X ... is for ...?

The great unknown?

or X marks the spot - but what spot should I put the x on - the spot where the cat was asleep in the middle of the floor beside me, or the spot where she is now asleep, under the desk next to my feet? LOL

I guess the cat IS "the great unknown" sometimes - especially when one wonders why she does what she does, when she does/where she does - LOL

I raved on about all sorts of x words the last 2 times we were up to the letter X for ABC Wednesday ... including posting a whole pile of photos of Xanthorrea and other eXciting? things ... like Xylem and Xenolith etc - most of which can be found by searching the www and/or looking in a dictionary ...

There are not a lot of well known words starting with X - so I am sure someone else can post about X rays and Xylophones and stuff

... and a few ppl might resort to mentioning "The X Files" or somesuch ...

and others may even resort to stuff where x is the second letter of a word (eXciting eh?) ...

or maybe even words like "Xmas" etc where X stands for something else (like in Xmas where X is short for Christ because it looks like a cross ... or something like that)

... although what is really odd is where X gets used to fill up a space because someone decides that something has to be there - like DH's work e-addy - and that of a lot of other people (mostly government employees) who don't have middle names, but their IT people decide that e-addys need to have first and second initial and last name ... so if poor old Fred Nerk has no middle name his e-addy ends up being fxnerk @ wherever (and yes I did put spaces in there - so someone won't click it and accidentally send an e-mail to the somebody who probably DOES have that for an e-addy ... then again ... if someone was mad enough to have that as an e-addy they probably did it to be silly and therefore deserve every silly e-mail they get! LOL ... unless of course there IS a family who have the surname "Nerk"? ... I feel sorry for them if there is!)

Then ... there are those, often artists or musicians and the like, who want to put an X in their name for whatever reason - most because they think it sounds mysterious or like they are some kind of unknown entity or superhero or somesuch ... oddly enough - I even know a musician who is not famous yet (so he is still an "x" - unknown), but he quite possibly will be famous sometime soonish, who goes by a name with an x in the middle - Miki X Deus ... I have known him for a few years (but only by his first name - he is a friend of some friends of mine - and he often visits them at the same time as I do) but had not heard his music (it was an x - unknown - to me - lol) - he released his first CD a few weeks back and I listened to it the other day (he gave me a copy too - hmmm - I might have to get him to sign it next time I see him ;-) ... odd thing is - the stuff on his CD is nothing like what I imagined his music might sound like - but I really like it!

(btw ... I think his music also sounds better than his website looks too ... but maybe I am just fussy about what websites look like? ... or worried that some of the people reading this might be? ... lol ... I think what I am trying to say is if you don't like the look of the website (it does look a bit like a weird heavy metal/etc website) go listen to his music anyway - you might be surprised at how good it sounds ;-)

now ... where was I?

actually ... I was sitting in front of the computer ... still here from when I posted my (late) W post (in Which I said I was about to go Walk the dog) ... I decided to start writing the X stuff while I had a few things in mind, before I forgot some of them ... but now I am going to leave this saved as a draft and see what happens ... I eXpect to post this in the neXt day or 2 ... but we will see ...

X marks the spot I was up to when I eXited this and went to walk the dog?

(and if/when I do post this later you will know that I walked the dog at 3am and came back ok without becoming a story line for an episode of The X Files or somesuch - lol)

X

ok ... it is now the next night ...
and ... actually ... it was about 4am before I got out the door to walk the dog ... and the way he dogged my footsteps as soon as I got up from the computer I am sure he must have known what I was planning to do and was making sure I didn't forget/change my mind or something - LOL
(he also took me a bit further than I was going to go too - we got to the lane way that I was going to go up and he decided that we were going to keep going a bit further down the street before we headed back toward home - LOL - but it was only another 5 minutes or so longer that way ... although I think he would have kept going even further if I had let him!)

