I’ve been watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus all weekend, so when I was sent this by Matt, I couldn’t resist sharing:
And also, I have decided that Terry Brooks is my favorite Python ever, mostly because he knows how to knit (there are other reasons, too, but that was definitely a deciding factor).
Trolls need lairs and IK needs to keep his (he is the Troll King, after all). Click that link up there, and help him out.
Which seems to be my chief complaint, as far as the SCA and my participation goes.
That is, I have changed my persona twice, and have changed names four times. I believe I’ll stick with the one I’ve got, but you never know.
Currently I am in the midst of what could be a really spectacular A&S project. I hope that it will keep on going until I get it done, but I am easily distracted by other projects (like printing), so who knows? I am going to be diligent and finish, though.
The project I’m working on isn’t this, but it’s a plain version of it (I am so not ready for the real, total version yet):
As you can see, it’s elaborately gilded and tooled. I can’t do any of that yet, but I’ve started working on cutting the folios for the interior, and am attempting to source book boards (I want to use wood, though pasteboard is period in some instances; I will do my test bindings using pasteboard). So far, I’ve had good momentum and there’s actually quite a bit of primary and secondary source material available (woo; makes up for the frustration of extant Indian objects, in that there are few). Tomorrow is an outing to purchase leather and colored linen thread for the cover and endbands. I’m shooting for Magna Faire as the initial A&S entry. Now I’ve told you and so I have to do it, right?
The main distraction at the moment is the socks that always want knitting, since there seems to be an endless supply of patterns and yarn and inspiration. There is always Wednesday business meetings and the occasional Knitch Sunday, I suppose.
POST EDIT: I have a room at the Sheraton. I have discovered that the majority of All My Favorite People (TM) also have booked rooms at the Sheraton. Coupled with the fact that there will be no loud revelers at 4 am to disturb my meager sleep (I get very little at the Con, which is my own fault), I have decided this is in fact superior to my previously planned convention, and am happy with my situation. Thank everyone, for listening. You all rock.
I have been on hold with the Marriott for over an hour. In the time it took for me to log on to the reservations website and get out my credit card, the rooms were all booked. I figured if I got up at 7, called, then got on the phone at 8 like the lady told me, that would make a difference. So no rooms for Jennie and Happygoth at the Marriott for DragonCon. If you’ve got extras, we need one. Bad. Last person who did this got a steak dinner and a drink out of the deal (and ceosanna , you’re still completely awesome). I’m going to troll the lists for open rooms, but this is what we’ve got at the moment. Nada.
I miss it (it is in a pretty good place, I think; that is, I haven’t been wearing it lately, but I liked it last time I did):
Thank to Stephen Lesnik for this little confidence-booster. Dude, you rock.
I can’t wait to put together the court version of this, with gold embroidery and pearls. It will rock.
To Master Lorenzo, who is awesome and officially a Laurel now.
And thanks to RobbingPeter, who has fed myself and my husband for two days now, and who gave me a ride home. The cinnamon tarts are all gone. The CG asked if I was going to freeze any, and I said I might if I thought they’d last that long, but they so didn’t.
The event was fun, and I ate so very much food (silly me – thinking that I was SOL because I hadn’t planned meals), and it rained for court, which was its own sort of natural air-conditioning. At dinner afterward, we attempted to recruit a new member in the bathroom of the restaurant.
My next project for the SCA will most likely be the Islamic-style book. I plan on making prototypes soon.
And I think this is the sock for the Valkyrie:
I know the Valkyrie isn’t handspun, but the pattern is lovely, and well-suited to STR mediumweight.
No?
At last. My brain is officially fried, so this is a smattering of things that are cool yet don’t require a lot of thought to share.
After much anticipation (on my part, at least), here is a better shot of the moustachioed me, on Saturday at DragonCon:
Yay. A coworker said that with that moustache, I’d make a good drag king. If I were to be a drag king, I’d so wear a moustache. If I were a dude, I’d probably sport one, too, impeccably waxed. They’re so snazzy.
And now that I’m working on a second sock, and doing pretty decent progress, I am trying to decide what to do with the yarn in my stash (not all of it, but a skein or two).
It is between this:
Handmaiden Casbah, in the Rainforest colorway
or this
Blue Moon STR heavyweight, Valkyrie colorway.
I want to do something delicious and amazing with one (or both). I also have some handspun from Baobh what needs knitting.
Thoughts? I have some patterns in my home library, and then there’s the New Pathways for Sock Knitters stuff (which I will get to, oh yes), but I’m open to suggestions.
One of the reasons, at least:
This drink is (a) in a glass that looks like a bamboo stalk and (b) guarded over by a little naked person on a stick.
A LITTLE NAKED PERSON ON A STICK.
Yes.
(A typical Knitch Sunday, with its usual colorful assortment of awesome folks. Yay, knitters.)
Because it’s the great equalizer. I think I’ve written about this before, but it’s absolutely true. Last Tuesday, the place where I work hosted an event. We invited lots of pretty excellent people, who spent the afternoon having their brains filled with knowledge and inspiration (and their bellies filled with good food). I am generally a little out of my element at these things. I don’t know many people, so I kind of cluster with my coworkers. However, I had a really pleasant surprise.
At Knitch on Sundays, I often knit with several other people. They’re fairly awesome. We’re all varied and different, but we all knit. And usually that’s the only place I see them, except on the rare occasions when I see somebody outside of knitting. At this group, there is a lady with whom I’ve had a few conversations about things (she’s French, so she is interesting to me, as I am interested in all things French).
I was “mingling” at the event when I saw this person in a group of people next to me. So I went over, said hello, and found out that lo and behold, she’s a fairly well-known personage in Atlanta and in the greater magazine world. Who knew? I am also able to carry on conversations about knitting with one of our clients because of this. So where usually I’m just a designer, in the world of knitting we’re all knitters, regardless of what we do when we’re not knitting.
I somehow feel a little less intimidated by Julia Roberts (whom I have never met) because I have heard that she knits.
Cool, huh?
I recently heard that you will be releasing Kites in the US. I have been waiting for this since I heard it was filming, and am excited that it is coming out.
However, I heard something recently that makes me less excited:
“the foreign version of the film has chopped out all the song and dance sequences that are hallmarks of traditional Bollywood productions. (The numbers will be included in the Indian version.)” (Via this WSJ link, through Ultrabrown)
Um, what? I will explain something here, since the article goes on to say that this move is an attempt to appeal more to Western audiences. I am totally not the usual target market of Bollywood films. However, I love the dance sequences in Bollywood films. They are half the reason I watch. I completely appreciate the desire to make different sorts of films, ones perhaps without dance sequences. I really do. However, if you made the film with them in it, then remove them for a foreign audience, you’re short-changing your fans who already love the films the way they are. Additionally, although I have heard much debate about Hrithik Roshan’s acting (I find him charming), it is generally accepted that he’s a spectacular dancer. In my opinion, cutting these scenes out is like cutting Gene Kelley’s routines out of American in Paris. Why? Aargh.
I certainly hope that at least one theater in the Atlanta area shows the Indian version, or that when it comes out on DVD, I can watch the whole thing, unadulterated.
In conclusion, please don’t mess with something that’s pretty good the way it is (again, I’m fine with no singing and dancing, just when it was intended to be that way from the start).
Your recently disgruntled fan,
Happygoth
(As a completely unrelated aside, I am dismayed to discover that there is no actual “gruntled” in the English language, though I will continue to use it as I always have, for comic effect.)
knitters = angry mob 