A Comfortable ‘Old’ Quote

Most of any free time that I have lately is totally devoted to designing and knitting Super Scarves for the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis. 

But I picked up an old classic to read again:  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.

My favorite passage for today was Mama Nolan talking to her daughter, Francie:

“Nonsense,” said mama.  “Old age isn’t such a tragedy . . . . . . . . Old people are not unhappy.  They don’t look for the things we want.  They just want to be warm and have soft food to eat and remember things with each other.”

I haven’t gotten to the soft food stage, but I do understand it.  All of the above . . . . and yarn for me, I suppose.

 

My Picnic Companion

I am busy preparing for an upcoming meeting.  I took a break from reading about competition dynamics in second-language listening and unconscious sensory repair of degraded sensory input as it applies to the interpretation of linguistic input to take a walk during my lunch break.

I had intended to sit at a picnic table in a park near the college while I knit through my lunch break.  Ms. Leaf got to my seat first.  In fact, she arrived just a moment before I did, but I was close enough to witness how gracefully she had dropped in.  I didn’t ask her to move.  Since I had company at the picnic table, I decided not to knit.  I asked Ms. Leaf if she wouldn’t mind a photo shoot. 

I hope she could stay in the park longer than I could.  I’ll be at work until 9:00 tonight.

“The Big Kick!” – Super Scarf #6

I think it’s fun to watch the pro football games every week and wonder who will make it to the Super Bowl.  There’s a lot of hoopla that surrounds the event, but the game doesn’t actually begin until the whistle blows for the first kick.  I think a really big game like that needs a really big kick, don’t you?

That’s why I decided to have fun with the Super Scarf Project and honor the kick-off with my version of “The Big Kick!”

I knit the uniformed leg in plain white so as not to show any individual team support with striping down the side.  Same goes for the sock.  I don’t know of any team that wears a sock that looks like the one below.  But after the all white in the thigh, I wanted to add the second approved color and get something fun going on for the lower leg.

  

Go ahead and giggle if you feel inclined.  It makes me giggle, too.  “The Big Kick!’ Super Scarf is a caricature-type look at the linear poetry of the kicker’s contact with the ball.

The scarf is executed completely in garter stitch, with the exception of the shoelace, which is a twisted cord.  The garter stitch is a reversible stitch, however the addition of color changes the effect on the back side of the work.

  

There is a width specification for the Super Scarves, but there was nothing in writing that said the scarves had to be the same width from end to end.    Sooooo . . . . I  shaped the kicker’s thigh from the maximum acceptable width to just above the minimum width per the spec.  The lower leg tapers to less than the minimum width, however the difference is made up for by adding the impression of the shoe wrapping to the back of the heel!

There was a lot of football to watch over the weekend.  On Saturday, I did the math for the scarf and knit the thigh during the Notre Dame game.  I knit most of the lower leg during the Boise/Oregon game.  On Sunday, I finished the lower leg, did the math for the shoe, knit the shoe, and made the lace during the Detroit/Minnesota game.  And then I finished the scarf by knitting the football during the Indianapolis/Denver game.  Whew!

Check out the Super Scarf link to see just how long we have to wait for “The Big Kick!”  When you load the page, look at the top write for the countdown to kick-off.

FUN!

 

 

“It’s All About the Ball” – Super Scarf #5

It’s all about the ball, isn’t it?

They kick it.  They pass it.  They punt it.  They catch it.  They intercept it.  They center it.  They fumble it.  They run with it.  They intentionally ground it.  They hold it for the kicker.

With that it mind, I decided to honor the ball itself with my “It’s All About the Ball” Super Scarf for Super Bowl XLVI, 2012, in Indianapolis.

 

 

The scarf is reversible, though not double-knit.  I used the garter stitch for the entire piece – so even a novice knitter should be able to execute all the pieces and construction.

The stitching on each football is also done in garter stitch, but the time-consuming aspect is that I did each piece separately and hand-stitched them in place.

 

  

I took the extra time to attach the white football stitches to both sides of each football.  That way, when it hangs or blows in the wind, the stitches are visible from any angle.

If you noticed my previous post, I showed a photo of the ‘blue spaghetti’ mess I had when I undid a rather large portion of my first go at the scarf.  I wasn’t satisfied with the way the footballs looked and wanted to improve the shape.  My goal was to have the footballs look as close to a two-dimensional representation of an official NFL football.

That means I needed the width of the ball at its widest.  An official NFL football has a range of acceptable girths and since the center of the ball is a circle, I could use the circumference formula to solve for the diameter:

c/π =d

Using the maximum tolerance dimension, I plugged the known values into the formula:

21.25/3.14159=d

That makes an acceptable width of 6.7 inches.  The footballs on my scarf measure 7 inches across.

The length of the football shape can’t be calculated by using the above formula.  There is a different process for figuring the circumference of an ellipse.  Trust me, you don’t want to go there.  It involves calculus and . . . . caffeine.

