We finally saw The Phantom of the Opera over the weekend.  I’d been putting it off because it got such dreadful reviews, but I love the music (pretty much love most of Webber’s music) and so I had to give it a go.

Well, the reviews were pretty much right, I’m sorry to say.  The main problem is that it is opera.  I’m not an especial opera fan but I have nothing against it either.  Opera is almost entirely an affair of the stage where the immediacy of the performance helps to balance the fact that you’ve got people standing and singing for long stretches of time while very little else goes on.  A stage is necessarily limited in terms of action and special effects but the fact that things are unfolding right in front of you makes up for that.  There is nothing like a live performance with the story and the music rolling out fresh and immediate, right in front of you.

And this movie is nothing like a live performance.  Unfortunately, it isn’t much like a movie either.  It is more like a filmed play.  Sometimes that can work - especially when the story is clear and gripping, the characters well-developed and the acting solid.  If there is good chemistry between the cast members, so much the better.  This movie, sadly, lacks all of these things.  The story is scant and rushed, the characters cardboard and the acting perfunctory at best.  Some props should go to Gerard Butler (the phantom) for at least infusing some passion into his performance.  The other two main characters, Christine Daae (played by Emmy Rossum) and Raoul (played by Patrick Wilson) have no presence and no personality.

But the music is still breathtaking. 

Dad and I went up to Portland, ME on Saturday to have lunch in a restaurant called DeMillo’s.  Not cheap but very, very good - some of the nicest fish I have ever had and an absolutely superb Portuguese sausage soup - rich and spicy.  DeMillo’s is also interesting because the restaurant itself is a ship.

I worked on the entrelac afghan quite a bit this weekend, though it may not exactly look like a lot has been done :)





I have always worked the left-leaning decreases in entrelac as SSKs but I’ve been experimenting with doing them the old fashioned way, as a slip 1-knit 1, pass slipped stitch over.  My SSks always looked sloppy and doing it the other way seems to help this.

And I finished the hat :)

Whoopee :) I know I have more of the sock yarn I carried along to make the hat with and I intended to start a pair of socks to go with it last night.  But I couldn’t find the rest of the damned sock yarn!  I’ve got a little bitty ball left from the hat and that’s not going to cut it.  You’ve been hearing me natter on about organizing the stash for a couple of weeks now but I’ve been avoiding it.  No surprise there, eh?  Well, things are slowly reaching a sort of critical mass and I really am going to have to do something about it :)

In the comments to Monday’s post, Colleen said, “...you’ve made me want to try entrelac to get rid of all my sock yarn scraps.  (Wouldn’t that be cool?  It’d be a memorial sock afghan.)
I’d like to point out that I know NOTHING about entrelac… “

Entrelac looks absolutely mystifying but is, in fact, very simple requiring no more knowledge than how to knit, how to purl and how to pick up stitches.* Should you decide to garter stitch your entrelac, you don’t even have to know how to purl :)

Entrelac is interesting conceptually.  Instead of working one row of stitches after another, you work one row of blocks after another, all diagonally connected.  What are the sides of one row of blocks become the bottoms of the next row.  The blocks consist of rows of stitches and are created and attached to each other as the piece is worked.  There are also triangles on the first and last passes as well as on alternate-row sides to give the piece straight edges.

Start with a couple of colors of the same weight yarn, and some needles appropriate to knitting them with.**

Pass 1, Starting Triangles

Cast on 24 stitches - any way you like.  We’re going to do a swatch comprised of three blocks - each of which is 8 stitches wide.  To begin:

Purl 2, turn
Knit 2, turn
P3, turn
K3, turn

Continue this way, working one more stitch each time until you have purled 8 stitches.  Do not turn.  Look at your knitting - you have a triangle.  You’re going to make two more triangles in exactly the same way, ignoring the first one completely (we are finished with it) and starting again with P2, turn and K2, etc. until you have completed another triangle.  Then do it one more time.  What you have should look something like this:

Notice that the second and third triangles have their tips attached to the preceding stitches.  Don’t worry, that’s the way it’s supposed to look.  They won’t always look like that.  In fact, things will straighten out on the next pass.

Pass 2 - Side Triangles and blocks

This pass is a little different.  In order to wind up with a rectangular fabric, we’re going to have to split a block and place half on each end.  Don’t try to reason it out - it’s like turning a heel on a sock.  Just do it and when you see what happens, you’ll understand how it works :)

Okay, attach your second color.

K2, turn
P2, turn
K in the front and back of first stitch (Kfb), SSK, turn
P3, turn
Kfb, K1, SSK, turn
P4, turn
Kfb, K2, SSK, turn
P5, turn

Continue until you have eaten up all 8 stitches of the triangle below.  After the [Kfb, K5, SSK] row, don’t turn.  You have made your first side triangle and there will be one of these things at the beginning and the end of every other row.  Your work should look like this:

Now, pick up 8 stitches from here:





Turn and P8, turn
K7, SSK, turn and purl back.

