cast on to match look of i-cord bind-off?

Having recently found the I-cord bind-off, I was wondering if there's a cast-on that matches the look? I guess one way to match the look would be to do a provisional cast on, leaving a long enough tail of the working yarn to do an i-cord bind-off at that end as well, but I was wondering if there's an actual cast-on that would match the look.

Any ideas?

socks, hats, and gifts for babies.

Some long awaited knitting updates.

Firsly, my Sockapalooza socks are finished! Notice how I've managed to get the colouring from the variegated yarn to cunningly match. Purely coincidental, I assure you.

Next up, a FO that you didn't even know I'd started. This is a Chemo cap suitable for a guy to wear. It's done in the cotton yarn that I was originally going to use for the socks. I'll be donating this to the St Louis Knitters' Guild next meeting, as we were all requested to make a chemo cap. Most of the others will be done using eyelash or similar fancy yarn, but I thought that a male cancer patient might appreciate something a little less fluffy.

Third up, a Surprise Baby Jacket, also to be donated to the Guild. The basic pattern is garter stitch all the way, with cunning increases and decreases which result in, well, a mess. But a cunning mess. A quick fold here, and a flick there, and you have a baby jacket which just needs seaming along the shoulders. I thought that the plain garter stitch was just too plain, so I incorporated a mosaic pattern into the design, with suitable adjustments to take care of the incs or decs.

Lastly, my wife has been knitting a baby afghan for a baby due in May; sex of said baby will not be known until birth, so we thought that the mint green mixed with white would look really good. And it does.

Play a game or two...

I've done quite a bit of gaming since my last update.

First up, a session at Rob's place on Thursday 17th. First, we played Doom: The Boardgame. Mark and I played the good guys, while Rob was type-cast as the monsters. Mark let me make most of the decisions as he's played the scenario we played before, so felt he had an unfair perspective. We were soundly beaten by the monsters though. I found the game quite enjoyable and the game mechanics quite interesting. I want to play again, but it does take quite a lot of time, especially if we are going to be successful and get past the puppies!

Then we played Queen's Necklace. This is an interesting little card game where your fixed income each round allows you to buy gems, or bribe courtiers to provide some kind of influence for you. The mechanic where items get cheaper the longer they are left is nice, but can be frustrating if you don't realise that if you don't get it this time, either someone else will, or it will just go away before your next turn anyway. It's a fun game that I look forward to playing again.

Next event was at Mark's on Feb 20. Karyn and I both went, as she had already taken time off from work so we could go and see the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. However, the musicians are currently in a labour dispute, so no concerts right now. This was our first time at Mark's, and we considerably contributed to get a new record of 8 people together at his place. Starting out with a game of Squint which all 8 of us played, we then broke up into two groups. I then played San Juan, a game that is becoming a firm favourite, followed by a game of Seasons, which I'm always happy to play. Lastly, after shuffling people around, I played Puerto Rico upon which San Juan is based. Thanks, Mark, for letting us use your home!
The big recent event though was the first successful meeting of the St Louis Boardgame Meetup, last Thursday. We had a grand total of 17 people in attendance which was great! I managed to get a Group Photo of those who were still around when I thought of it. I look forward to having more next time.





By clicking on the above thumbnails you can see more about the games we played as a group. I missed getting photos of San Juan, and Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde. Maybe next time. The games I personally played were San Juan, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, TransAmerica, and The Gardens of Alhambra.

The evening was a great success. The people there were really friendly, and I am looking forward to seeing them again next month, along with a few more people, I hope!

As I've now got a number of posts on board games, I've set up a page about them.

Lastly, Benjie asked Do you play Settlers of Catan? Yes, in fact it's a favourite, though I've not played it in a while.

Noooo....!!!

How can they do this?

Smarties set to lose their tube

Childhood may never be quite the same again - the maker of Smarties has announced it is to ditch the colourful chocolates' tube-shaped packet.

Full story

blankets and hearts

The blue baby afghan I'm knitting is a little over half way done. I need to work on it as the baby was due a week ago (but I've not yet heard if he's arrived). It is based on the Garter and Rib pattern, square 7 on the Afghan, though with the mixed doubled thread, the pattern is a little more subtle. This detail image shows the pattern nicely, and you should be able to follow one of the curved ribs that the two red blobs mark.