... methinks I might go to bed a bit earlier tonight though ... lol

(not that it is early even now ... but it is not as late as I was in here last night, and the dog has already had his walk this evening)

Now ... are there any other X things I should mention? ... maybe XML? - which is what you get if you subscribe to this blog as a feed (using your web browser, a feed reader, or via one of the buttons way down at the bottom of my rather long side bar ... lol)

hmmm another x - as in another unknown factor - I was just fiddling around and noticed that there is a new version of this editor thingy ... that one can choose to use, or leave it as the old one (I think I saw that a month or 2 ago but didn't change it at the time, then forgot about it) ...  I just read what blogger says about it and it says it does a few things better ... and a couple of those things it does better/differently are things I figured would be handy - like how I can add photos ... so what better excuse to add one or 2 in here than wanting to mess around and try it out - eXperimenting - LOL

... I guess I had better FIND a photo or 3 to add ...

er ... oops - I forgot to add this Water dragon to my w post! LOL

... it was at the botanic gardens when I was there a week or 3 ago ... I Went somehere nearby and Was early, so I Went for a Walk in the garden for a While ... and took lots of photos - LOL

now ... back to X?

I have been searching the www while writing this post ... looking for any interesting x things I didn't know about ... and trying to work out if I went to any places that start with an X when I was overseas earlier in the year ... I may have been at or near Xanthos ... but I am not sure ... lol

but ... I did find an interesting Australian plant called Xanthosia rotundifolia - also known by the common name of "Southern Cross" - LOL

hmmm ... this newer version of the text editor works eXtremely well, btw ...
(well I hope it does - I guess the real test is when I post this and make sure it really does work ok - and u will see what time I actually post it, rather than the time I started writing it, or the time I changed it to, like it did with the old one ... although I can still change what time shows up if I want to, but I am not sure if I can backdate it or just schedule it for future posting ... I will probably find out if I do some eXperimenting - lol)

ok ... one more picture - also not really an x ... but it is time I went and got some sleep!

ok ... a bit weird? ... I was actually at the art gallery at the ANU School of Art (looking at their graduating artists exhibition) ... and I noticed that this collection of cleaning stuff, tucked away in full view under the stairs, looked a bit like a work or art too - LOL
(hmmm nice contrast between the white and the primary colours, pleasing composition ... whatever ...?)
I didn't notice those plastic wine glasses on top of the fire hose box when I took the photo! - looks like someone was having a good time at some time ... (probably at the opening of the exhibition in the gallery a few days earlier maybe ... which possibly means that the cleaners are better at tastefully arranging their buckets and stuff than at noticing the rubbish that needs cleaning up? ... then again - they may only be paid to do floors, not things like benches and the tops of tables and fire hose boxes ;-)

er ... now it is nearly as eXtremely late as last night ... but don't plan to walk the dog this time so if I go to bed now I will still be an hour earlier than I got there last night - lol

so ... in case I am not in here actually posting something at midnight tomorrow ...

Happy New Year ... and all that stuff ... lol

and, seeing this is an "X" post (about the letter x, not an x rated one ;-) I will even sign off like I do in my e-mails to Mum and Dad (and used to do in my letters, back in the dim dark ages before e-mail) with some kisses - XXXXXXXX

(note: these are "peck on the cheek" type kisses, like one does when greeting people etc, not sloppy romantic ones - I AM happily married after all!)

Seasons Greetings

Chrismas Day is almost over here so this post is sort of a bit late ... but better late than never?

Merry Christmas

... or if Christmas isn't your thing then happy whatever else you might happen to celebrate at this time of year ...




yes ... I messed around with a photo I took the other day ... I didn't do much messing around with it though (scribbled on it so the street lights became Christmas trees, added the words and re-sized it smaller)... this new(ish) computer has a slightly different lot of photo editing software on it and I can't find some of the weird stuff I used to use in the other one and don't want to spend all night looking for it/fiddling with it (and if I did do more stuff I would probably go too far and make it look worse, knowing me - lol)

btw - the reason I took that photo is because I like how the moon looked.
(you should be able to click on the photo for a bigger version if u can't see it properly)
... it also reminds me of a song I like - "The Whole Of The Moon" by the Waterboys - which will now probably end up going around and around in my head for ages ... probably while I am trying to go to sleep or something - LOL

Yes

Yes ... I am having fun doing Wednesday ABC posts ... when I get around to it ... lol

... so this one is my Y post.

and Yes - I would like Wednesday ABC to keep going for another round ... then I can post about how I want to go to Antarctica when we start at A - LOL

... and I will probably also post about the other A things I probably didn't cover last time ... LOL

Y?

Y not?

(I think I actually did that for my post last time we did Y ;-)



Yes I want to blog my way to Antarctica http://www.blogyourwaytoantarctica.com/blogs/view/281

Y should you vote for me?