Continue this way until you have incorporated all 8 stitches from the first pass triangle.  Congratulations - you’ve made your first block!

Pick up 8 more stitches and do it again :)

Now we make the second side triangle, so pick up a final 8 stitches and proceed as follows.

P2tog, p6, turn
K7
P2tog, P5, turn
K6

Continue in this way, purling two together at the beginning of the row and having one stitch less with each iteration.  When you have one stitch left, turn and slip stitch onto left needle.

This is what you should have now:

3rd Pass - Just Blocks

Cut your second color and rejoin your first.  This is your second row of blocks and this one doesn’t need any side triangles - just blocks.

P1
Pick up and purl 7 stitches, turn
K8, turn
P7, P2tog, turn
K8, turn

Continue like this until your have worked all 8 stitches from the block below.  After the last p7, p2tog, do not turn.  Pick up and purl another 8 stitches and work that block (the second one) and the third in the same way.

Presto - you’re doing entrelac!  Repeat the second and third passes for the desired length.

Last Pass - Finishing

To end, you will need triangles, just as you needed them to start with and your last row of blocks needs to be a second pass row.  In the picture below, I have worked an additional row of blocks to set up for finishing.

With one stitch on the needle, P1.
Pick up and purl 7 stitches along the side of the block below, turn.
K8
P2tog, K5, P2 tog, turn
K7

Continue like this, purling 2 together at the beginning and the end of the row and having one less stitch on each iteration, until you K2: 

Turn and P1, P2tog, turn
K3, turn
P3tog.

There is one stitch left.  Pick and up purl 7 stitches as before and proceed with the second and third triangles.  When you have one stitch left at the other side of the fabric, end off.

* If you know how to knit backward, that skill is very convenient for working entrelac.  It is not at all necessary, however :)

** Entrelac doesn’t have to be worked in alternating colors.  It can be worked in many colors or just one.  For instructional purposes however, it’s easier to see the construction of the fabric with two colors, alternating between each row of blocks.

Have a wonderful weekend!

As you probably know, the blog was down for most of the day.  This happened because our host updated some software that makes it incompatible with my blogging software.  As it happens, the folks who offer my blogging software offer a free core version that lacks only some bells and whistles that I never used anyway.

So the blogging software has been upgraded and I’m going forward as usual.  I’m telling you all this on the chance that things are still unstable (unlikely) or weird.  Please let me know if you have any problems, things look funky, whatever.  If there are issues, I’ll try to address them as soon as possible.

We now return you to your regular blog :)

I was going to post a tutorial today but I didn’t have time to complete it so that will have to wait until Friday.

So, I have appropriated a meme that’s currently running around the blogs :) I wasn’t tagged and I won’t pass it along though you should feel free to help yourself if it tickles your fancy!

4 jobs you have had in your life

Taxi driver
Bartender
Executive secretary
Tech support

4 movies you could watch over & over

2010
Thunderheart
The Wizard of Oz
Casablanca

4 places you have lived

Missouri (Kansas City)
Illinois (Carbondale)
Massachusetts (2 different cities/towns)

4 TV shows you love to watch

Stargate
Monk
Supernatural
Teen Titans (blush)

4 places you have been on vacation

Lake Winnipesauke, NH
Ogunquit, Maine
Bermuda
Various cruise ships

4 websites you visit daily

Daily Zen
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Kevin and Kell
Simply Recipes

4 of your favorite foods

Pasta
Bacon
Asparagus
Bananas

4 places you would rather be right now

At the ocean
Any library
Having lunch in a good Italian restaurant
In a combination book store/yarn shop with all the money in the world :)

4 bloggers you are tagging

No one - but if the spirit moves you…

We’ve had an uncommonly mild winter so far, but look what it’s doing this morning -

Pretty cool, hunh?  I can relax and enjoy it since I don’t have to do any driving today :) It’s coming down very heavily and we’ve had probably already gotten 5 inches or so.  If the winter follows its currently established pattern, the temperatures will go back up to the 50s later this week and by next Monday this will all be just a memory.  You don’t think so?  Me neither :) I think winter just took a while to wind up.  It’s going to stay with us for a while.

We got Snap a new tank last week.

