball out. I am sure they would have said knitting a dying art at one time. The main point is that if your group knitts as an activity to do while complaining about Husbands. That generally scares off men. Not that we don't complain. Although I imagine most men don't complain about their husbands, but I digress.

Generally if a group is welcoming and primarily about knitting it will atttract a couple men. Men do need to get over the macho thing. Many Peruvian Men knit for the lively hood. And men should recall that once upon a time virtually all professional knitting was done by men.

Unfortunately it does not look like most men are ready to make that leap. Someday macho will be defined by individuality and not grunting and smashins things.

By the way you can see the entire entry on my blog. The lists moms edit me.

Peggy wrote:

Would you settle for basketball and football instead of baseball (a dying
sport unfortunately)??

My Saturday knitting group talks sports (and NOT ice skating or ice
dancing). We also talk politics, family, movies, music, television shows,
and anything else in the news. We meet at a Seattle's Best Coffeehouse --
they sell snacks that "aren't good for you" and excellent coffee -- AND we
all have stashes that are the envy of most yarn shops! One is a computer
tech, one a professor of French, one a librarian, one an engineer
specializing in bridges for the state highway dept. and one a criminal
defense attorney. I'm the only one with kids -- and they are grown and gone.
I DO have a grandchild and occasionally tell the group something funny my
DGD did -- or show a new picture. But that's about it. The professor knits
mostly modular things, the attorney makes hats and scarves to sell to her
cohorts at the courthouse, the engineer does a little of everything, the
computer tech sometimes crochets -- and I (the librarian) either knit lace
or things for that DGD.

Shame you aren't in Austin!

Peg in Austin

> If you want to attract men to your knitting group there are several
> things you can do.
>
> Snacks that are bad for you.
>
> The occasional Baseball conversation.
>
> And lost of cool knitting stuff.
>
> If the group is about knitting than a couple guys will show up
> eventually. The bottom line is that men are going to be a small
> minority in knitting circles. No one likes to be outside their
> comfort zone. In another couple decades if knitting stay as popular
> as it is now then there will be droves of male knitters.
>
> Zeeppo
>
> The Blog http://zeeppoville.blogspot.com/
>
>
>
>

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

Savage Chickens

Listening to Women Talk About Men Knitting.

On the Knit List there has been several people talking about Guys knitting. The Conversation started by asking if Richard Dawson really knit. I could not find out. I did leave some messages at some Richard Dawson fan boards. We will see if any of them get back to me. I don't know where he lives. If I find out I will sit out in front of his house until I see him knitting or get arrested.

Bellow in italics is the post I put up for approval. Bellow are my other recommendations that I knew would not make the list.

Rosey Greer did do needles point. I have no idea if Richard Dawson Knit. his bio doesn’t say.

If you are knitting group of women who want men to show up your right, Girl Talk is a bad thing. Ladies how many of you want to sit around and listen to Dale Ernhart Jr. turning left stories. There are some subjects that are simply male or female. And once upon a time knitting groups were called Stitch and Complain and that has come back again. And what did a bunch of women complain about, men.

And as a man that has attended dozens of knitting groups there are several that I have not gone back to because it was a group therapy session with knitting. There is nothing wrong with that. If you’re a group of friends that gets together in a coffee shop that is cool. There are also a couple of female knitting group that I have been told at the door that men should not be there. It also scares that daylights out of men when several women are feeding children while knitting.

By the way if you are in all female group that does not want men to attend do not be afraid to put that on your poster.

If you want to attract men to your knitting group there are several things you can do.

Snacks that are bad for you.

The occasional Baseball conversation.

And lost of cool knitting stuff.

If the group is about knitting than a couple guys will show up eventually. The bottom line is that men are going to be a small minority in knitting circles. No one likes to be outside their comfort zone. In another couple decades if knitting stay as popular as it is now then there will be droves of male knitters.

Zeeppo

The Blog http://zeeppoville.blogspot.com/

Women if you want me to show up don't spend more than 20 percent of the time talking about women stuff. Breast feeding is also a scary thing for men. I am not getting into that. Men know what I mean.

Pigs in a blanket are a good thing, Hot wings, Ranch Dressing, Coke or Pepsi, Pizza, Jeff Gordon, Bruce Springsteen, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and or a Stephen Segal Movies are good ways to attract men to a group.