- Y not?!

you can read my post about it here - http://thebestblogintheentireworld.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-want-to-go-to-antarctica-i-want-to-go.html ... or you can read much the same stuff at the site where you will need to go to vote for me!

cool URL I have for that blog eh?!

one day I went to go there (there used to be something else there I think) and I saw it was vacant and so I took the opportunity and signed up for it!

Y?

Y not?! LOL

so ...
Y am I still UP at this late hour of night?

well ... because when DH went to bed I was wide awake (probably due to having been up even later last night ... er ... as in getting fairly close to sunrise this morning actually ... so I slept in until lunch time today) and then I kind of got side-tracked in here ... and joined twitter ... which I had been kind of meaning to do for ages ... but hadn't got around to because I couldn't decide on a good user name - I wanted to use aykayem (which is a name I invented for myself way back in about 1978 ... before cyberspace had even been invented!) - but ... after years and years of signing up for all sorts of stuff/junk/whatever online, and it always being available ... I tried to use it for twitter and it was TAKEN ... aaaahhhrrrggghhhh! (I wonder if he/she knows that he/she isn't the only "aykayem" hanging around in cyberspace? lol

Y is also for Yellow ... which is the colour of the lid on a jar of Vegemite ... and with both Vegemite and yellow - "a little goes a long way" ... LOL
(I briefly thought about making the text in this post a nice bright yellow, but thought the better of it and spared you - it probably would have been almost totally unreadable anyway - but yellow IS a very useful colour to put just a little bit of in a quilt that needs a little something to give it a bit of a lift/some oomph/whatever - lol)

"Yellow" is also the title of a song I rather like ... but I am not going to add music to this blog ... it has enough stuff to load as it is ... (I do have a music thingy on this blog and that song is actually already ON there! ... I think it is about half way down the list ... I just went and looked to see if it was there and still working ok (it was), but I closed it again because this poor old computer is acting up, which it has been doing a lot lately, and if I had left that window open while it was doing what it was doing, it probaly would have resulted in a blue screen of death or something ... and it doesn't want me to re-start it right now - I tried to do that a little while ago but it told me to try again later because the automatic virus scan is still going! ... besides ... very shortly I am going to hit the post button on this and go to bed - LOL
(I just need to do couple things first - like add labels, and put the current date and time on there - because I actually started typing this post a couple of days ago so it has that date/time on there until I change it)

btw ... I didn't get around to doing an X post last week ... but I probably more than covered it all last time we were up to the letter X - with all my Xanthorreas and other X words ... LOL
(oddly enough, because I happened to be at the botanic gardens and saw some nice ones, I did take several more photos of Xanthorreas a couple of weeks ago!)

Actually - I just looked at that X post and realised that it was also my FIRST post for ABC Wednesday! LOL
(but ... it wasn't my first post about the letter X/X words! - but I won't bore you with the details of that here - it is all explained in the Wednesday ABC one if you are really that interested - lol)

hmmm ... if I hadn't missed most of the letters in the middle of the alphabet I would have been a full circle ... so maybe we HAVE to do it again so I can have another go and see if I can at least fill in the gaps and do the letters I didn't do this time - LOL

anyway ... it is now even later than it was when I changed the time on this post (it is now 10 past 2 rather than 10 to 2 ... lol) so I had better post this before I fall asleep on the keyboard or something (or before this poor old computer decides that the one thing I am still doing on here is still too much for it, and totally crashes on me ... )

btw ... the name I decided to use on Twitter? - UTLAU
... which is what someone started calling me when a group of us used to chat on ICQ a few years back - UTLAU stands for Up Too Late As Usual ... and as you can see by the title of this blog - I liked it - LOL

... and as you can see from the times on most of my blog posts ... it still kind of suits me!
(although back then I was up in the wee small hours of the morning more often than not, and on any night of the week ... these days I am only up this late sometimes, and usually only when I don't have to get up for work or something the next day ... )

btw ... I could also say that it stands for Up Too Late . au - because I am up too late, in Australia - lol
(which is kind of another reason why I decided I like it, and decided to use it for Twitter)

er ...

goodnight!

Of Crochet and Knitting ... and Poles Apart

A long title for what is probablyWAS going to be a short blog post ...

