Thursday I finished off knitting the hair hat for my sister, including mustache. As per instructions, the "Viking hat" comes without horns, which are anachronistic. Knitted "metal" pieces not so much, I guess. I now have almost 1.5 skeins of the homespun that is the "hair" left which I have no idea what to do with. Actually, I don't know what to do with the leftovers of the other yarns either. They do seem to work out alright turned into a silly hat.

For the recipient's part, she says that, "It entertains me." So I guess success. She only planned on a few wearings of the hat each year at some annual event that happens to get a fair bit cold.

I think she's really trying to sneak off to a stoning.

place: Santa Barbara mood: enjoying myself tags: knitting

I got knitting needles in the mail today.  They're all cable needles in sizes smaller than I could get in the local shops with the longest cables I could get.  These complete my set from size 1 to size 10.  Most of them are the "Silverado", which is by Susan Bates and has their nicer cable.  These seem to be getting hard to find.  I also got a "Velocity" which looks an awful lot like a Silverado to me.  The cable is the same at first glance and touch.  It is more of a very dark navy blue rather than black, but that might just because it's so thin on the smallest needle.

Meanwhile, there's a few pictures of the toad I almost stepped on and city lights up in the usual place.

mood: happy tags: knitting

I hiked up to Henninger Flats for the sunset and full moon (fullest tomorrow at 11AM, though).  It seems the fire has provided the impetus for them to finally get to clearing this road of the landslide and even rebuild it where the side of the mountain slipped way down at the bottom.  When they weren't comfortable leaving people at the top of Wilson because they had only one way out, that was only because no one had bothered to rebuild the old Mt. Wilson Toll Road after the damages in 2005 or so.  It was nice not to have to thread my way through the mounds of dirt on top of the road close to the tree nursery at the flats.  The bulldozer they used is still up there among the buildings, maybe so they can keep the stuff that doesn't compromise the roadbed off the road.

I took the horse trail up instead of the road so I don't know if they've managed to lay down a path that a hiker would feel safe on.  Or at least the average hiker since a few have traversed the thing even though it continues to slip while they do.  I got up to the top about an hour and a quarter after I started.  Although I sort of came for the sunset, I've already sketched a sunset from just above the flats.  I sat down near the fire watch tower they've transplanted from the Santa Monica mountains into a little valley, an utterly ridiculous place to find a watch tower.



After sketching, I had some nibbles and watched the cities twinkle.  There must have been a lot of moisture in the low air today.  Lights continuously move along little roadways all over the place, but the only thing that really has the density of lights and regularity of movement to make it seem like a trail of luminescent ants is the freeway.

Coming down, sirens seemed to be going nonstop.  The first one was a firetruck which I even spotted approaching the New York and Altadena intersection.  I spotted it way down New York a minute or two later.  If the sirens calm a moment there's a clamor of barking dogs to be heard.  This trail really gives one a good view of the cityscape in all its facets.

In the shadows under the full moon, I almost stepped on a toad on the road.  I'm not entirely certain how a toad can survive on this south mountain face with no apparent water.  It crawled up into the limited bushes and would generally sit still trying not to be seen but often tried to climb just a bit further.

mood: chipper tags: hiking, sketch

I finished fiddling about with twisty octopus arms and figuring out how to join them together and filling in the bottom of the head and rounding out the top of the head and deciding to do it in a little bit of a lopsided way and figuring out exactly how that can work...



Which means I have now made a much larger octopus than before.  It is now ready to head off to Abbie's niece when she goes to see her family around Thanksgiving.  And with no matching legs.  Well, there's two each of each twist.

mood: accomplished tags: knitting

The weekend was spent in Joshua Tree National Park.  This meant getting to see the "trees" up close and learning a thing or two about them, like that they are really an odd yucca plant that keeps growing after flowering, splitting each time.  And finding that they are surrounded by other plants that are also quite strange compared to the more moderately watered areas of the world.



