Rip Back and Start Over

Cafe Church make it to the internet

2008-11-05T13:48:00.000-08:00

We started to record what Cafe Church has been doing and is planning, over on a wordpress blog.

Cafe Church continues to be a lot of fun, and changing from year to year. Someone once joked that we were "Bible study without a Bible", but while the atmosphere that the comment was getting at remains, the Bible has been more and more present in between the coffee and cakes this year.

See what we're doing at Cafe Church Leeds and one of my favourite historic services, with a neat poem from YouTube and a nifty use of word cloud is here.

2007-10-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

Check out a new tool to see pictures as they are uploaded onto blogger: Blogger play

Happy Birthday Kit

2007-07-24T02:15:00.000-07:00

Dear Kit,

Like I said at your party we want to buy you a Weebls t-shirt, but we wonder which one you'd like most.
Obviously, everyone loves magical trevor, but you don't follow the crowd.

Cat face wants kids to stay in school and is my current cartoon favourite. The t-shirt images include cat face considering drinking bleach before deciding to go out and buy some real food.

The Toast King and Insanity Prawn Boy are obvious fan boy heros. There's 12 episodes by now which makes it a bit epic compared to the rest of the site.

Honourable ninja farm is the logical conclusion for the happy agriculture movement that Greg and Diccon have bought into.

Sadly there's no t-shirt for this informational film on combating the international rise of vegetarianism. But Weebl and Bob are worth checking out.

Once you've done some viewing, check out the Weebls store, and pick a graphic and a t-shirt style and let me know.

'frin

Note to those of you who aren't Kit - you don't get a t-shirt but you do get to click the links. Not all the links are small child friendly.

Evil Santa

2007-07-01T14:33:00.001-07:00

Evil Santa
Originally uploaded by frinls.

I wanted to buy some small souvenirs and didn't buy this one. On reflection, I wish I had. Evil santa would make a great tree decoration.

Out of the hotel in Seoul

2007-07-01T14:32:00.001-07:00

Rachel and Ste
Originally uploaded by frinls.

It was great to spend an evening with Ste and Rachel in Seoul, thereby missing out on what would have been a depressing meal of noodles in flavourless vegetarian broth. Instead we went to a vegetarian restaurant and had the best meal I had in Korea and then got to see some sites. I've picked the neon street for my blog, but there are extra photos of each of ste and rachel on my flickr pages. Thank you both for coming out to see me, and remind you to tell you the story of the strange man I met on the subway back to the hotel.

'frin

Nagging works

2007-06-01T12:59:00.000-07:00

Nice to see some action on Mr D and Ste's blogs again - nagging apparently works. You guys need to post more since I've added you to my google reader and your contributions are totally dwarfed by those on Wood's blog (the John Heron project) and Wood has a new baby and a looming work deadline to contend with. This makes the rest of us look like slackers.

I haven't had a new gadget since January, when somehow I found myself needing a newer version of my telephone (strangely, this coincided with my brother upgrading to the same handset I had). Current version has a slide out keyboard so that I can touch type things with my thumbs. The novelty of this has not yet worn off, but the gadget itch has started to burn.

So I've written a list of things I'm not going to buy but really want. These are - in no order -

a low noise PC - with a heat sink instead of fans and lots of noise insulation

wireless music streaming around my house

an amp and a decent digital radio to plug into those speakers wired into the walls of my house

But what I obviously need is a laptop. Haven't quite decided what laptop yet, but have realised that this can be massively accessorized. Obviously I need a bag, but not one that costs £160, even if it is cute. Then there's feet to keep it cool in use. Plus obviously a wireless network for the house, a laptop mouse, and . Other suggestions of gadgets and accessories to research are welcome.

'frin

Crocheted Dalek

2007-05-20T08:05:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Babybear for sending a link for this crocheted dalek.

I'm thinking of making another Chimp to grace the desk I may be sharing with the first recipient's mother. Haven't decided on colours yet.

Scrumble scarf

2007-05-06T12:02:00.001-07:00

Crochet_May07 001
Originally uploaded by frinls.

Here's the scarf I mentioned back in January, made from oddments, test pieces, and only a few stiches in any colour. The wool is mostly from a rowan kit that came free with a magazine two years ago.