This may sound like a silly thing to be thinking about. Men dominate so much in the world. Why not let them take second place in the knitting world. Well those that read this thing on a regular basis know that I will go on about the most inconsequential things at great length.

Well it has been an hour since I placed my post and it has not shown up on the Knit List. At least my important observations have shown up on my blog.

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

Ravelry - Yay

I was invited to Ravelry today. And only six hours after I have joined I have five friends. That is nearly twice as many Friends as I have in the real world. So I am excited about that.

This was a neat thing and I am glad that I sign up three year ago to get through the waiting list. Actually it does appear that they are working hard to avoid many pit falls of new and popular websites. I have put up two things in the Forum type thing. With the exception of the Yahoo thing for my knitting group I have not used this sort of thing before. I suppose that the Knit List is that sort of thing. Although the restriction on that do not appear to be in Ravelry.

I know the people that are involved in this already know about these neat features. Still, it did get my attention the amount of stuff that you can so on this site. I have to admit that I was not terribly impressed with the progression of the Knit List and a few of the Internet thing that are out there about knitting.

One thing that i am tickled about is that i get to use just Zeeppo as my ID. For some reason there is a drunk guy who has been using Zeeppo on things like blogger yahoo and various other places. So I frequently have to add stuff to my clown name to use it on line. When I have million of dollars I will buy all of the Zeeppo names out there. IT will be the first step in my take over of the world. Still, that involves mechanical kangaroos and blaming stuff on Australia. But i digress.

Well just wanted to post about this and that. Everyone have a good morning out there. BE SAFE AND KEEP YOU STICK ON THE ICE.

Knitting, Jesus, Fall Fiber Festival Update

Great Fun was had this weekend. I was honestly considering not going. I figured I did not have the time. Still, I am glad I went.

Pictured to the left are the Song Book and Bible that were given to Jim on Sunday. That was a very touching moment as well. We forgot to take a picture. We will have to make sure to stage a couple for posterity.

Three yarn shops have called and left messages over the weekend while I was gone. Unfortunately they were all closed for Columbus day. So we will see what happens on Tuesday. Still I have to think they are interested if they are calling.

This is a video I made while in the Prayer Room over the weekend. Well I hope to see some of you at knitting tonight on the South Side.

Savage Chickens

On a Ravelry update I am hovering around a thousand people ahead of me. People keep trying to reassure me that it is really cool. Still if this hold at the rate they are going I should be in sometime next week.

This evening I am off to The Army's camp near Elwood City for a prayer retreat. It is good to see the Army spending a concerted effort on prayer. Sure we have always prayed. That is part of the whole Jesus thing. The thing that we appear to be doing more is concentrating our effort on certain area. Currently we are praying for Human Trafficking.

I like to think of this blog as a happy place so I will not go into too many details. Still, there are currently people being sold into bondage in this world. And for the people thing that it is happening in far off land who do you think is the rich country driving this thing? Of course it is the good old U.S of A. They are being used for domestic help and far worse.

Onto happy subjects I am knitting a bible case. I figure it will be a nice thing to stick the song book and bible I am giving away in.

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

New Traditions in The Army and Clowning

A Bible and two Salvation Army Song Books arrived in the mail today. The Army Song book is a big tradition in our church. In most Christian Churches the Hymnal or song book is the thing sitting in the pew. In The Salvation Army it is that as well. In addition to there are leather bound version of the song book with the New Testament. This is usually so special that it is given to new soldiers and Cadets when they are sent off to training. In addition it is generally embossed with the name and rank of the person that is getting the book.

This all goes back to the days when we would run around in the streets of London telling people about Christ. It was also a neat little way to have everything you needed for a service in one package.

You may ask yourself what this has to do with anything even remotely connected to knitting or clowning. Or you have switched to a more interesting blog by this point. If you have stuck around I will explain.

In the old style clowning world that spawned me you get given something when you advance in rank. At this point I have a clown that has advanced in rank and I didn't give him anything. And the beauty of it is he doesn't read this so it will be still a surprise on Sunday when I give him something.

So we are starting a new tradition. You get a burgundy leather bound Bible for completing the Basic Clowning Proficiency and a Song Book when you make the rank of Jr. Clown. So Sergeant Jimbo gets a Bible and a Song Book.

We went with the burgundy because it is cooler than black which is the only other choice. I was considering asking if we could get the song book made in electric blue. I did not because it might annoy someone. And my officer has taken enough fire for just knowing me.