Also looked out over the Salton Sea knowing that's what it was for the first time.  And went to a couple oases full of native palm trees.  Actually, Joshua Tree is kind of a weird place with two different kinds of desert and a few different ways of relieving the waterlessness.

mood: tired tags: camping, hiking, sketch

I have eight twisty octopus legs.  Now I have to figure out how to put them together into a complete octopus.  I left some long tails on most of them and a couple haven't even been cut from the balls of string yet.



I also have a hair hat a few rows into the hair but no beeg seestor head to figure out how to fit it to.

mood: bouncy tags: knitting

I finally made it up to Inspiration Point today.  This is the edge of where they'll let us go (legally) and does happen to be the edge of the burn.  As usual, I stopped off at Echo Mountain.



Then headed up Castle Canyon to Inspiration point.  Only a few spots of burn could be seen peaking over the top of the ridge from time to time.  The pavilion was clearly unburned from Echo Mountain, at least the bit that can be seen from there.  When the far left of it was finally visible, it was clear the flames had come right up to it on the left side.  A bit of ground scraped bare for just two feet marks the edge of the burn area as the line goes away from the pavilion.  The other side of the fire road behind the pavilion was devastated.  The blackened trunks poked out of a fairly uniform grey ground.  One could be recognized as a pine from the cones still hanging from its round silhouette.  The rest were smaller.  Next to the pavilion, bits of green sage popped up from the roots of burned plants already.

Looking further out, the famous view was almost totally obscured by very thin low clouds that lost their scary color when I took off my sunglasses.  The sign says that you can see Catalina and that was about the only thing visible since it was able to stick out above the cloud a little.  Or maybe that was a closer mountain in the right direction but still quite far out.

Instead of going down the same way again, I went over to Sam Merrill trail.  Doing so let me know that the stripe of dirt color on the closed side of the road was the trail to Lowe campground.  A metal sign hangs above it with odd arrows, supports for a large wooden sign are almost burned to the ground.  On the other side of the fire road, the fire got a little bit into the north slope forest, but in this first section it just took out underbrush.  The wooden signpost is singed on one side, but no worse for the wear.  A couple spots look like something was burning on the trail and someone brought down a bit above the trail onto it making passing just a little harder.  Spots of underbrush are burned, a stump removed here and a large tree cut there but mostly fine until the trail gets just about to where it turns onto a south facing slope.  This slope was also completely burned.  Bigger trees this time, above and below the trail.  Some recognizable as oaks by the parasitic fungus in their branches.  Little landslides from areas that looked already unsteady have come down.  The trail is littered with rocks to make passing require a little more care than normal.  I'm a little surprised they're letting us on this trail.  Eventually the trail turned around another corner and there was vegetation again.

As usual, there were masses of people moving up and down the trail to Echo Mountain, but very few above there.  Sounds never stop along the trail.  The roar of the city can be heard the few times planes and copters get far enough away to leave some level of silence.  Think I'll be rather sore in the morning.

mood: sleepy tags: hiking, sketch

Um...



I added some butterflies and a sleeping bear.  Probably need more sandy things.

mood: happy tags: art, painting

They opened up a few patches of unburned forest in the southern Angeles section on the first, including the nearby patch, but I'd already figured out a hike in a new place so went ahead to a spot up in the northern section of the forest.  The hike starts way over on the desert side boundary of the forest at Lower Shake Campground, a small campground my forest map doesn't show.  The instructions were a little off, so trying to find a small campground off a short dirt road didn't work on the first try.  The road to Upper Shake, which the loop goes through, was very shortly after and I was expecting the lower campground to be around it but didn't see anything promising.  Turns out the road doesn't like signs, except the one at the bottom.  Promising turn offs were unsigned and sometimes locked.  The only signs were the occasional "not maintained for low clearance vehicles" which sometimes marked a section on one side and not the other.  I found my way back to the road I'd come in on without seeing a campground.

