Mr Pointy was our team unity challenge. It’s supposed to be a stake, like the ones Buffy and the gang would use to slay vampires. This one, of course, will not slay vampires. I submitted this project in the technical category, which asked to include a 3D aspect to a project. This stake is crocheted amigurumi style and stuffed.

Now here’s where we get to the good stuff. This blanket was completed not only for Nerd Wars, but more importantly for one of my nieces. July’s birthstone is ruby, so I’m making them coordinated ruby red blankets. Here’s the first. This was submitted for the intellectual category, which asked to incorporate an adage into a project. The adage for this blanket is “blood is thicker than water.”

Lastly, here’s me at my most androgynous. I knit this tie for the team spirit category, with Rupert Giles in mind, of course. Giles is consistently my favorite part of the show.

I had wanted to submit a project for the Nerd Culture category, which asked to make a project based on a viral video. But I simply didn’t get there last month. This month I’m a little worried because I have a lot of work to do on projects that I won’t really be able to fit into NW. But so far I’m having so much fun on Team Hellmouth! I’m also having fun waiting for my nieces to be born. We want them to take their sweet time, but it’s fun nonetheless.

A note to make me sound less stupid: my size 4 dpns and size 7 dpns are both pinkish. When I started these two hats, I grabbed the first pink needles I saw. Plus I’m using dk weight yarn so the gauge didn’t end up crazy and I thought nothing of it. But seriously–dammit!

I finally got around to yarnbombing. I’ve been meaning to for literally more than a year, nearly two. It was Nerd Wars that inspired me to just do it already. Both of these pieces have been up for nearly two weeks, and I just performed a little maintenance on the second one tonight. I’m all proud of them and stuff.

I ended up submitting the baby socks to Nerd Wars because I made them throughout February. I didn’t learn about Nerd Wars until the signups had closed, and  I wasn’t even going to go in as a Ninja (late signup, no team), but then I was like, what the heck. One of my Ravelry groups is arranging to create a Buffy the Vampire Slayer team for Nerd Wars II in June, which I’m crazyexcited about. Team Hellmouth! But until then, I’m a ninja. My first submission wasn’t very nerdy, obviously, but I’m planning on changing that for round two. Right now I’m staying up til midnight so I can see the new challenges posted.

Nerd Wars has been cracking me up ever since I heard about it because there are a number of fandoms that I love that have formed teams. Team Precious and Team Rogue Squadron! Plus there’s a Dumbledore’s Army. I read on one of the forums that someone is brainstorming an internet memes team for next round. It may not be terribly obvious, but I flipping love internet memes. I quote them at work daily. I live for I Can Has Cheezburger. But I’m so psyched up for the Buffyverse team that I’m torn! It’s confusing! I will say, admittedly, I’ll probably go for Team Hellmouth, if only because I don’t consider memes to be a category of nerdness. I mean, sorta…argh. Whatever. My point is that I’m really excited for Nerd Wars and knitting for the twins and even socks for myself.

What I liked the best from 2010 was the scarf I gave my SIL for Christmas, and these two bee hats. See, I found out that I’m going to be an AUNT, and I started making a newborn sized hat. Then, for no reason except that the pattern is quick and easy, I made another one. Because my gauge fluctuates, the second one is marginally bigger than the first, but they’re just about the same. Then I found out that I’m going to be an aunt twice, which just makes it hilarious that I made two matching hats. I couldn’t believe it. I anticipate that my crafting drought will end this year, considering that I have a huge list of things I want to make for the twins.

There isn’t much else from 2010 that’s interesting, unfortunately. I had an off year.

I started knitting a diagonal lace scarf for my sister in law but I made it in acrylic and the stitch curls quite a bit. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it lay flat with blocking, but I tried anyway. I finished it short and immediately started crocheting a scarf in v-stitch with Stitch Nation Bamboo Ewe yarn. I should seriously only crochet gifts from now on because it’s so much faster. I stayed up to watch the lunar eclipse and crocheted the entire time. The back up scarf was done in two days, and it was lovely, so that’s what I gave her.