And I go Jimbo a new song book. I have not charged the camera and this was the only picture I had.

Going back to the clown tradition the gifts that were given at these stages were considered essential clown stuff. And us being Christian Clown what is more essential than the Bible.

So for Jr. Clowns they will get one and a half Bibles and a Song book. By the way if any one know why we only have half the Bible in the Song Book I would like to know.

Savage Chickens

Clowning and a Little Person in Mutil Media Extraviganza

This is a little elf type doll that one of the knitters at the Hive Knitting Group is making a sweater for. He even has a little chair. What is not to like.

And it is not a plain chair it is one of those trendy saucer shaped chairs. None of my dolls have a trendy chair.

I digress about those whole my dolls having boring chairs thing.

On the Festival Front we spent some time at practice stuffing info into envelopes to go into shops and other places. All of the knitting world will soon be covered in our cheaply made information sheets.

On knitting fronts I am still trying to rebuild my half missing collection of Boye Plastic Needles. I found a set on 9s and 10 1/2 . I am still missing a couple of the larger size and 2, 4 and 5. When I have billions of dollars I am going to buy Boye from who ever owns it. Then I will start making the plastic needles again. And I will make Boye Needles from Rosewood, Ebony, Bamboo, Titanium, Silver, Gold, Mahogany, Crystal and good old fashioned Steel. There will also be a special edition 19mm needle made from Highland Style Shortbread covered in white chocolate.



Well this video is from our practice tonight. Enjoy Be safe out there and keep you stick on the ice.

Little People & Clowns

Ravelry is Slowish

Just checking in. Not much is happening. Some more pamphlets were sent out today and a few more came in. So the festival is moving along

On revelry I am at just under three thousand. If all goes well I will get on there before I am so old and crippled with arthritis that I will not be able to knit or type. All I can say is that it better be as cool as everyone says it is.

The fact that I have had such a hard time joining mean that it must be really really cool.

The hand is coming along well. I am able to keep to effected finger closed. I am told this is a big thing. When all is said and done I should be in fairly good shape by Christmas.

I am concentrating on typing in as much of the book as possible. When I make millions of dollars off the book I will buy a lap top so I do not have to write the next one out. Although i do like having thousands of composition books laying around my house. And my wife really likes them.

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

A Busy Week End - Sergeant Major on Hold

I spent the better part of the week end dealing with a dozen or so details of the upcoming Yarn Festival. In addition to that I am starting a Cub Scout Pack, getting the Brigade ready for four shows, editing a book and attempting to train a cat. So as usual the blog suffers.

What can one do? Anyway a good time was had at Hive Knitting We may be few in number these days but fun is still had by all. I do enjoy our group down there. The Hive may have a reputation for being a strange place. Still, it is one of the few places that I fit in.

On the Sergeant Major and Training Front. Several people have offered their prayers on this one and I thank you. The unfortunate thing is there is no news. According to our Divisional HQ they do not know if they are allowed to make me a Sergeant Major. When asked why they say they have not been told.

Frustrating is no longer the word for this thing. Frustration comes when one is surprised by an odd behavior. At this point it is expected. I suppose I would have been surprised if thing has gone well with Sergeant Major thing.

Being that there is no official word as to why, my only guess is my odd past. I must say that I find it frightening that this may be the case now. At one point in history anything went in the saving souls business. We tell stories of our founder, General William Booth, sticking an umbrella in the ground and talking to it. Then when a crowd gathered to see the crazy person he would tell them about Jesus.

Joseph Garbedian dressed in outfits that would have made Liberace jealous and yelled on the street corner about Jesus.

The sad thing is I am not allowed to talk to anyone about this. Bureaucracy will be the death of us.

In reading the Army Blogs out there I have seen many people that are openly talking about renewal in the Army. Even though I have firmly believed that we are not what we once were. I have not talked about it openly because I thought it would hurt my chances of getting into training. That is sad. It is truly sad that a member of an organization can not talk about what is wrong with their organization without fear of being ridiculed. Even if in my case it is behind closed doors and I am not allowed to know.

We were once a church that was proud of outcast heritage. We were proud of the strange people that would join our ranks. Now we want to be respectable. And I fear if we get too respectable the outcast may one day not be welcome at out doors. Currently they are not welcome as officers.

I still firmly believe we are the best church out there. I firmly believe that we are the most Christ like denomination out there. If there was anyone better or doing more work for Christ I would join them. I just fear that one day we may loose that position because of our attitude toward our own people.