However, the forest map does show a short dirt road coming out a little short of the one I'd gone up that has a trail headed out the end of it.  Trying again, I looked very closely for any indication of an old dirt road headed south and found one, so parked.  The head of the dirt road was overgrown.  A twisted gate lay on the side of the post it used to lock to and two more posts were set between the posts, but beyond was an unmistakable wide, flat, and gravely roadbed.  In sight, a sign board lay against its supports, anything that had once been on it completely removed by time.  Following that found a campground of sorts in that there was a two sided pit so little used it had lost its stink and a single area suitable for a campsite.  At the far end of the campground, if you can say that about a campground with one site, was a post declaring that here was a trail and these are the people who are allowed to pass on it.

Up the hill, we found Upper Shake, with many more sites and signs, many even with information on them.  From there, a sign pointed us to the Pacific Crest Trail along the road.  A trail lead off the road without a sign pointing to it, but the instructions we were following mentioned it.  We followed this up to PCT.  We were promised a saddle, but hadn't quite got out onto the other side of the ridge at the PCT, so continued on over on some use trails to see the other side and eat.  That was our only view of that side, except for during the drive on the road, which we'd come to with climbing the last bit of saddle.  Judging by the spot on the road, the campground road was the second locked gate on the way.  A good, stiff, cold breeze was going through the saddle as we ate.

We traveled the PCT for a bit longer than claimed in the book to a second trail between it and Upper Shake Campground.  It was a bit annoying that it was longer than advertised only because the instructions claimed the trail we were headed to was easy to miss and the trail we were on was much less used than the trails we'd been on so we weren't sure how much trail we were looking for.  It was easy to spot and had signs since every PCT intersection has to at least have a trail crest on a post at it.  The tromp generally downhill along the ridgeline was fun but with finding the trail it was time to go back.

The hike back down to Upper Shake was quick, and back into Lower Shake equally so.  A bunch of quail acting birds went running up the hillside as we came at the same spot we'd seen similar activity going up.  Silly birds.  There was a puddle of water in the creek there and a few other places but nothing was flowing.

mood: exhausted tags: hiking

A few sails in a slightly choppy ocean.  Islands in the background.  Everyone has islands, don't they?



Hey, I don't exactly paint sailboats much.

mood: alright tags: painting

A little experiment.  A soap bag for da soap.  Of course.  Shall see how it works.  Actually finished yesterday.



The leaves are kind of reverse engineered, so not saying how they're done.

Next comes seestor's hair hat.  She says her crown is some 24".  That seems rather large.  Do seestor's really have such big heads?

mood: happy tags: knitting

Went out to a concert tonight too.  This time it was taiko drums (with elements of hip-hop, rap, and electronica).  Ended up turning up Garfield, land of public buildings and streets as wide as football fields.  As I did so, the flames of the fire moving toward Altadena were clearly visible over the edge of Sunset Ridge over the top of the public library.  So here is Sunset Ridge at sunset.



Sketched quickly to still get to the concert on time.  I had had about 20 minutes yesterday to sketch, so wasn't too concerned with finishing on time.  It was too impressive to pass up with the giant wafting purple.  The music was great too.  The performers (ON Ensemble) could see the fire coming over from the stage and noted that if the apocalypse was coming, at least it was beautiful.  In spite of the fire being closer today, the smoke is not settling down in our valley so much.  My eyes barely sting after hours in it rather than stinging upon being introduced to it like yesterday.

mood: joyful tags: sketch

Something bright, something earthy, something airy, and something heraldic.



Some wash cloths for vivianteddybear who seems to claim she liked the one mom has.

mood: tired tags: knitting

This is the last week of free concerts at the Levitt Pavilion. Thursdays is "Americana" and I hadn't gone to see one. This one claims to be a fusion of bluegrass and jazz. Some Canadians called The Duhks, Grammy nominated and whatnot. Mostly they seemed to be rocking their banjo and violin, but they played it into a few different styles.

