I worked up a swatch yesterday with smaller motifs - only one repeat of the Faun’s Eyes pattern with a couple of stitches padding or only one little evergreen per entrelac block.  The initial effort with the mohair was turning out blocks that seemed massive to my eye.  Granted when I started fooling around with this idea, I thought I wanted bigger blocks…

Eh, maybe not…

The problem with the smaller motifs wasn’t really their fault, but mine.  I worked them in worsted weight yarn on size 8 (5.00 mm) needles and, as you could easily predict, they look muddled and rumpled rather than lacey.

It doesn’t help that in addition to the yarn vs needle ratio, I went through three different small balls of yarn - same yarn, different dye jobs - which further muddles the appearance.  No one to blame but myself and I’m going to have to try it again with the mohair and the size 6s (4.25 mm).

As the weather turns colder, I’m thinking of socks again.  Fortunately I have plenty of yarn suitable for socks, some of it very light-hearted and some of it rather sober :)  It’s simply a matter of deciding what I want - or rather, what I want to start with!

We had rather a super hero weekend here.  We watched Ironman, The Incredible Hulk (the new one) and The Dark Knight.  They were all surprising to me. 

The Dark Knight has had the most publicity and certainly the longest run, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out why.  It seemed chaotic and pointless to me and the best I can come up with is that this Batman is for generations beyond me.  This is not my Batman.  To the extent that every generation incorporates what is important to it in its myths and legends, perhaps it is fitting that I didn’t quite grasp the message of this film.  As I had expected to like this movie, I was disappointed.

The Incredible Hulk was almost equally as confusing though it was more coherent.  The treatment of how Banner became the Hulk as background to the opening credits (before the movie even actually starts) was interesting, but ultimately a failure.  This sequence of events is how we get to know Banner in the first place and relegating it to a rushed series of images doesn’t convey anything about the man - why should we care about what happens to him?  However, since the movie’s story reveals little about him either, I suppose at least it’s consistent.  Norton wasn’t bad but remains, in my mind, a puzzling choice.  If character development had been better, well…  And does Liv Tyler ever do anything in the movies but drip tears?

Ironman was the real boot in the butt.  And it really was a boot in the butt.  The story was excellent, the look perfect.  Robert Downey Jr. was just amazing and Jeff Bridges was gratifyingly slimy.  The tone was right, the feel was spot on and the transitions - usually the nemesis of good story telling - were smooth and agile with none of the annoying “See Ma, this is how it happed!” nonsense that often crops up.  Certainly it had none of the bloat many superhero movies suffer from.  Of the three, it’s the only one I can recommend.

And I’ll just add that the new seasons of Supernatural and Heroes got off to sensational starts :)

Me = happy camper :)