Pray for us out there in Blog Land. Satan is attacking us like he attacks us all. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice

Knit Wiki

Ahhhhhhhhh..... The Perfect Evening AMC is playing Midway. On tourchwood a Pterodactyl ate a Cyberman who was a woman. I have some black cherry drink, popcorn and a black cat. I am not eating the cat that was just the order in which I thought of the things that I have.

I have joined the new millennium and finally bought a flash drive. It is a pretty orange one with that folds up like a switch blade. Every computer that I come in contact with besides the one in my house does not have a floppy disk drive. It had a 2 gigabyte capacity and can carry my current series of books and the entire Lexicon of information that goes with the books. Of course me being the cheapest person on the planet I waited till it was on sale.

On the knitting front. The samples for the new shop are excellent practice for the new way that I am knitting. I think that even after i can use my hand again I will continue to use that Shetland Style knitting. I am starting to look for double pointed needles 14 inches long so that I can see if knitting Shetland style in the real way is even better.

Failing double points I have some Inoxal needles. I have not found any Inoxal needles being sold on line except for eBay. I wonder if they are out of business. The ones that I have were inherited for other clowns. I am also working on a way to make a clip on received for the Double Point Needles.

Looking around at needles has made me wonder again about the different sizes. I have no idea why this subject fascinated me so. Here is a chart of American British and Japanese sizes. I wonder why there are so many needles bunch up between 2 and 7 millimeter in Japan. The American sizes are a bit open around 7 millimeter.

I truly have no idea where this is going. Just some random ramblings.

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

Stuff in the Knitting World.

I managed to get fryers and posters into a couple more shops today. I am not sure how many are signed up at this point. We have a few in and things are looking up on that front.

Moving along the book is continuing to come together as well. I am typing it in as slowly as Humanly possible. In another month or so when my hand is in better shape I should be able to finish it off quickly. I have decided to add a good battle scene in the first couple chapters. Nothing like a good shot em up to get things going.

The cats are being silly as cats tend to be. Abigail likes to follow around the cursor on the screen. This of course slows down my already snail like typing. Well I just wanted to check in.

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

Thurday Visiting People

I am heading out to have more stuff printed for the festival. I do not have the information in as many shops as I would like. So I am going to spend the better part of this week end and next week visiting shops.

On other fronts we had a surprisingly good practice yesterday. Those that know my Corps know that there has been infighting like in many churches. The Brigade has not experienced much of this. Although recently some of this has spilled over into the Brigade. As you might imagine this is not a good time for this. We are getting ready to do the festival and have four shows in the next month.

With all that has being going slightly askew it is even more amazing when things go right.

Moving on I am still working on swatches. There is a sort of peaceful feeling that comes from making rectangles of yarn. It is sort of like making a scarf with a really strange set of rules. On the up side you get to use all kinds of yarn and experiment with the stitches. What is not to like. I suppose you are not really making something useful in the tradition sense. Still it is a neat exercise.

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

Savage Chickens

Savage Chicken

Out and About

I did not get alot of knitting done today. I did get to visit with City Council Member Jeffery Koch of Pittsburgh.

On July 4th i did a show for Pittsburgh and have yet to be paid for it. Well I have talked with half the people that work for the Parks department and basically the bottom line is it is no one's fault. And speaking with the councilman it is a bad system no one can fix.

Fortunately I have my knitting to fall back onto for a living. But, I digress. For those of you that do not know Pittsburgh is a former steel producing city. And like many rust belt towns we have lost our primary industry. Now we are a city half the size it was when I was born. Oddly we still have a city government the same size as we did back then.

I am clown not a politician or political scientist. Still, if your town is bankrupt, as Pittsburgh is, you can't act like you did when your were rich. In our case we don't appear able to run our city in an efficient manor. That is probably why the city is in receivership.

Once again I am a clown and not someone in the know. Unless you are talking about balloons, knitting and keeping 2 to six balls in the air. At that point I am your guy, but once I digress. Anyway if you run an organization that is failing something must be going wrong.

According to the year 2000 census there are 394,000 people living in Pittsburgh. Somewhere there must be a city of around 400,000 that is doing well. If you are one of those cities please email me your laws.

I know stealing someone else's ideas is not very original. We are getting desperate. If I can get the city to adopt the laws of your city we will rename something after your city. We are building a Casino, we could name that.

