13 posts tagged “torchwood”

I started this Sunday Market Shawl this past spring, with Wexford Silk Merino from Three Irish Girls, in I'm Just A Girl.

I was at Torchsong in June. I paid for priority seating, along with the caberet. Sadly, John Barrowman broke his ankle and couldn't attend. Instead, he did a two way video link so he could do Q&As and still see us from his office in Wales and we could see him on a big screen.

I brought my knitting with me since I was sitting alone and I like having something to concentrate on while I listen. My assigned seat was on the far end of the row, just behind the microphone where con attendees went to ask the Torchwood actors questions and such.

John came on, and was chatty and friendly and having a great time talking with the people lined up next to me asking him questions. Then, about ten minutes in, he stopped the next person and said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, I have to ask. Is that lady knitting?! What are you making, honey?" I froze, looked up at the giant screen of him leaning towards the camera, squinting at me. I finally was able to tell him that it was a shawl, and held it up. "That looks great!" he said. "See, I am paying attention!"

Yes, he was, and he made my day, weekend, month, summer! I never would have felt comfortable getting in line, but I didn't have to - he initiated the interaction! Thanks, John. :)

So, this was renamed from Summer Nights Shawl to The Oh Holy Hell John Barrowman Noticed Me And Asked Me About My Project Shawl. ;)

It was pretty simple - first row, k2 yo all the way across, then knit straight stockinette. Last row, drop the yos and unravel them down to create the ladders. It jumped from about 44x8 to 66x12 after that - seriously impressive.

I did have an hour of fear when, trying to bind off as loosely as possible per the directions, my stitches came off the needle and I couldn't tell which were accidentally dropped and which were purposely so! It was awful...an hour of frantically catching them all and figuring out which belonged where and how to pick them up from several rows down, etc. I did manage it, though, although something got twisted in the bind off row, creating my only error of the piece. (Of course something had to happen - my knitting is always imperfectly perfect!) The unraveling itself was a blast. It took about another hour, and the immediate change of dense, thick stockinette to loose, drapey, big stitches was amazing. See?

I wore it the day after I finished (knit in Pleasant Prairie during a Doctor Who marathon with Meg) to the Bristol Renaissance Faire, as pictured. It was a delight - I could wear it as a shawl, scarf, hood or shrug to stay warm. However, as you can see, I had a problem that many others encountered with this pattern - half of it has stayed laddered (the bind off edge, where I started dropping) and the other half lost the ladders and just looks like loose stockinette. Hmm. A knitty friend from work recommended blocking it and picking apart the ladders, as they do still exist in there. I'm worried what that will do to the perfect length of this, though. Must decide what to do about it, if anything.

The yarn is a silk/wool blend, in shades of blue and purple. It's soft and gorgeous and lovely. Definitely recommended.

I love John and Gareth. John teased Carole, Carole teased John, Gareth rushed out to snog Carole and then came round to the video link where John could see the fan asking him questions to dance at the camera. Utterly hysterical.

Look what I made! I cast on last night when Jennie and I popped in a first season episode of Stargate Atlantis and cast off tonight just after another first season episode of Stargate Atlantis. *g* Probably about five hours of knitting, total, plus extra finishing time.

This is a Calorimetry, in a soft-spun corriedale wool. The colorway is Ianto, dyed by YummyYarn of Etsy, and based on Ianto's excellent suits. The button is sparkly and from a cheap pack at JoAnns.

I modified the pattern in several ways - I used a US7 needle instead of US8, cast on 96 stitches instead of 120 and did 8 repeats of row 5 and 10 repeats of row 7, instead of 15 and 17 respectively. Too many people had complained that the pattern turned out huge, and they were right. I may have done an extra set of repeats, but the 96 was absolutely perfect and the width is still fine. It doesn't smoosh my bangs and it does cover my ears, which were the two things I wanted from this.

And, well, look. I'm damn cute in it. ;)

I have two more skeins of this on the way, and they shall be matching De-Lovely fingerless mitts. This will be a classic set that Ianto would certainly approve of!

John Barrowman's new video for the first single off his new album was released today.

I love the song - his voice is lush and gorgeous, as always. The video....well, it's better than the ones made for his last CD, heh. It reminds me a lot of cheesy 90s videos. And those end shots of John - I seem to recall Rob Thomas in similar video poses.

Ah, well. I don't expect brilliance from his performances, or depth to his videos, just entertainment and excellent vocals. He always is damn good at that. He's also damn good at looking good - wasn't keen on the jacket-over-sweater scenes, but the blue plaid shirt and brown t-shirt scenes were drool-worthy.      

It seriously took me over a minute to figure out how to post using this new interface. Create does NOT intuitively equal compose a post. For God's sake, people.