No worries.  The standard length of an NFL football is 11 – 11.25 inches.  Those on the scarf are pretty close!

It makes for a lot of piecework to work the white stitch pieces separately, 113 pieces to be exact, but I think it’s worth the effort.  Sort of like a Super Scarf in hi-def, don’t you think?

Take Two

Just keeping it real here, folks.  Everything doesn’t ALWAYS go off without a hitch.

Looks like I’ll be having ‘blue spaghetti’ for lunch at work today when I should have been serving up some . . . .pi!

Nuf’ about that for now.  You’ll see what I mean when I get this all sorted out.  I have to pick up my Super Mess!  I don’t get crabby when this happens. It keeps me humble!

Pssssssst: Don’t tell the Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee! 

Czech Harvest Festival

Goodnight and I drove to Smalltownville on Saturday.  Gr8 bought some gutter filters for her garage and I didn’t want her to climb the ladder, so I offered to do it for her.

When we got there, it was nearly lunchtime, so we decided to wait on the garage project until after a visit to a neighboring town.

They were having a Czech Harvest Festival and I knew we’d get some great food there if we found the Czech food booth.  We got there in time to grab our lunch and find a spot to watch the parade.  Mom and I had Jiternice (Czech sausage) and Goodnight had Knedlicky (potato dumpling) with gravy, but I shared some of my sausage with her.

It was fun to watch the parade.  My mother is usually in them, but this time we could all watch together.

Take a look at the girl swinging around the bar on the float in the photo below.  Her hands were secured with a strap, but it was still quite an impressive sight!

This one got my high score for ‘cute’.  The motorized shopping cart made me smile.  What can I say . . . I’m a Smalltownville kid.

The rest of the parade was fun too.  The members of a local concertina club played on a float and the local high school band marched.  Because the Czech Harvest Festival was close to Smalltownville, I knew some of the politicians who were walking in the parade. 

After the parade, we found the Czech Village booths and had a look around.  I got some Christmas shopping done, so I can’t tell you what I bought.  But . . . you know when you find just the right gift that will make someone smile?  I got three of those!

The rest of the weekend in Smalltownville was one of those nice quiet home-comings that seal the deal for me to keep returning.  Mother is sweet . . . and we always talk over coffee and Scattergories or King’s Corner with Goodnight.  We watched birds at her feeder, all of us kneeling on a chair with our chins to the window, just to catch a glimpse.

The gutter filters took me less than a half hour to do, so while it was the reason for the trip, it didn’t vie for the largest portion of time.

All is well in Smalltownville and my thanks to the grocery store for having a sale on the Czech sausage.  I did my part to support the economy!

On our way home, Goodnight and I found a beautiful spot for a picnic lunch before getting back to laundry and math homework.  She found some rocks and sticks, and there is sand in the back seat of the car, but I consider it fair trade for our time together there.

Hope you had good weekends wherever you were.

“The 46th Stripe” – Super Scarf #4

I got Super Scarf #4 off the needles over the weekend.  There was a lot of finishing to do on this one, but it was a fun experiment.

I like the classic look of stripes.  Wide stripes of color have dominated sports scarves for a long time – team colors, etc.  I chose horizontal stripes for this particular Super Scarf.

Not content to just start knitting, I wanted to make it special for Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis. 

1. I knit a gauge swatch to determine my row gauge. 

2. I determined the length of scarf I wanted to knit.

3. I multiplied the length I wanted by the rows/inch to get the total number of rows needed for this Super Scarf.

4. I divided the total number of rows by 46 to determine how many rows I needed per stripe.  Why 46?  Because Super Bowl 2012 in Indianapolis will be #46!  This scarf has 46 stripes.  Go ahead and count ‘em.  They’re all there!

 

Knitters can add all kinds of hidden meanings or messages within their work.  I thought it would be fun to pay a subtle tribute to XLVI with 46 stripes.

I started with the blue end and because 46 is an even number, that left the 46th stripe to be in white.  I like the look of the opposite colors on each end.  I decided to emphasize the 46th stripe with the XLVI lettering.

 

All of the above is easier said than done.  The scarf is knit in the method of tubular knitting.  The scarf is reversible, but it is not worked on circular needles.  It is worked on two straight needles, back and forth in rows.  It’s how the rows are worked that make it into a tube.  It’s really an old method, but fun to do.

If you don’t like finishing, then this project won’t be for you.  At the completion of each stripe of color, the yarn is cut.  All the ends have to be brought to the inside of the tube and woven in securely before closing off the tube.  But because there are 46 stripes, there are double the number of ends, plus extra ends for the XLVI lettering.

You get the picture – lots of finishing, but hey, it’s football season and there were lots of games on yesterday, so I got it all done!