When it was over and I turned around, I could see a bit of suspiciously low orange glow. I mean, we get orange glow off the clouds all the time, even when there's not much cloud. This was much lower and a bit bright. When I stepped a little to my left I could see bright red spots peaking through the buildings up on the hillside. It's burning a bit above La Canada Flintridge.



Meanwhile the same old concession stands are selling the same things on the edge of the grass day after day. They're starting to look a little forlorn out there.

tags: sketch

Not on anything important, mind.  There are now photos up for the Icehouse Canyon hike at the end of May.

mood: bouncy tags: hiking, pictures

Here's a swatch to test things out for vivianteddybear's hair hat.  It's got two very different bits of yarn being used, but they both claim to come out about the same on the same size needle.



Clearly they don't come out the same when I knit them, one in stockinette and one in seed stitch, on a slightly smaller needle than recommended.  The stuff for the hat proper came out at 4" with 18 stitches.  And the "charcoal mist" seems to look a little bit blue to me now.  The "metal", which is the charcoal mist in the middle, should have had one row on either side of the purl row, but that was probably in the pattern I wasn't paying enough attention to.  Although those extra rows will make it a little wider, I suspect it needs a little more width than that will give it.  You can almost make out the "rivets" on it to see how close the edges are to them.  Or maybe that's as it should be.

Anyway, the "hair" in seed stitch puffed right out.  It comes to 5" instead of 4".  That'll translate to increasing about 4.5" over the length of the hat.  I also tried stockinette, since I don't actually like doing seed stitch.  The homespun is still a little bit unruly looking, but not nearly as much as the seed leaves it.  Is it enough?  What's up there is about 8 rows each of seed stitch on size 9, stockinette on 9, seed on 7 over and 9 back, and finally seed on size 7.  It is still 5" on the #7 needles and slightly less unruly, so no win there.  I'll just have to take in a stitch here and there to make it come out right.

mood: thinking tags: knitting

I finally finished off the socks I've been claiming were my current project.  All those other things were just distractions.



They have some little cables on them, which is the first time I've done anything like that.  One day I may learn why everyone loves this "partridge heel", but for now I like continuing the pattern down the back.  It seems the sensible thing.  Also for the first time, I shaped the toes differently for the left and right.  You know, since toes are shaped differently on the left and right.  I actually started them on a slightly larger needle before going back and doing it over again on smaller needles with more repeats.  I think I like this funky stretch yarn.  I also rather like the blobs of color the quick variations of this yarn makes.

Meanwhile I've got another first in that I got my first dual core computer today.  It comes in a bare bones system and only takes up 8W (Intel Atom 330) to zip along with two threads.  Getting the motherboard in is always the most annoying bit and the processor is the scary bit.  Bare bones is the way to build.  I'm still pondering what sort of optical drive to get it.  Should it have a blu-ray even though I have none to play?  I'm installing off the DVD from the dead system with a borrowed IDE to USB connector.  It's worked brilliantly so far as I've got my linux running and ready to configure now.  Never actually need to talk to it from anything but the network from now on.

mood: happy happy, joy joy tags: computers, knitting

Haven't been hiking in, um, a while. It must be a month. I could check the here, but that would surely be cheating.

Since the moon is fullish and the moonrise calculator said the moon would be up not too late and I know it's an easy trail to take in the dark, I headed up the way to Henninger Flats around 9PM. Mother Nature seems to have taken into account the actual landscape of the area in calculating when the moon was really going to rise so it wasn't actually up until after I'd got to where I was going and had sat for a while. Others who thought about going decided not to. For one, it was surely for the best since her knee isn't good and the trail at the bottom is somewhat steep for going down with a bum knee.

I made rather good time, for me, going up. I got up the trail to the toll road and then just a bit further to where there is a park bench for folks to use something like a mile up. It was 20 to 10 by then. I pondered sketching or not while I nibbled of some snacks. I finally decided I might as well.