And yes of you live in a city with a casino we are shooting ourselves in the foot. We just wanted to make sure there was no chance our economy will recover. In Pittsburgh we leave nothing to chance.

Well have a good morning everyone. I will be in Hometead for knitting there. I am currently washing my Kilt Hose so I can wear my kilt to Homestead. My freaky punk rock knitting belt only fits on my kilt that had really large belt loops.

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

Fiber Festival Update

We have been getting registrations from individuals in. I have have had four more people volunteer. Even the Mystery Male Knitter has been volunteered by the woman in his life to help with one of the Knitting Classes.

Knit 1 has rented a booth and a couple more shops are supposed to get back to me by Wednesday. This afternoon before Hive Knitting I will be off to a couple more shops to drop off posters and brochures for the Festival. The Press releases should be going out this week and everything appears to be moving along.

I will keep you posted on further developments. I am off to see the Printer. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Knitting at Boarders

I have decided to make the leap into a full blown multi media blog entry. This entry has video picture and good old fashion types text. Folks that receive this thing via one of those feed thing that sends this to your email mail. Let me know if the video shows up in the Email. I am trying the Blogger way of adding video. The Blogger thing did not work so it is back to google. For some reason the Youtube only lets me load video half the time. Half the time I have to go back another day to upload a video. And my life is such a while wind of activity I have no time for technology to catch up with me.

Well that was my latest adventure at Knitting public. By the way if you are in the South Hills two fridays from now you should stop by. I can not say enough how nice the Boarder's has been two us. Usuaully you could yourself luck if the place you are holding your meeting at just leaves you alone. These people go out of their way to make you feel welcome.

This is Chris who was kind enough to model a baby sweater that LaurieG had made. We did not have a baby at the group so we did the best that we could.

I have decided that I am going to interview the knitters that I come in contact with. The me talking about stuff on the viedo is nice and all. Still, I think it might actually be interesting to hear what other people have to say about knitting. I myself know that I have a strange view of knitting.

I think I should ask a standard set of questins. If anyone has a question or questions they think I should ask post them.

Well I think I have rambled on enough for one entry. Be safe out there everyone and keep your stick on the ice.

Heading off to Knitting Again

It is the Friday night knitting group. I am still working on swatches and am now on a very nice wool thing made by Krammer. The pamphlets are in a couple of shops. With things going at the rate that they are we should have a nice little festival by the time it rolls around in November.

I do need to run off some more I will have to hit the copy place. The registration should be up on line soon. If you have any question call me at 412 431-0579.

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

Savage Chickens

Video Savage Chicken

Swatches and the Uknitted Nations

I am working on a swatch of Bamboozle. I have not knit with this before. I have knit with bamboo before but not this company. It is nice stuff. I have also been working with some Kramer Yarn that is also nice stuff. I have to block them and I will take some pictures when I have finished them.

On the blogging front the Uknitted Nations blog has a least a couple members now. There are many knitting blogs focusing on a special part of knitting. I hope this will be a nice forum. I should probably post some kink of advert on the other blog i post at. Well it is a nice hobby this blogging about one's hobby.

Any way I am off to a movie tonight with the Men's Club at the Corps. We are going to see the new MR. Bean Movie. That should nice.

Well Have a good evening everyone and be safe out there.

Techinical Issues

Had some technical issues with the last post. I have no idea what went wrong there. It looked alright on Youtube. Well what ever. I will do another video entry answering all the thing I did in the first.

I was about doing festival business again. I go a nice email for a nice lady that wants to demonstrated spinning rabbit fun into yarn and sell some rabbit related materials. That would be a nice booth.

We have a couple new people interested in the Clown Brigade. This is good because we need to double the size of the Brigade in the next year so that we can continue to do what we have been doing. This is a good thing.

The makeshift punk rock knitting belt has been working really well. My rate of knitting is slowly climbing back up to where it was when I was two handed. If this keeps up i may even be able to surpass my knitting rate.

I am working on a sample as we speak. It is the first time that I have been knitting for something other than clown or entertainers. I don't know, I am starting to feel like a respectable knitter.

On the Army front something is holding everything up as far as entering the Training School and I am not allowed to know what it is. I was talking to a Major who said that he had to wait eight year before he was allowed to enter our Seminary. To this day they do not know what the hold up is. On the up side I am on my eighth year. Perhaps that means that I am getting closer. I have been thinking about adding a counter to the side of this blog thing.