There are a couple of seemingly tricky parts to the scarf:  the lettering and getting the stitches off the needle and held securely while weaving in all the ends, and then getting all the stitches back on the needle for binding off the tube.  I have tips for those challenges.

That wraps up #4.  Last evening I cast on #5 and am just about half way with it now.  I took a left turn from stripes for this one.   

Curious?  Check back with me.

Puddle Play

Goodnight and I took a bike ride together.  We rode along the Mississippi – not far from where I had my breakfast date with the ‘Old Man’ himself.  We don’t live terribly close to the river, so I have to put the bike rack on the back of the car, hoist the bikes, get them secured and then we head to the city.  There’s a lovely parking spot close to the bike path where we can unload the bikes and take off a-pedaling!

We hit a spot where an overheard water feature sprays water down instead of up like a fountain.  Water, puddle, kid . . . need I say more?

I just sat back and watched.

Bike and girl were soaked!

Then . . . . off went the shoes and Goodnight performed her version of a water ballet.  Upon closer review of the video, it looked more like an interpretation of Karate Kid.  I caught the perfect pose to illustrate my point and Goodnight just rolled on the floor laughing at herself.

I love those times with her!  Uncomplicated, easy, fun.

“He, Myself, and . . . I, II, III” – Super Scarf #3

I finished my third Super Scarf.  (Check the link on my side bar for the scoop about the Super Scarf Project.)  It is the scarf for which my brother sent me his suggestion.

His email made me smile.  He was worried that it might be a “Very, Very strange idea,” but he passed it along anyway.  He said, “What about a scarf with all the super bowl numbers on it?”

He admittedly doesn’t know much about knitting, but I give him HUGE credit for telling me about the Super Scarf project and then trusting me enough to offer a suggestion.  His Super Bowl numbers idea was very clever and I had to give it some thought. (Gram thinks to herself, “that’ll  be a charting nightmare!!!!  – but what the heck – let’s see what happens.”)  He didn’t give any other specifics, so I interpreted it the way I did.

My brother even sent me a link to a funny video that gave him the inspiration.  I’ll get you to that link in a moment.

So . . .  after some serious caffeine and an entire day of charting and math, then some repositioning, double- and triple-checking my calculations, I got clicking.

Super Bowls are numbered using Roman Numerals and the Super Bowl for 2012, in Indianapolis, will be # 46, or XLVI.

The finished scarf has all the Roman Numerals from 1-46, I – XLVI on one side of the scarf.  I used stripes as the format for showcasing the Roman Numerals.  It took some repositioning a couple of times, but I ended up with three white stripes with the Roman Numerals knit in Intarsia on the white background of each stripe.  The numerals are center-justified, but in the end they were divided up evenly enough that the difference at the sides is negligible.

 

The sequence of Roman Numerals begins at the bottom left as you look at the photo below.  I decided to do that because historically, it’s longer ago. 

While looking at the next two photos, you can see that the side margins remaining after center-justification is nearly equal.

 

 

XLVI is at the top right to finish of the Roman Retrospective.

 

 

There are length and width specifications to the Super Scarf project, so the stripes could not be equal in width.  The scarf would have been too wide.

Once through the Roman Numeral chart was PLENTY for me, so I made the back side with just the stripes.  This makes the scarf reversible, with an interesting, yet coordinated contrast to the Intarsia work on the front.

 

I knit the scarf up the wide dimension, so I would work on the chart right-side up and not sideways.  This means that I had to graft the stitches from one side to the stitches on the other side in order for the scarf to be seamless.  It’s worth the time. 

 I haven’t had the time to type the pattern for this scarf yet, but when I do, I will add it in this post.

Now . . . what was the video that inspired my brother to send me his idea?  Check it out.  Just hang in there through the Roman Numerals and you’ll get the idea.  I watched the video (several times) and had the darn words going through my head while I charted, while I figured the math, while I repositioned the charted characters, while I knit . . . and probably will have it in my head for a while. 

“He, Myself, and . . . I, II, III” refers to my Indybro for his scarf idea, me for knitting it, and for the song which includes the “I . . . II . . . III.”

Anyway, thanks big brother, for the GREAT idea!  Hope you and the Indiana Host Committee like my interpretation.

 

Super Scarf Update

I’m nearing the completion of my 3rd Super Scarf for Super Bowl 2012.  It is an idea that my brother sent to me and now coming to life.  I will let you have a look when I get it all done.

I just checked the Super Scarf website and they have a video online  showing the announcement of the Super Scarf project for Super Bowl XLVI, 2012, in Indianapolis.

Click on the link to find the page where the video is. Get a sneak peek at a couple of the scarves.  The official Super Bowl patch will be sewn on to all scarves made for the volunteers.

One thousand knitting kits were made available to the twenty-two Marion County (Indianapolis) Public Libraries for those interested in knitting a Super Scarf.

WAY TO GO, INDY!!!!!