The scarf is now a present for my mother on the occasion of her 60th birthday.

Monkey

2007-05-06T11:56:00.001-07:00

Crochet_May07 010
Originally uploaded by frinls.

I finally finished stuffing this in time for a Christening this morning. I'm quite pleased with him as I made up the pattern as I went along. Next time I'll hide the change in colour under his armpits.

Pictures of the monkey's back and side can be found on my flickr site:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lewissmith/

Pink scarf

2007-05-01T00:28:00.001-07:00

IMG_1029
Originally uploaded by frinls.

A pink scarf made as a present for Sian - the wool made me think of her all the while when I knitted it up.

This is my first ever knit, and is essentially knit, knit knit all the way through. I considered knit a row purl a row, but the effect was lost in the chunky wool.

Burning car

2007-05-01T00:18:00.001-07:00

IMG_1042
Originally uploaded by frinls.

Dyfrig woke me up at about half past five this morning pointing out there had been an explosion in the street. I managed not to say "no, it was maggots", so goodness knows what I had been dreaming about. A car was burning out and the community was gathered at its doors and windows to watch. This shot was taken just as the fire brigade started to soak the vehicle.

Another nice blog by someone I know

2007-04-29T14:40:00.000-07:00

Karl grew up on the next street from the one we lived in and is the same age as my brother. Currently in Japan, or maybe China, and doing interesting graphic design - Karl's blog has great visuals.

2007-04-06T00:49:00.000-07:00

Found by a reader on Ship of Fools, a limited edition plagues of Israel in chocolate set.

Happy Easter

Leeds to Liverpool along the Canal

2007-04-04T12:39:00.001-07:00

Ian at 119 miles to go
Originally uploaded by frinls.

On a day between Christmas and new year I started this blog. On one of the other days I started a walk with my dad. We set off along the canal in Leeds city centre and are heading towards Liverpool. The walk is currently progressing in short stages, as I increase the distance I can walk post CFS (Chronic Fatigue/ M.E.). The first day we did a little over a mile. Today we walked from Apperley Bridge to Baildon, which was about 3 miles. This mile marker is from an earlier section of the walk, with 119 miles still to go.

Found in Keswick

2007-04-04T12:23:00.001-07:00

Dolls House Communion set
Originally uploaded by frinls.

This looks like a communion set for a dolls house.

Taken during the cafe church trip to the Lake District, through a shop window in Keswick.

Unravelling yarn

2007-01-20T02:01:00.001-08:00

pink wool swatch
Originally uploaded by frinls.

Starting a new job has used up a lot of my available energy for the last two weeks. I finished off the scarf knitting kit which came for Christmas. The photo is vague - I'm going to give this away as a present so I don't want the recipient to see the whole thing yet,

I've been trying to finish off a project which I began to use up some tiny patch test squares I made and had no use for. I've been twisting the squares to make a textured 3-D shape, then crocheting around the edges with small curved shapes in lots of different shades of wool. I appear to be making flower like shapes, approximately the size of a hand. I'm now stitching them together loosely to make the ends of a scarf. This would be finished by now, but I realised that one of my hanks of yarn was a complete mess and am now trying to pull it apart and rewind it into a neat ball. This has now taken more than 3 evenings and I'm not anywhere near finshed. Photo of scarf to follow.

Profile photo

2007-01-02T11:14:00.001-08:00

7909darnholm
Originally uploaded by frinls.

I was looking for a photo for my profile, and found this one from 1979 of an encounter with a sheep. Since sheep and yarn are obviously related, it seemed appropriate.

'frin

Finished Item - a hat

2007-01-02T09:38:00.001-08:00

brown cream hat
Originally uploaded by frinls.

I spent part of new years day tucking the ends in on this hat and finishing it off. Almost wore it to go out today, but changed my mind and wore my best ever hat instead. The best ever hat is a highly structured 1920s style cloche in felt and doesn't like the rain, so it demands to be worn on dry winter days.

Learning a new word - amigurumi

2007-01-02T09:07:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Laura for the link to the amigurumigirl blog. Armed with my new found knowledge of the right term to google big headed bears I've found some lovely examples.