I have 2 things I wanted to post here for TASDA members (if you don't know what it is, then you are not one ... but you are still welcome to read this post and use the info ... TASDA is a textile art group I am a member of - for the curious, and/or people near enough to Canberra to join and come along - there is a website at http://www.acttextiles.org.au/ )

First ... something to listen to while you are here (hopefully it is already playing - if not you might have to click it or something, but you might not have noticed it playing yet because the first bit is quiet):

EDIT (a few weeks after originally posting this) - I moved the music - after accessing my blog at "dial up" speed the other day, I realised what a pain this music player is for those who have a slower connection (how quickly one forgets what things were like before getting broadband - lol) ... so the music is now playing here - http://wheremyblogis.blogspot.com/ - this is a blog I created when google took over blogger, but before we had to move our blogger blogs over to our google account ... now it is just sitting there doing nothing but being a spare blog - so it is the perfect place to put the music ... those who want to listen can open it up in a new browser/window/tab/whatever and leave it playing in the background while you read the rest of this blog ... or while you go and read/do something more interesting ... LOL

Even later (much later - it is now 2 years since I posted this!) edit: That blog now does have some stuff on it, but the B#%^$$& playlist thingy doesn't play that song any more ... I think it is because they no longer have permission from Pink Floyd (so not really the playlist site's fault I guess) ... so it now I have set it up to play some other stuff ... currently 2 Pink Floyd songs played by an orchestra (weird sounding, but kind of ok actually ... er ... they kind of fit rather well on a blog called "Huh?" lol) and another Pink Floyd one I am not sure who is playing it ... and also a couple other odd songs I like ... but that may change if I ever get around to going in and finding more stuff to stick on there ...
(in fact is is still chaging/being added to now ... seeing I am still messing around on there adding stuff and I am just about to hit the "publish" button on this and go and read some more e-mail while I listen to a few things I am finding and decide if I like them ... or whatever ... you still reading this? ... oh ... it probably doesn't make much sense any more ... I am kind of "thinking out loud" here ... lol)

I tried to put the music player in here, so it was just in this post, rather than on top of my blog ... but it didn't work there ... took half an hour of fiddling and finding something blogger told me I had to change before I could change my blog template (which is what I had to do to put the music thing in) ... so hopefully the song is playing now ... there is only one song on there (I might add more one day)

Yes ... I like this song ... and it just happens to be called "Poles Apart" - which is the theme for this year's TASDA exhibiton ... the theme is actually meant to be about polar ice caps and stuff, but as far as I know, anything to do with any meaning one sees in the title is fair go (my mind comes up with all sorts of stuff - poles apart = differences and/or separation, bi POLAR, icey poles? polarity? this song? anything with Poles and/or Apart in the title ... blue coloured fishing poles side by side but not touching? ... anything ice coloured? ... and I wonder how many personal versions of "Blue Poles" will be entered? LOL)

If the song does not play, and you want to hear it ... it is "Poles Apart" by Pink Floyd ... and I think I might paste a copy of the lyrics on the bottom of this blog post (there are copies of it on lots of those song lyrics sites that my kids visit so why not here too? lol) I am not sure how long the thing will work for even if it does now - things like music files etc on the www tend to come and go fairly quickly)

Anyway ... the other thing I wanted to put here was a pile of links to stuff about the "Magic Squares" (also known as mitred squares) that Janice is showing people how to crochet, and I am going to try and show people how to knit, for the meeting activity this month (in a few hours time - LOL).


I had not knitted these before ... I have not knitted very many other things either ... I learnt the basics of knitting and never seemed to get fast, so I just stuck to crochet because I far prefer that ;-)
but ... because Janice is running the activity and teaching the crochet ones, but also isn't a knitter, I said I would find some info about doing knitted ones, work out how to do them and then I could show any people who were knitters and not crocheters how to do the knitted version. So I found a few websites with patterns/instructions on them and had a bit of a play ... and came up with one version that actually turned out square and looked like it was supposed to, and that is easy to do and should be easy to show people.