She had been living in a small acrylic aquarium tank which we were less and less happy with.  Hard to clean, retains odors and as the acrylic gets more and more worn, the gerbil becomes less and less visible - not problems you have with glass.  So we went out and found a 5 1/2 gallon glass tank and cover and set Snap up in that this weekend.  It’s going to be great: she has more room, she can see out better and we can see in better.  The cats enjoy the improved visibility too :)





Crackle and Pop have grown to be very beautiful little girls, happy and friendly.  We enjoy all the wee ones enormously.  That aqua reflection you can see in the above picture?  My night-shirt.  Sundays tend to be pretty relaxed around here :)





I finally did start a blanket project though it’s not the afghan of my dreams.  Again, it’s an effort to use up stash yarn, Caron Simply Soft this time.  I did a swatch, figured out my measurements and gauge and then cast 128 stitches (yarn doubled) on to a size 10 circular.  With 16 blocks about 3.5 inches wide, that should give me a width of about 56 inches.  I’ll work it to a length of about 70 inches or so.  Right now I’m figuring the blue will be the main color with various other colors worked in here and there - coral and turquoise mostly.  I may even play with the texture of the blocks now and again - some seed stitch here, a cable there.  That’s part of the fun of making it up as you go along - you can do anything you like!





And this is another Dulaan hat.  I figure I’ll probably be working on quite a few Dulaan things for a while.  You can see the Fisherman’s wool; the sock yarn that I’m combining with it is also Lionbrand and I’m trying to figure out how to handle this for socks to go with.  Probably double the sock yarn for cuff, heel and toe and use the plain wool for the leg and foot.  I have a few balls of sock yarn that I can use in this fashion for little sets.  I’ll probably make a few scarves as well.

Happy Monday!

As we did a marathon shopping day yesterday, not a lot of knitting got done.  I have been moseying all over the web looking for an interesting afghan/blanket pattern to make for myself, but haven’t found anything yet that floats my boat.  I keep coming back to the Skipping Stones, but I have already made that recently.  I don’t particularly want to make it again and I think I’d like to knit the next one - knowing, of course, that it will take me a lot longer than four says to make.  I’ll probably wind up making something up - maybe using some of those cables I was so busily swatching last week?  Hmmm...that’s an idea!

We did finally get to see Narnia.  It was just wonderful - captivating, enchanting and beautiful.  The story was well and accurately told (with the exception of a few lines being updated to be more PC) and the choice of actors and actresses was perfect.  In particular, I enjoyed James MacAvoy as Tumnus the faun and I recognized that I had seen him before, but I couldn’t put my finger on where until I looked it up.  He portrayed Leto Atreides II in SciFi’s Children of Dune.

This might be a bit much for very young children but is otherwise a wonderful, family film.  I won’t speak to religious context.  If you are familiar with C. S. Lewis’ work then you know what Lewis’ central themes are.  However, familiarity with Lewis’ oeuvre isn’t required - the movie will be quite enjoyable regardless.  I confess to being confused about the mild furor over the battle that comprises most of the final scenes of the movie.  It was neither gratuitous nor protracted - but does contain one of the nastier bits of business - essential, but very unpleasant.  The wicked queen points her wand at a griffin flying overhead and turns it to stone whereupon it falls out of the sky and shatters on the rocks below.  If I had seen this at 6 or 7 I would have completely freaked out.

We’ll watch for the DVD release of this film as this is definitely one we want to add to our permanent library.  And, as this is the first tale of a series of seven, I very much hope to see movies made of the other six books and I hope they are as good and are presented with as much respect and detail as this one.

Onward with the search for the perfect afghan/blanket!  Have a wonderful weekend :)

Well folks, Tuesday was just a red letter day all around.

Yes, that’s sarcasm :)

First, I fell in the drive trying to get to the car - twice.  It was sheer ice and the landlord had neither salted nor sanded.  All the joints on my right side are singing Ave Maria and it will be ibuprophen with the tea tonight.  No real damage except to my pride.

Then, at my regular check up I was informed that I have diabetes.  Type 2, of course, and we caught it early so with some diligence, I ought to be able to get on top of it with diet and exercise.  Well, I’d been planning on that anyway, but this will step things up quite a bit.  This isn’t leisurely dieting and serene walks on the weekends.  This is pretty stringent dieting - lifestyle stuff - and a regular regimen which will probably include a stationary bike, walking and some yoga.

What’s really bumming me out is that I’m probably going to have to give up on the FLAK.  If it were a regular pattern, I might go for it by picking a size or two smaller.  However, to insure as perfect a fit as possible, this is made to your measurements.  And the problem is that by the time I finish the thing - it won’t fit…

Well, okay :) I guess I’ll find another somewhat complicated and sizeable project to which to apply my newly resolved determination to finish what I start.

There was a nice bit though :)

I finally finished the scarf for the nice lady at the hospital that liaises with the insurance companies and sends them all the records whenever they ask.  The yarn is Knitpicks’ Wool of the Andes and it was very nice to work with, an absolutely gorgeous color and really popped the cables nicely.  She seemed very pleased and came out and gave me a great big hug and I thanked her from the bottom of the my heart.  Liaising with the insurance companies?  The woman should get a medal!

We’re off today up to Maine where I hope to gain a bit of perspective as well as a haircut :)