In other news, it was recently Valentine's Day, and this is the reason I've been slow in updating the blog - partly because I've been knitting something for it, and partly because I didn't want to show what I've been knitting because my wife reads my blog! I've been knitting some hearts. Using this free pattern, I first knit two in Caron Simply soft worsted weight yarn on size 6 needles, as you can see, one in pink, one in red. I didn't like the way the "knit 3 in 1 st" was looking (or I didn't quite understand what they meant by it), so I used Barbara Walker's "double inc", which is knit one in back, knit one in front of same stitch, slip the sts off the left needle, the put the left needle behind the vertical strand that has just appeared between the two sts just knitted, and knit into the back of this loop to create the third st. I then knit two more, each using 1 red and 1 pink thread, together, on size 13s, and then took them to the Greater St Louis Knitters' Guild to get some advice on how to stitch them together, with a nice looking edge. After receiving some suggestions, I came home, ripped out the two two-coloured hearts, and knit them again in just red, which once I'd done it looked much better. The first one I left on the needle once I'd got to the last row, cut the thread, and started a new one. Once I'd completed that one, I used a i-cord bind off to join them.

With a normal i-cord bind-off, you cast on three more stitches, then you *k2, k2-tog, slip these three sts back to the left needle, rep from * until you have 3 stitches left. Slip all 3 sts off the needle and pass the tail end through all three and tighten to finish off. What I did was hold the needle with the first heart in front of (i.e. closer to me) the needle that still had yarn attached, and I would do effectively a k3-tog, with the "left-most" of the three coming from the front needle, and the other two coming from the back needle.

The result is a lovely looking i-cord edging. Then, once Karyn had gone to bed, I filled the heart pouch with caramel kisses, and this is what she saw when she went to eat breakfast in the morning.

I was told at the Guild that once I'd finished the hearts I would have to bring them for their "show and tell" segment, which I will happily do. I will also bring my Sockapalooza socks, because the timing will be just right. If I have the mail package all ready, I can show them at the Guild and then drop them in the mail on my way home.

Amaryllis in bloom

Karyn's Amaryllis, a birthday gift from Kathryn, is in bloom. It's brightening up out apartment delightfully. The one we received last year, as a home-warming gift, is still in hibernation as it has not sprouted enough to be brought out, which means it will bloom later, providing us with an overall elongated bloomage, rather than intense all-at-once bloomage. As ever, click on the thumbnails to see bigger images.

Take a look on the right.

I now have a funky Guest Map. All you lurkers out there, go and visit it, and drop me a note and place a pin so we can all see where my readers are from!

Update There is a zoom facility, so you can zoom a few times before placing your pin, thus allowing you a little more accuracy :)

Sockapalooza update

Sock 2 is nearly complete! Look! Have a look at my Sockapalooza page.

I was thinking of finishing it up tonight, but someone at work wanted to see how you knit in the round, so I have to take it in tomorrow. The same person saw this book for sale at her local library, in the "removed from collection" books. She said it was cheap enough that it would be great if I could use it, and no problem if I couldn't. Guess I've got some mittens to make!

Board Games again

Last Thursday, I went once again to Rob's place to play a few games.

I arrived to find them playing Seasons which is a rummy-type card game that Rob and Mark designed, and I helped play test. You can read more about it at its Boardgamegeek entry or you can find out about the guys that invented it and other games they are working on at Dust Bunny Games. I think Rob won the game they were playing which they halted after that round to let me join in. This is a game I love, and will always be happy to play.

We then played a couple of games of San Juan, a card game based on Puerto Rico. I forget how the first game came out, but I remember distinctly coming last for the second one, even though I ended the game. I was in what I thought was a strong position, as I had far more buildings than anyone else, but they had much better scoring buildings. Ah well. I really enjoyed this, and will have to add it to my wish list. It has some very nice mechanics to keep the game to almost purely cards, such that, depending on where they are, the cards can represent built buildings, unbuilt buildings, gold (to pay for buildings and received from the sale of goods), and those goods, as you might guess, are also represented by the same cards.