Sketching in the dark is a bit different from the light. It's all bold brush strokes as it's almost as much done by feel as sight. Of course, the lights are all bright pinpricks in the varying levels of black, but I don't have any confidence in getting that done. It's funny that the near lights are always distinct points, the far lights are sometimes large shapes.

mood: happy tags: hiking, sketch

It seems that sometimes the music academy holds a class where the public participates in that they can make comments and serve as an audience for that authentic, playing-in-front-of-people feel.  These are master classes to help work on presentation.  Mom and I went to one conducted by one of the members of the Canadian Brass for trumpets.  One of the middle members in that he's not original but wasn't actually born after the group started.

And we witnessed four students go through a special kind of torture.  The first fellow up has found himself a comfortable spot on an orchestra and that's where he wants to be, sitting on a chair with a bit of music before him trying to hit it all perfectly.  That became the first of four lectures, each toned a little differently, that it is not the goal to be a bunch of organic Asimos but to make music that humans like to hear.

Everything said could have applied to any instrument.  Much of it could be applied to public speaking.  In an odd moment I recognized one bit of his lecture from some stuff my high school soccer coach had told the team.  It was overall rather interesting although I wish to reiterate that for the students it has got to have been a special kind of torture.

place: Santa Barbara

We went off to the zoo last Sunday (post date).  Was reminded of all the old changes and saw some new changes.  The big cats aren't together anymore.  There are little leopards where the big lions and tigers were before.  There are penguins provided with an industrial oscillating fan to help them keep cool in a land that doesn't see snow except once every few decades in patches.  They weren't swimming because they were molting and it seems they think they might get too cold in the water without their feathers on properly.  Someone must love macaws because they fill whatever spaces were leftover.  The elephants have about twice the old space with a large pool that can fit more than one at a time.  I nibbled on snacks and sketched the elephants.



They kept moving around.  That wouldn't have been a problem back when I bought this book and was still in practice.  Ages ago, mom (I think) got me a "How To Draw Horses" book.  That was when I took out as many nonfiction books on horses as fiction books and there were a lot of fiction books.  I worked through the book and learned about putting down circles and lines to plot out the spaces to be occupied by the horse.  There was some discipline to my drawing then.  At camp, I watched the horses and would think about how to draw them in their various positions.  I could reliably capture whatever pose a horse would take.  This caries over to drawing other animals quite well.  I became quite adept at getting the cats down on paper too.  (I'd like to find the book of charcoal Velvet.)  With them, I managed to let go of the circles since I started using materials that wouldn't be erased, but I still knew where they were in my head.  Well, sort of.  I've never had particularly good visual memory.  I don't picture things unless they're trying to become a picture.

And it's gotten worse.  Well, I'm not certain it really has gotten worse.  To some extent, I've just lost the base disciplines that I could rely on before.  The circles and lines gave me weigh points, as it were, so I really just had to keep them in mind and hand the animal on them properly.  With that, I could capture active cats instead of just sleeping ones.  Now, these elephants were moving around just too much.  They kept deciding they didn't like standing at that angle and there was me not knowing for certain how to drop their shapes onto the paper.  I've been noticing this problem with drawing the current cats too.

Now the book was bought during high school and seems to have only been used properly once.  That was with my even older set of oil pastels at the zoo.  Since I can fill in shapes with pastels instead of the outlining with the brush pen, it can be a rather different process to sketch, so these aren't really comparable.  All the same, here are the pastels that sat in the book probably more than 15 years before I finally picked it up again and tried to fill it properly.



First is one of the birds that hangs out with the giraffes.  They're quite large birds, though not quite emu sized.  Looks like I found one sleeping and got creative for the background.



And the second is one of those same elephants.  They're cage might have changed, but they're the same old ladies that were there every other time I went to the zoo in my life.  I've dated these two "1994ish" but I'm not really sure of that.  They could be 1992ish, but they're around there somewhere.

Oh, yeah.  And I got sunburned.  Just a bit.

place: Santa Barbara mood: red tags: sketch