I knitted a couple of samples to take to the meeting, then I decided that seeing I am also likely to end up helping people with the crochet ones - maybe I had better actually do a crochet one myself! ... it kind of went a bit odd (I think it was mostly because I used too big a hook) so I undid it - but it gave me a weird idea of something to make using the technique (same mitreing method but not squares - I like to take a "normal" technique/pattern for something and change it until it is totally mangled beyond recognition ;-) so 2 hours later I had a totally useless crochet object that I can't decide if it is a hexagonal crochet bowl or a hexagonal beret to fit someone with a head the size of a cat! LOL
(if I remember/have time in the next day or so, I might edit this post sneak a photo into here ... if not I will put it up in a later post)

Anyway ... here are a few useful links:

http://www.knitting-and.com/knitting/patterns/afghans/st_st.htm an interesting rug - with patterns for small and large size squares in stocking stitch
http://www.magknits.com/Oct06/patterns/mitred.htm childs skirt, but has basic pattern for mitred square as part of it.
http://www.hjsstudio.com/miter.html hat and mittens set, but has a basic pattern half way down the page.
http://www.knittingatknoon.com/afghanpatt.html - mitred squares afghan pattern
http://www.interweave.com/knit/interweave_knits/pdf_files/MiteredSquareRug.pdf stocking stitch
http://home.pacbell.net/kapleo/blog/domesticspherepatterns.html - this is the pattern that worked for me, and that I have used for the samples I am taking to the meeting. ... the page has the mitred square bag on the top and a whole heap of other knitting patterns under it.
http://www.planetshoup.com/easy/knit/mitre_bas.shtml - this is the same as the one above - except it has more than one colour ... but the basic pattern is what I ended up doing ... this one might be better to print than the other one.
http://www.planetshoup.com/easy/knit/mitre_sec.shtml - another page on the same site - how to work another square onto the first one.
http://mindofwinter.prettyposies.com/archives/000146.html - a blog post about them, with yet another way of explaining the same method that I used for mine. (down the page a fair bit)
http://www.masondixonknitting.com/archives/2006_05.html#001556 instructions on how to knit groups of 4 squares without having to join them (halfway down a very long page, but if you are lucky this link might take you to the right part of the page when it loads)
http://www.knitlist.com/01gift/mitred-baby-hat.htm - pattern for a baby hat using mitred squares
http://www.shellykang.com/2006/07/lets-do-gauge-swatch.html and http://www.shellykang.com/2006/07/lets-do-gauge-swatch.html - another person's instructions for doing mitred squares and joining them.

Most of these patterns seem to be stocking stitch or similar, and one even says garter stitch does not work ... but some of the patterns are in garter stitch ... I tried doing one in stocking stitch (with knit and purl rows) and mine was NOT square ... but the garter stitch one (all knit rows) worked out fine! There were a few versions of each of those too ... some with stuff like k1 pssso etc that I was not even sure I knew how to do - LOL but it did say that it was decreacing by 2 stitches and at least one pattern said to knit 2 together twice (dec 2) in the middle of the row ... same effect just a different way to do it (probably with a slightly different look - might be a matter of what you know how to do and/or what works best for you/the yarn/needles and/or what you want the finished square to look like ...

What I did was to cast on an even number of stitches, knit a row and then knit half of that number, minus 2 - and knit those 2 together, then the next 2 ... then knit to the end (which should be the same number as you did on the other end of the row) then the next row is just knit each stitch then the next row you knit 1 less than the last time and then knit 2 together twice and knit to the end ... and keep going in that pattern - knit one row then do the 2 decreaces in the next ... until you get down to decreacing 4 stitches to 2 ... then knit those 2 together and finish off (... or not, if you are going to pick up stitches down the side and work another square onto it)

Hmmm ... for some reason I can't seem to find any patterns for patchwork crochet ... ok for me because I can work those sort of things out in crochet ... lets hope you lot paid attention to Janice when she explained it ... and if any non tasda members need to know ... it is the same sort of idea as the knitting - crochet crochet a chain, and then a row, as long a 2 sides of the square you want to make and decreace a couple of stitches in the middle of each row ...

eeek! where did my evening go?!

goodnight


oh yeah - before I go - the lyrics for that song ...


"Poles Apart" - Pink Floyd

Did you know...it was all going to go so wrong for you
And did you see it was all going to be so right for me
Why did we tell you then
You were always the golden boy then
And that you'd never lose that light in your eyes

Hey you...did you ever realise what you'd become
And did you see that it wasn't only me you were running from
Did you know all the time but it never bothered you anyway
Leading the blind while I stared out the steel in your eyes

The rain fell slow, down on all the roofs of uncertainty
I thought of you and the years and all the sadness fell away from me
And did you know...

I never thought that you'd lose that light in your eyes