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

Hive Knitting

600th Post Train Wreck

Welcome to my six hundreth entry. Being that my blog can generously be reffered to as a train wreck and added pictures of famous historic and current train wrecks. A great deal has been happening so I will get right to it.

First off on the hand report. I will be wearing the splint for at least another month. I am getting better at doing things with my left hand as a consequence. I have been writting with my left hand and typing with it as well. It has been stange having the one hand. Still, it has been interesting.

On the one handed knitting front I have been working on a new way to knit. I am allowed to use the pointer finger and thumb on my right hand. This is useless for most things. For knitting this is enough to crawl along at a paintfully slow rate. I have had some success with a sort of tecnique by holding my right needle against my waist. I am able to get up to a rate that is close to what I could do before. Using my 14 inch Boye needles it is much like the Shetland Knitting Style using a knitting belt.

In the circus many of our people used a knitting belt when making long sweaters and other project that required a lot of knitting. I did it a coule times and have a clip on version of that knitting belt device somewhere. I only have a few very long double point needles. I am going to head to the hardware store today to see if there is someway that I can make a clip on device that would work like the knitting belt with the Boye Needles.

If I find something I can rig I will bring it to Hive Knitting and shoot a video of it. I know it is super cool and will probably shake the very foundations of the knitting world. Well, it might not, still it will be a neat thing if it works.

I did sign up for Raverly a month ago and there are over ten thousand people ahead of me.

On the book front great progress has been made as well. Because my typing has slowed to a crawl I have written out the book long hand for the last month. With the additional time on my hands I have written almost all of the book. I am currently working on the end of the book and the set up for the first chapter of the second book in the series.

I know I rambled on about this a couple days ago. This has been a strange thing for me. I have been playing around with this book for the better part of eight years. It was a sort of hobby that I pulled out to amuse myself when I had the free time. I am currently sitting here with my I have half a dozen note books full of text that needs to be typed in. It is the closest that I have come to finishing a fiction book. I only hope someone will want to read it after it has been edited.

The Fiber Festival is also moving along. Press releases should be going out this week and most of what can be done at this point has already been done. With the pamphlets going out this week all that can be done is to wait and see if people sign up. We still need a couple more volunteers if anyone is interest email me.

Soon it will be off to Hive Knitting and the Hardware store. I would like to see some more people at Hive Knitting. Last summer through early fall were lean times for the groups as well. There has been a couple of the regular folks that have dropped away and I wondering if it has anything to do with the heavily male presence at the group.

Last week there was only one woman at the group. It is not that I mind hosting the "Male Knitting Group". I am wondering if there is some sort of connection between the female knitters that does not translate to the male knitters. I suppose that there must be.

In the end it is probably not that important. Still, these are the things that run around in my head when I am typing this blog.

I did have another email about someone that wanted to kow if the group was meeting and if they could attend. I find that about one in five of these email invites has a person attend the group. I have had a couple in the last couple weeks. We will see if anyone shows up.

Well it is off to the hardware store to see what I can find. Everyone be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Super Savage Chicken

Deffending the Boye

Long time readers know that I am frequently edited or deleted by the Knit List Moms. For this reason I don't usually post unless it is something I am an expert at or is something I feel passionately about.

Such a subject has been making it's rounds on the list. Namely that Boye Needles are junk. First off this is simply not true.

This falls into two categories. People that hate metal needles and people that have trouble with their interchangeable needles.

First off if you hate metal needles you have no business offering an opinion on Boye Needles. It is like asking Mary Todd Lincoln what she thought of the play.

Moving along that brings me to the interchangeable needles. I have a super old set that has been inherited from the clown that taught me to knit. I have no idea how old it is. I am fairly sure it is older than me. I use it at home for experimental stuff and should probably get some new chores so I can have a more complete set.

I am considering getting a new set because I do not have a complete set. Also it appears that the Boye needles have a wider range than most.

The main detraction is that the needles separate from the chords. I have not had this problem. Maybe I tighten them enough I don't know. I have used Denise needles and had the tip come off when they are not clicked all the way in. The bottom line is that it looks as if this can be done with any set of needles.

Perhaps they are just a more manly set of needles.

Now this may seem like a pointless thing to argue over. The thing is that people who hate these needles are offering free advice. I have come across the same thing with Knitting Machines. A hand knitter who hates machines cannot give an opinion on Machines. Yarn snobs should not give thoughts on Red Heart.And needles snobs should not be telling people something is terrible that they hate.