After that I started a hat for the kid I babysit. I make him red and green hats most years but this year I wanted to make him a nice, grownup-type hat because he’s not a toddler anymore. He’s a full fledged child! I used this tutorial for the stripes, but they were wonky. I really hope it fits. Noggins are so often much bigger than you’d think.

Someone I work with brought in this huge box of old needles and notions because her grandmother was trying to “downsize.” So those of us who knit and crochet at work were given an early, amazing Christmas. It was awesome!  I took a set of size 17 needles; I have no idea why, it just seemed great. I also got some old circulars that would be really good for hats without having the joins that my interchangeables do.

I did some baking too! Incredibly failed baking, in fact. I had wanted to bake something low-sugar or sugar free for Christmas for my grandma so first I tried Sweet N Low cupcakes with sugar free buttercream. I was even going to crochet a cupcake to go with them but didn’t get that far, and then the cupcakes were crap. It was the icing that didn’t work out, I’m not sure what I did wrong, but it was awful. So I immediately started trying a recipe for sugar free brownies, but they were flat and rubbery. Of course I started freaking out because the brownies were my backup plan, I’d just spent the whole day baking to no avail. So I knit her a hat and it didn’t take very long, I still went to bed by maybe 11 on Christmas Eve. As soon as I started her hat I was terrified that this would end up like last Christmas, when I stayed up all night and finished her present at 6:30 in the morning. But no, this was fine.

That’s actually all I crafted this holiday, like I said, I didn’t take too much on. I’ll be updating soon with a 2010 recap. Happy New Year!

And….GO!

This is me, in March 2006, with the very hat that inspired me to learn to knit. I was 18 and at a Young Friends conference (this is the bathroom, as you can see). This was after I’d gotten really into crocheting but I was all sorts of “knitting is stupid! crocheting is better!” Someone at the con brought this hat, which was made by her mother. If I remember correctly, this hat was mostly a  mistake, as in it didn’t turn out as planned. Consequently, it was big and floppy, basically a rasta hat. I loved it. I saw this hat and knew that I couldn’t fight knitting anymore. It was in June of that year that I started to learn.

My mixing bowl is too small, and I knew that. So it rose up and almost out of the bowl. It was a half-batch of the basic recipe from Artisan Breads. I also took this picture to illustrate how messy my kitchen has become ever since I started making my own bread:

Flour. Everywhere. I make such a mess. And the small mixing bowl contributes to it. So either way, I decided today to make some herb bread dough. I made a full batch of the recipe and split it into containers, hoping to give it enough space to rise. Frankly, I sorta knew it wasn’t. But I also went over to Ikea to get a bigger bowl. This is what I came home to:

Mind you, this happened while I was buying a bigger bowl. I guess I thought that I would drive faster than the yeast would rise or something. Don’t ask. I felt, shall we say, a little foolish. Oh well. I was able to salvage just about all the dough. Right now the oven is preheating to bake some of that batch. I hope blogging while baking doesn’t become my jinx.

Also, on a quick note, I knit a hat. I won’t post the picture but it’s up on Ravelry. I just wanted something simple and small to do for Annual Sessions, and hats work perfectly. I did it in Vanna’s Choice “dusty purple” and I actually wish that I had been able to throw in a strip or two of “dusty rose” but I used that up long ago. All the colors in the Vanna’s Choice line go really well together and I’ve made other things out of that color combination before. But this one is plain and simple and lovely.

I also made my own pizza dough. This would be my first foray into any sort of bread making, excluding cornbread. I definitely added too much flour to it while trying to roll it out. I also don’t have the greatest rolling space so it was far from perfect on the pan, which is no problem for me. I prepared a jar of pasta sauce the way I usually do: by adding more of the herbs that are already in it. Then I just laid on sliced mozzarella and some shredded mozz that I needed to use up. It was fun and a good start. I promptly checked out the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day from the library, too.