Next up was Reiner Knizia's Genial. By placing two-hexagons-joined-together tiles on the board in such a way as to match symbols you score points in the appropriate colour. However, your score is score of the colour that has scored the least. So, if your orange is at 8, it matters not one whit if your other colours are at 9 or 18, your score is 8. The game ends either when no more tiles can be placed, or when someone reaches 18 (the maximum score) on each colour. As you can see from the pic, if you look carefully, Rob (on the right) has scored 18, and all of the rest of us have orange lagging behind. A quick look at the board shows that Rob had carefully trapped the orange hexes in, making it very hard for the rest of us to score in orange. It was a great play on his part. OH, and yes, Rob's green scoring marker is som kind of plastic monster. There was a green cube missing from the game, and he's not yet got around to getting a replacement.

Last up was Lord of the Fries. This is a Cheapass game where you have to fill the restaurant orders from the rather interesting ingredients you have in your hands. Oh, and you're a zombie. This is an updated version, in colour, and with extra restaurant menus, giving different menu items that can be filled. We had been playing a long time by this time, so we cut it short because of the hour. I won (though Rob will claim that we didn't finish the game so no-one won, but I didn't hear him say that when they cut short Seasons!)

Radical Knitting

The UK newspaper The Guardian has an article on Radical Knitting. Anyone fancy a Hand-grenade knit-a-long? There's a pattern at the end of the article!

Wedding pics

My wife has been bugging me to put some of our wedding pics back up on the website since the website changed hosts. So I did.

Paris in the summer.

It's August, 1658, and Paris is at war with Spain. There recently been an uprising of the gentlemen of Paris against the true and rightful King, but our Hero, Denis Bone, decided to stay out of Paris. As a Brevet Subaltern in the Queen's Own Carabiniers, he chose to remain loyal to the crown, but instead of fighting the rebels, his somewhat indifferent commanding officer ordered him, and the rest of the regiment, to fight the Spanish at the front.

What the Spanish were not expecting was the Queen's Own Carabiniers. The reconnaissance force unwise enough to take them on is promptly charged down and sent packing. Subaltern Denis Bone has his horse shot from under him. He promptly mounts another one and continues the fight. His bravery brings him promotion to … full Subaltern.

So, despite not having the social standing normally required to be a Subaltern in the QOC, Denis Bone, during the summer campaign, he received two promotions from his rank of Private and has indeed become one. And to not have the social standing to be Subaltern in the QOC is almost depressing; it's hardly a prestigious rank.

This month he returns to Paris. There are a couple of parties to go to, if he'll be let in, and he will also enjoy some female company I'm sure.

Denis Bone is my character in Les Petites Bêtes Soyeuses, a PBM game of the swashbuckling game En Garde!. LPBS is run by Paul "Pevans" Evans, and the monthly game turns, along with other games-related stuff, are posted on his website. He also publishes his 'zine To Win Just Once online.

Linguistic Pet Peeves

I was listening to the Diane Rehm Show on NPR this morning, and guest-host Susan Page said "We're not getting very many kudos by email today." Well, of course you're not. Kudos is not a plural noun, so how can you get many of them? There's no such thing as a kudo. I kind of expect that kind of thing from hoi polloi but not from NPR presenters!

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a pure prescriptivist when it comes to grammar. I understand that language changes. I also understand that it's not right to try to shoe-horn English into the grammatical rules of Latin, which is why I have no problems ending sentences with prepositions, and splitting infinitives is fine.

However, some things just annoy me. The most common annoyance, especially this side of the pond is the hypercorrection "He and I" in the accusative. I see it lot on web pages these days. This is a picture of John and I. No, it isn't. I believe it came about from poor teaching. It became common for people to use "John and me" in the nominative. John and me are going to watch a movie. The teacher told them "It's not 'John and me', it's 'John and I'". That's all well and good, except the teacher failed to continue with "... when it's the Subject of the sentence." The student incorrectly learnt, therefore, that it's always "John and I". If you're not sure of which is correct, just be selfish and leave John out of it. Me is going to the movies. No, "I am going to the movies" is correct here, as I'm sure you know, so "John and I are going" is the correct form with both people. This is a picture of I is clearly wrong, it should be "me" there. Therefore, "This is a picture of John and me" is the correct form. So, be selfish, leave the other person out, and get it right!

What's your biggest linguistic pet peeve?