To be fair to the Moms I have included the entire entry. I do find it interesting that the strongest defence of the Boye Needles is not allowed to have anyone comment on their comment.

momnote: I think this discussion is turning out to be one of those 'let's agree to disagree' type. There will always be personal preferences for needles (among other things). No single brand of needle is 'right or wrong', just simply preferred or not. Let this post be the last of the "debate".------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------
I have been attending knitting groups for several years now. And every time that I get out my old set of Boye Straits there is almost always a negative comment about them. I have never heard of a brand that takes as many shots as the Boye Brand. The truely sad thing is that many of the inovations that we now love in addi turbo, denise or other companies were first done my Boye. It is easy to slap around the first company to do something. Still, they should have received some more respect from the knitting community for it.In addition they are the most widely availible needle out there. This has made them the gateway to the knitting world for many generations of knitters.You can always find fault with anything. Still, how many of us first learned knit with these needles. Be nice to Boy Needles. There would not be as many knitters or the variety of needles without them.

Savage Chickens

Metal - Knitting - And Hitler is Still a Jerk

It is after Midnight here in Pittsburgh and I am making a typed blog entry. You would think that talking into the camera would be easier for me, Still, for some reason that talking into the thing and then uploading it feels like a lot of work to me.




Anyway I am making a swatch and listening to Angra's greatest hits. They by the way are this millennium brightest light that Metal is not dead. I hope Kurt Cobain in turning over in his grave. Not that I have anything personal against Kurt.



Well yes I do he made grunge popular. He almost singlehandedly destroyed not only metal but rock and roll as well. Sure everybody has a bad day. But album after album of depressing want to throw yourself off the nearest cliff. By the way there are people that think that he faked his death and is living a secret life away from Courtney Love. Well I understand the hiding from Courtney Love thing. Either way he is not polluting music with his garage born hell like noise. By the way Smells like Teen Spirit is the Elevator Music in Hell.


Sorry did not mean to beat up on old Kurt. Still, if he is in hiding I hope Elvis kick the day lights out of him everyday.

Moving along, I had a wonderful revelation the today. Well it was not really a revelation it was more like a nice thing. Long time viewers will know that I have my hand operated on. For a while there I did not think my doctor had a sense of humor. Now most people that are being operated on do not dwell on such thing. Still, to a clown this is an important thing.


Anyway the hand is getting better. I still have the splint thing though and will have it for another month. And thanks for the prayers and warm thought through this time of discomfort.

Back to my supposedly humorless doctor. As you know if you read this blog I tend to wonder off in many directions conversationally. Today with the Doc was no different. He was talking to me about the healing process and the new exercises I need to do and we go on the subject of Hitler. Hitler is a bad penny that come up in the strangest places.


Well I will stop that line of thought before I go off in a strange direction. You see I am capable of editing myself on occasion. Although if I were good at it you would not have know that i just edited myself. I also would not have rambled on through this paragraph about editing myself.



Any way I will leave the paragraph in, someone might thing it it funny. Which reminds me of a story about a Priest, a Rabbi and a komodo dragon in a pink and yellow dress. Never mind I need to get back to the Hitler story.


Anyway in the course of the conversation I stated that Hitler was a Jerk. With out a skipping a beat he states "That was unnecessary." as if defending Hitler with out the slightest change of facial expression.



A Master clown usually has a keen sense of humor judgement. We call it Mel Brooksdar. Well actually I am on the only one that call it that, but I digress. You see in my mind there is a Mel Brooks theme to today, or is a Gene Wilder theme. Either way it has been entertaining in my mind today.



But back to defending Hitler. My usually well tuned sense of Humor Radar completely missed that he has a very very very dry sense of humor.



And by the way my wife just walked in and I relayed the story to her. She has just informed me that my doctor is Jewish. Actually she informed me that I was talking to a Jewish person about Hitler on the Jewish New Year. Anyway, I do know if that makes the story funnier or just weird. With me it is usually both.



I also had a long email about what is the proper way to wear a kilt. The answer is around your waist. Once upon a time there were all sorts of tradition surrounding what type of things to wear with kilt. In this day an age you can think of the kilt as something you can get married in or a super comfortable pair of jeans.



To illustrate, this is Sir Sean Connery in modern Scottish formalwear. Some men wear a bow tie and white shirt.



