In-Between Days

Last week... 

I'll just blame it on the migraine. Not much in the way of knitting got done. (Although, blaming it on the migraine doesn't explain what I didn't do Monday through Thursday when I was migraine-free.) 

I started a couple more masks. I found patterns for two new projects. And I continued to work on the baby blanket... 

What baby blanket? Yeah, I haven't mentioned it before, primarily because it's new. 

My landlady saw my SIL's scarf, and she really liked the colors of the yarn. One of her grandchildren is having a baby (due in July), and she asked me to make a baby blanket. (This will be her 9th? 11th? great-grandchild. I've lost track.) So, she got me the yarn and I made her choose a stitch pattern. 

It's coming along... 

When I went outside to photograph my work thus far, I caught the turtles out sunning themselves... 

I think they have the right idea. Happy Monday.

Inventors and Their Inventions

In my continuing quest to find a go-to quiz website, today we're trying out the Encyclopedia Britannica site...

Inventors and Their Inventions

You get 30 seconds for each question. (Sorry.) But they're multiple choice. So this quiz goes quickly. 

I got 6/8. Not bad. I know where I made my mistakes.

More Minions

How are you all doing?

I know, I've been sort of ignoring the pandemic here on the blog. It's not that I've been ignoring it, though. It's more I've had nothing to say in regards to it. I'm staying home. I'm going out sparingly. And I've found that I have little to say about it.

But I did want to update you on the Minions...

My roommate Luisa and I have been getting out for almost daily hour-long walks. One of the neighbors had done this on their lawn...

No sooner had I posted that, those neighbors went and extended the display. Now there are six minions. So you can see, I did it in two pictures...

The guy on the right is new. The other two are in the first image. Then...

The guy on the right is an overlap from the above picture. Do you see the guy in the tree?

Luisa and I had wondered how long our walks are. Then I realized that there was already a tracker on our phones. It turns out our walks have been about two miles long.

Not too shabby.

Have you been taking walks? What's going on in your neck of the woods?

All the Cancelled

Two Sundays ago, God Friended Me had it's series finale. Which got me thinking about my occasional Wednesday "feature", the under the radar TV show.

Not too long ago, I pulled up the list of the TV shows I've featured. Let's just say many of them are no longer on the air. Sigh.

Although, the premise of the topic was for me to highlight shows I enjoy that aren't getting much of an audience.

So, in the spirit of we're-still-in-lockdown and you-might-be-looking-for-something-to-watch, I thought I'd see if any of the cancelled shows are available for streaming someplace. Now might be a good time for a short, self-contained season or two of a random TV show. (Links are to my post talking about the show.)

• No Tomorrow: Netflix. The show did manage a wrap up at the end, so no cliffhangers.
• Humans: Amazon Prime. The finale of season 3 did have a couple things that could have been continued, but it's mostly finished. 
• Frequency: Netflix. Based on the movie of the same name, it also offered a conclusion once it was cancelled. I highly recommend it.
• Longmire: Netflix. Once I finally got Netflix, the first show I watched was this. It finished with six total seasons, so this is a bit longer than the other shows on this list. A great modern day western.
• Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: Hulu. Based on the Douglas Adams' books. Very, very weird. Each of its two seasons were self-contained stories, so no cliffhangers.
• The Brave: It appears you can purchase it, but it's not just streaming anywhere. Maybe NBC still has it on its servers. This one, alas, did end with a cliffhanger, so I only include it for completeness. 
• The Gifted: Hulu. This managed to get two seasons, but that second season wasn't as great as the first. If memory serves, it ended on a cliffhanger, so caution. 
• Genius: Hulu. I only caught the Einstein season. There's also a Picasso season. I might have to check that one out... 
• God Friended Me: Amazon Prime, CBS All Access. The show that started this post. They did wrap it up nicely, so no cliffhanger. And two seasons, so there are a few episodes to watch.
• American Princess: Here's another that you can purchase but not just stream. It was cute. I had hoped for a second season. There was a slight cliffhanger, so it's probably for the best that it's not streaming for free somewhere. 

Yikes, with that record, I'd hesitate before starting anything I recommended last month. I hope I'm wrong. But I suppose most shows only last a season or two. And if you're looking for something new to watch, these were worth the time. 

Okay, your turn. What's a good cancelled TV show to watch streaming someplace? Summer is coming, and we're all going to need something to keep us entertained.

In Dreams

At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements. 😉

We are living in strange times. (I've finally used up all the pre-written "what if?" posts.) It seems like all of us are having strange dreams, at least by what some people in media have said. So...

What if these "strange" dreams are the collective unconsciousness' way of giving us solutions to this world-wide pandemic problem? 

A Knit Fabric Mask

About a month ago, I knit myself a face mask...

I'm not terribly fond of it, but it does the job. (We're required to wear masks if we want to go to the grocery store.)

But, I knew I could do better. So, I went to Pinterest again. I was specifically looking for sewing pattern templates that I could try to duplicate in knitting.

I found something better.

Someone had come up with a way to take some fabric and attach crochet ties to it--all without doing any sewing.

(I mean, I can sew. I have a sewing machine. But it's such a hassle to set the whole thing up to make one mask. And my sewing skills aren't up to making a bunch of masks for others.)

Upon perusing the instructions (which are here, if you're interested) and watching the video, I realized that the trick was blanket stitch. I have seen this done to add knitting or crochet to fabric before (and, in fact, you can just use thread for the blanket stitch and attach the yarn through that). Which meant that I could knit this as easily as crocheting it.

So, I dug out my fabric stash, heated up the iron, and pinned it as per the instructions. Then, instead of following the procedure in the post, I knit up a couple rows on each side, and then I knit a couple I-cords that I tacked down to the knit sides.

Alas, when I tried it on, it's a little tight...

...but that's fixable. I just need to make the ties a bit longer. Although, it fits so snugly that I might be overthinking this. Whatever. It works.

I'm considering doing another, but this time I'll cut the fabric 9 inches by 16 inches as this felt a bit small. Although, looking at the picture, I might just be feeling like this is small because my other one is so much bigger...

I have a couple other projects I could be working on, so we'll see what I end up doing. At least now I feel like I can competently make a mask, unlike what I had going before.

Edited to add: The evening after writing this post, I decided to make the ear ties about an inch longer. In the disassembling, I managed to destroy all the knitting, so I had to do the whole thing over. This only took about an evening, and the look hasn't changed at all. But, that inch on either side was just enough to ease the fit, so now I'm quite happy with this mask.

Which Fantasy Movie Series Should You Binge-Watch?

This week's topic is pretty straightforward:

Which Fantasy Movie Series Should You Binge-Watch? 

Hopefully this one will have easier to answer questions than last week. (And hopefully there will be no "horse with ice cream cone stuck to its head" option.) 

There are ads. Sorry. When you get them, just scroll down to the "next question" button. 

I got the Harry Potter series. Which I've seen. So, no binge-watching for me. What series did you get?