Puchitomato makes very cute tropical monkeys. Over at flikr I found a lovely creature called clementine and amigurumi has a flikr tag page.

Thank you for the links.

Big head bear

2007-01-01T08:49:00.001-08:00

I want to make a big head bear. Japanese style toys have somehow got my attention and I think a toy with an outsize head would be kind of cute.

Fingerless gloves

2007-01-01T08:36:00.001-08:00

 
  IMG_0909
Originally uploaded by frinls. 

I had been looking at fingerless gloves worn by other people on the bus to work and thought they would make a good crochet project. I am in debt to whichever blog I was looking at which had a picture of some fingerless gloves in progress, but unfortunately didn't bookmark the site and can't find it again.

The gloves are made in a 4-ply wool yarn, probably Rowan, but I can't be sure as the ball was leftover from making a hat and its yarn labels are gone. I was using a 3.4mm hook. The finished gloves have 18 rows of treble crochet from sleeve to finger top. In making this up, it helps to make reference notes on the number of chains in the first row, how many rows you make down to the sleeve, how many stitches you left for the thumb joint at the point you start the fingers, and how many rows up to the top of the finger and thumb sections.

This pattern was made by looking at my hand and playing with the hook and yarn until things looked and felt right. Trying the glove on frequently helped a lot.

The main part of the glove
I made a chain large enough to go around the fattest part of my hand, just under the thumb. On this pair I chained 30.
I then kept adding rows of trebles (UK tc = US dc) until the sleeve went far enough down my wrist (with lots of trying on along the way to get the length right).

I then went back to my chain row, and started to crochet in the other direction (towards the finger hole end). After two rows of trebles I reached the bottom of the thumb joint.

The fingers
On the next row I made trebles most of the way around the circle, stopping about 12 stitches before the end.
Then I put the glove on and adjusted its position so that the unfinished side was positioned around my thumb. I checked that all of the palm of my hand was covered by the new row with no stitches going into the void between the palm and thumb.
I adjusted as necessary and then continued by chaining 5 and joining the chain to the top of the start of this row.
I continued to make rows of trebles until they covered the fingers to the bottom of the first knuckle and finished off with a row of single crochet.

The Thumb
I joined a new piece of the yarn at the gap left for the thumb joint and made a row of trebles anti-clockwise around the gap, into the top of the treble stitches and the bottom of the five chained stitches. I ended the row with a decrease, joining what would have been the last two trebles together. The post of the last stitch goes right into the V shape made at the point the thumb and finger sections diverged. After this last stitch I joined the row together with a slip stitch, and chained up to the next row. This is another row of trebles. The last row is a row of double crochet, containing two decreases, one each side of the thumb.

Then I tucked all the ends in the first glove and wore it on my left hand for inspiration and reference purposes while I crocheted the second glove.

This is a fairly quick project and would be easy to adapt to suit different hands and different yarns.

Headless hat

2006-12-30T10:32:00.001-08:00

hat no face
Originally uploaded by frinls.

Wanted to check that flickr and blogger are talking to each other.
This is my flower girl hat (as christened by someone at my old job). I was aiming for a 1920s kind of look.

Opening Post

2006-12-30T06:57:00.000-08:00

Have decided to start a blog, mainly to keep track of the crochet projects I have on the go, and to leave myself notes on what I am doing. Since most of my crochet is freeform and doesn't come with a pattern, I'm hoping the blog will be somewhere I can go back to for reminders on how to do things should I ever wish to replicate a project. Sometime soon I'll add a picture of the fingerless gloves I made in November, and how to go about another pair.

To make sure the blog does not feel empty, I've added some links to the sidebar of sites run by some of my friends. Shipoffools.com is the magazine of Christian Unrest and notable for long running projects such as Gadgets for God and the Mystery Worshipper. I've been involved with the site since 1998 and its part in my life is evidenced by the next two sites, which belong to people I met through Ship of Fools.

John Heron Project belongs to Wood. This site has been going for years, and is a high quality read. Wood now writes freelance and is rarely sighted over at Ship of Fools, but is held in great affection by the hosts, admins, and old timers there.

Cartoon Church belongs to Dave Walker, another person familiar from Ship of Fools. Dave now publishes in the Church Times and I've posted one of his Cartoons below.


Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.