Off on another tangent being the only male at many knitting groups over the years I feilded many question about the kilt. A very popular theme is how good men look in kilts. Many also think that this kilt is a sort of anachronism brought out for high holy Scottish days.



There are no High Holy Scottish days as such. There is Robert Burns day and in the US Tartan Day. For most of the Scots that I know this is more of an excuse to get out a good bottle of Scotch, but I digress.



If you are Scottish wear the kilt. If you like the Kilt wear the kilt. I don't care there is always an excuse to wear a kilt even if your are not Scottish, Irish, Manx or Welsh. This guy over here is wearing a kilt because he is throwing a rock. You see, even throwing a rock looks more impressive in a kilt. If you want a reason to wear a kilt email me and I will find you a reason and a tartan you can wear. You can even wear one of those leather kilts.



Back to the Kilt question. Anyway the kilt is now experiencing the beginning of what I hope is a world wide jump to casual use. I wear the kilt from time just for the heck of it. If I had enough money and a couple more kilt I might wear them all the time. They are just better than pants in every way.

This is the actor from Torchwood wearing a kilt with a tee shirt and tube socks. I myself have been known to sport this look with a pair of Doc Martins. I usually go with traditional kilt hose and flashers. What I live in a rough neighborhood and need a place to carry my skean-dhu.


Well that is it for me this morning.
Be safe out there everyone and keep your stick on the ice.

Knitting at Knit 1 Again

4:00 AM and I am Sam Brengle - Well Not Really

The Salvation Army had an incredibly influential and super busy officer named Samuel Logan Brengle. Besides being one the holiest people to ever put on the Sallie's uniform he was also the member of a Dangerous Class and was told that he could not be an officer {one of our ministers}

They thought that he was too smart. If only I had his problems, but I digress.

Brengle was also one of the most important writers in Army history. Being a busy Corps Officer he was going from place to place putting out fires. One day while busily going about his business someone hit him in the head with a brick. He would get better but he was out of the busy part of the ministry for a while. During that time he wrote what would become his first book.

For the last month I have been kicking about with my wounded hand unable to do much of what I normally do. To fill the time I have been working on a series of four books that I have never had time to write. Sitting here this morning I realise that I am nearly done with the first book.

The bad guys have been beat back and the heroes are taking stock of what has happened. I have been writing it out long hand since I can not type very fast. Still, all that remains is to write a little more and to type a couple notebooks into the computer. I could have my first work of fiction ready for the editor by the end of the month. How crazy is that.

Someday I may being telling people how an accident with a knife lead to my first work of fiction. It is no brick from an angry mob while serving the Lord. Good grief, my writing about the bold fictitious Army owes it's existence to a cheese cutting accident in the Disaster Services. If that does not get chalked up to mysterious ways I do not know what does.

I suppose I should not be discouraged. It is not so bad being in the Dangerous Class if you can be of service. I do have a cool Brengle like beard. I suppose I have to work on the holiness thing. Still, it looks like I have the time.

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

PS When this post is near the top of the page it is next to a picture of me as a clown in a high collar uniform. It is either really cool or incredibly creepy

Hive Kniting

Savage Chickens

A New Blog

For no good reawson I threw together a Uknitted Nations blog. I do have too much time om my hand.

Anyway like I said I thought the Uknmitted Nations thing was a neat idea. So here is the address.

http://uknittednations.blogspot.com/

Eail me or post if you want to join or have ideas

Another Ring

I found what looks like another neat idea for a team blog and Net Ring. It does appear that it that it has been inactive for a while. The Selfish Sunday Knitters sounds like neat thing. Anyway I signed up for if an we will see if anyone answers.

There are a lot of team blogs out there and many in knitting. I do not know why I am so impressed by that. I am impressed by small thing. Maybe that is why I am such a Gary Coleman fan. But I digress

I also thought the Uknitted nation was a cool idea as well. That is what I should bring back the United Nations back. Well enough rambling.

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

Stuck Home

I was not feeling well today and did not make it to the Corps or Charity Knitting. My left hand typing continues to improve. It does not go that fast but I am getting better.

The book is moving along brilliantly. I still need planet names and state names. Please post if you have any good ones.

I did use the ice cream machine for the first time today. I made some vanilla and it turned out well.

Another chemo cap was finished today. Other than that not much was accomplished.

I am considering getting my own camera so I can continue to make video entries. I am looking forward to getting rid of this splint.

I am not feeling funny so I will say good night, good night