Lastly, I finally finished a hat that I’ve been working on since the snows in February. Given that I can usually crank out a hat in one lonely Friday or Saturday night, this is a little strange. But I’d started this hat to get a feel for the continental way of holding yarn, and I was determined to see it through the whole way. That’s why it took so long. I didn’t feel like messing with continental after the first couple sessions so I sorta stuffed it in a drawer. So I finished it today, it’s nothing special, and the only way I can tell it’s continental is in the decreases. It’s smaller than I anticipated, which I think is because my stitches were coming out too loose and I was pulling them tighter.

I guess I’ve been shockingly productive! I’m getting into making my own food because I’m on an impossible budget. I’m finding, though, that I really like putting in the time to make better food. As I type this now I’ve got the basic bread recipe from Artisan Bread rising in the kitchen.

Anyway, my library recently got the book Knitting Sweaters From the Top Down in. I always get excited when my library gets new craft books. But seriously, some of the patterns in this book make me wish You Knit What?? was still around. Allow me to demonstrate with this Fugly Object:

Seriously. I can’t possibly be the only person who thinks this is one of the worst knit sweaters in the universe. And is it really necessary to wear lipstick that matches your pale-ice-pink sweater? I guess you can’t quite see how bad it is, I took this picture with my cell phone. Go check this book out, just to see the lipstick. Do it. One more example:

Everyone I work with agreed: this magnitude of bobbles is simply not allowed unless you’re younger than 10 or older than 70. This cute, sweet looking girl is being attacked by this sweater! Can’t you see it’s eating her alive?

Now, I’m actually not writing off the book entirely. Some of the very basic patterns seemed nice, fitting, and easily customizable. But others, like these two, weren’t so great. If you knit a cropped sweater in chunky yarn, you look chunky! One or two of the sweaters in here were like that. But there’s a cardigan/shrug that I would more than love to try. Can’t win them all, I guess.

Also, one decision I’m making is to combine my March and April pairs of socks into one. (If, of course, I ever finish the February socks.) I’ve got this class I’m taking, and it’s the very last class I need to finish my degree. I’m trying to minimize distractions because I really wanna knock this class out. March and April are really the core of the coursework so I think I’ll just knit one pair instead of two.

I also need to work on the header image! I guess I’m a little slow on the upstart. As soon as I learn some proper time management skills, I’ll be posting tons of crafty pictures and be all done with school and blah blah blah.

I figure I might as well give a bit of an introduction as to why the sudden change. I was blogging pretty happily, albeit not often, over on blogspot. I happened to pick up the book Blogging for Bliss at the library because it’s specifically written for people with craft blogs. It has a great chapter on different hosts, and upon going through it and comparing it to my own experience, I decided WordPress would be an improvement, not only in the appearance of my blog, but also the various stats and controls that come with the Dashboard.

In bad news, however, I’m afraid I’ve fallen short of my Knitting Olympics goal. The second half of the Olympics became pretty busy for me, and the closing ceremony is about to start as I type, and I’m not finished with my second sock. I hope to have it done as soon as possible, of course. More on that later.

I had started a post in January and saved it as a draft, then never got back to it. It had a little bit about my crafty goals for the year. I guess it’s good that I didn’t publish it, because I failed on all my goals for January! Well, except for finishing my January socks(rav). I’m not disappointed, though. I’m in the middle of a very busy spring.

I took a Wilton cake decorating class. It had its complications, but I enjoyed it overall. Then my bosses at work promptly asked me to bake a cake for our department when someone got a promotion. I was extremely nervous. I ended up baking two, to have enough for everyone. Despite my inexperience I’m rather pleased with them. Everything went over very well when I brought them to work, too.

I used a pattern for “no wrap short row” socks from The Big Book of Socks for my January sock-a-month pair. I like the method, but I think I want to learn regular short rows as well. I’m still content with plain stockinette socks, which I know some people think is crazy. I’ll get around to pretty patterns and whatnot, but right now I enjoy the simplicity and repetition.