I am currently eating quinoa spaghetti. It is...hmm. How to describe it? Somewhere between tough and chewy. Dense. It's a corn based noodle, since Josh can't have wheat or most any other kind of noodle. It is not exactly adding to my enjoyment of the meal.

I watched seven hours of Torchwood yesterday - BBCA aired from Greeks Bearing Gifts through End of Days. (Well, "watched." I had it on while I worked on things.) It would have been awesome had they started one episode earlier, with Countrycide, but it was a lovely treat. I've seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2x01) three times already - once myself and twice with Jennie. (Oh, shut up. There were some of my favorite buzzwords involved.) It was a great start to the season. Happily, US reviews are agreeing - EW and the LA Times loved it. Sweet. Saturday, 8pm ct, BBCA. You know you want to watch.

Relatedly, I realized I can use Rosetta Stone from home off my library's website. So, yes, I am in fact on lesson three of Welsh. It's quite a lot of fun and I'm doing really well, I think. I have a few words, phrases and sentences down. I don't know the value, yet, in knowing Mae'r bachgen dan awyrel (The boy is under the plane), but Mae'r gwellt dyn infanc y ddu could be useful, I guess (The young man has black hair). *g*

BBCA has updated their Torchwood site for the premiere next Saturday. (Note to self: Cancel tentative plans with Co-worker L for movie that night. No more Saturday movies for 13 weeks. Unless there are clunker eps again.) They have some good stuff - I love the Captain's Log. Not as good as BBC2, but at least I finally found a way to access that from my non-UK based computer.

Anyway, I took their Team Personality test. Some were amusingly obvious (when given the choice of gadgets like a telepathic necklace, alien spritz, etc, I am always going to choose the stopwatch. Naturally) and others really not (pick a favorite Beatle? I think they were messing with me). Still, Ianto's stopwatch aside, I ended up as Toshiko. Surprises no one, I think. (Reserved geek.)

What shows are you looking forward to in the new fall TV season?

I'm really looking forward to the new season of Bones. Other than that, I have a few shows I will continue to tune into, but not with the same amount of excitement. Actually, I should figure out my viewing schedule. Let's see!

Sunday:
Viva Laughlin - 7pm, October 18. Drama, musical, Lloyd Owen, what's not to love???
Cold Case - 8pm, September 23. It's on after Viva Laughlin, and I always love it, so I'll probably just keep it on after.
Doctor Who - 10pm, continuing. Yeah, I've seen the Ninth Doctor's episodes several times now. Does that stop me from watching them here? It does not.

Monday-Friday:
Coupling - 9pm, continuing. I quite love this show. Patrick and Sally are the best.

Monday:
Dancing with the Stars - 7pm, Sept. 24. Joey got me hooked, what can I say?
(Last season's finale of How I Met Your Mother seemed like such a perfect concluding place, I don't think I'll watch the show anymore. I was pretty eh on it last year.)

Tuesday:
Bones - 7pm, Sept 25. SO glad I don't have to wait until November for this. Man, I love this show.
Dancing with the Stars - 8pm, Sept 25. Results.

Wednesday:
Nothing

Thursday:
Ugly Betty - 7pm, Sept 27. Not a must see show, but I love it every time I see it.
(Geez, CSI is still on??)

Friday:
Doctor Who - 7pm, continuing.  I think there's only 4 episodes left (Blink + Jack's trilogy), but they might rerun them after.
Numb3rs - 9pm, Sept 28. I had forgotten about this show this summer, but I do want to see what happened to Colby.
Stargate Atlantis - 9pm, Sept 28. Thank heavens for dual tuner TiVos. I'm pretty unenthusiastic for this season (Sam Carter, I'm looking at you), but it is still David Hewlett. So.

Saturday:
Doctor Who - 7pm, continuing. Yes, I've already seen series 2 multiple times. Your point?
Torchwood - 8pm, continuing. YAY Torchwood!! This will run through early December, then I go on vacation for three weeks and then I will be only weeks from the series two premiere in the UK. Very exciting.

I think Viva Laughlin is the only new show I have here. Then there's the four runs of Who and Torchwood that I've already seen and am just rewatching. A fairly light schedule, but we'll see what catches my eye as the season continues.

I'm watching the Doctor Who marathon on BBCA today - all 13 episodes of the Ninth Doctor, with plenty of promos for Torchwood, as well as interviews and behind the scene looks with John Barrowman. YAY TORCHWOOD!!! I cannot wait for it to start airing here in the US. Allow me to present two ads for it: one is a typical 30 second one, and the second a two minute preview. Watch these, and then watch the show next Saturday evening at 9pm ET.

Video: Show us some great dancing.