2,250 down...

65,250 to go. Stitches that is. And that's for a small blankie, one just 21x30 inches in size (or thereabouts). A mere 150 stitches a row, and 15 rows to the inch. This is going to take a while.

Presuming the lace-weight yarn holds out that long, of course. I have 1600 yards of it, but I've doubled it up, and I've never worked at such a small stitch size before.

The last 10 rows were easier than the first five, and they include the first 5 rows of the 18-row pattern. I'm liking the square circular needles I picked up at Webs when Susan and Gavi were here. They're the first metal needles I've been able to use. The appeal is in the super-flexible cord as much as the square shape of the needles themselves. Much as I favor bamboo, having metal needles for the smaller sizes leaves me much less concerned about breaking them.

A fanfare please...

Congratulations to all of this year's Pegasus Award nominees, especially:

-- Nate Bucklin. "I Can't Get Over You, So..." in the A Little Bit Country category

-- Gary McGath. "Mad Scientist's Love Song" is nominated in the Best Classic Filk Song category

-- MASSFILC President Paul Estin. "Fluorine Atom" in nominated in the A Little Bit Rock and Roll category

and...

-- Boskone 47's Featured Filker, Mary Crowell. Mary is nominated in the Best Writer/Composer category.

You can listen to snippets of all nominated people and works on the ballot.

The winners will be announced in late October at the Ohio Valley Filk Fest. Voting is open to members of the filk community and the rules on the same website as the ballot do a good job of explaining what that means.

Edited to lead with my dear friend Nate's nomination after discovering that I accidentally posted this here rather than to the NESFA LiveJournal that it was written for.

Stay Safe, Don....

I'm glad to see that the Morris fire north of Azusa is pretty much 11 miles away from don_fitch's home in Covina and even more relieved that it is reportedly 85% contained. I've just read that the vibrant Karen Anderson (Poul's widow) has been evacuated from her home due to the Station fire and is now staying at a hotel in Burbank.

Stay safe, everyone. Evacuating is a good deal wiser than trying to ride out a firestorm in a backyard hottub.

(Many thanks to debgeiser for the link and her joke that went with it.)

If any fans up needing to rebuild, please let me know. I'll send a starter supply of genuine dust bunnies and fannish kipple, too. Complete with stories for the telling...