I put off starting my February pair (for no reason in particular). Then I realized that the Olympics were about to start. I had been kicking around the idea of joining the Ravelympics, but never signed up. Then I read that Stephanie Pearl-McPhee was going ahead with her own Knitting Olympics and I decided that was the perfect low-key way for me to challenge myself. It will be a challenge for me to finish these socks, having skipped the first half of the month. So I cast on during the [BEAUTIFUL] opening ceremony, and have been enjoying the sock and the Games ever since.

Here are my goals for 2010:

• sock a month – learn tons of techniques, use lots of great yarn.
• hat a month – because I would anyway.
• read bad books – I want to read a knitting murder mystery, a knitting romance, and “A Good Yarn” by Debbie Macomber.
• read good books – I read the first chapter of Knitting Without Tears last month and it was seriously ROFL.
• twitter – I started a quotey Twitter account for the funny/awesome quotes I read.

A few of my other goals include making the DIY sock blocker(rav), preferably before I finish my February socks(rav). I also need to finish my awesome Amazon woman(rav). Right now I also have on the needles a hat(rav) with which I’m convinced I’ll use to teach myself continental style. It’s slow going, but I think I can get the hang of it. In the meantime, my February socks are being knit English.

I’m trying to take it easy on the goals since I have a class this spring that I really need to focus on. But I’m so excited! So much yarn, so little time, as they say. For a few weeks I met up with a really great local yarning group but my work/school schedule changed with my class and I had to put that on hold. I look forward to meeting back up with them! My life is sorely lacking in knitting fellowship, and it was so lovely.

Some highlights from this past year:

I puttered with these toe-up socks for quite awhile. I never did end up with a complete pair, but the practice did wonders for my sock knitting skills. I only learned to knit socks around the holidays last year, so as far as I’m concerned, I’m doing all right. This yarn is so lovely I’ll probably frog these toe-up ones to make a pair that will actually get use.

This little penguin was a whole lot of fun. Definitely helped me get the hang of amigurumi.

Probably my biggest accomplishment of 2009: the wedding “tapestry” I made for my brother and sister-in-law. I gave it to them in a frame, which they hung in their house.

I came dreadfully close to losing this pair to second sock syndrome. This was the first project to take a hit when I went through that bummed out dry spell I had. But now that they’re finished, I wear these socks all the time.

This was my favorite gift I made this Christmas. I stayed up most of Christmas Eve finishing the arms and legs.

Total hats this year: 13
Total socks: 9 (2 pairs, 1 baby pair, 1 baby single, 2 toe up singles.)

I ended up knitting (or crocheting, of course) something for nearly everyone in my family this year. Most things went smoothly and were finished in plenty of time. I even did two quick projects for myself (Yummy Hat and Way Opens scarf). Although, and I’m sure there are lots who have this problem, my grandma is so difficult to get gifts for. Every year, for her birthday and Christmas, I struggle trying to think of something to get her. So Monday it struck me to just make her something cute, something that had no real purpose except to be nice and lovely. So Monday I started making her a crocheted teddy bear (ravelry). Of course I could have gotten it done even by Christmas Eve, except that this week was busy, and I was running out of steam from crafting so much for the holiday. That’s how I felt making all those scarves, exhausted. So I didn’t go to bed Christmas Eve, I got to making the arms and legs for the bear, having finished the body and scarf before I got to my dad’s. Around one in the morning my hand was hurting and I was tired, so I took a nap until 4:30, and finished the bear at 6:30. In the morning. This is exactly how I used to pull all-nighters in school: work, nap, work til deadline. I won’t pretend I’m not proud of myself. And really, it’s a very cute bear. I’ll have pictures up on the Ravelry page soon. Best of all, I really think my grandma liked it. She seemed delighted, so I totally don’t mind how much I’ve been yawning today.

Oh, also, my dad got me The Opinionated Knitter by EZ, which makes him a total badass.

Merry Christmas, Internet!