Tournament 2 Round 3

Tournament 2 Round 3, a photo by Paula knits on Flickr.

Done! Well, if you don't count the epic Tardis afghan, that is. There's a donation to Pine Ridge, a scarf, a shawlette, a bunch of handspun, a pair of socks (not pictured), four catnip Daleks and a sonic screwdriver (looks like a black blob in this picture).

I'm feeling a bit better about things and am considering playing in the next tournament. Or maybe it's just the coffee buzz talking.

Grab-and-go Project

As a sock yarn addict, I have a lot of leftovers. The place where I've been keeping it is full. I happened upon The Beekeeper's Quilt by Tiny Owl Knits recently. It looks like this will take care of the leftovers plus give me a grab-and-go project. It consists of many little knitted hexagons. The pattern has you stuff each one with fiberfill or something like it. I think that will result in something too heavy to be practical for me, so I'm leaving the stuffing out. It won't be quite as cute, but I think it will still work. The hexagons are sewn together to form the blankie. Since it'll probably be a year before I get enough to do that, I'm not going to think about it now.

I've got a knitted jacket made from Koigu that was an epic fail. I knit it once and it was too big (yeah, even on me). I took it apart and knit it again. It was still a little big and looked horrible on me. I put it someplace where I wouldn't have to look at it. If I can remember where it is, it will be a great source of yarn for this. I can't throw away that much Koigu.

Halfway through round 3

and things have been not so great. I got sick last week which kept me away from here and away from knitting. When I got back to the epic Tardis afghan, I found a major mistake. I don't know how I missed it but there it was. It took two days of frogging to reach it. It is back on track, but it is looking very unlikely that I'll hit the halfway point by the end of the tournament. I knew it would be tough to finish in three months, just not how tough.

Team Tardis finished round 2 in third place. We'd been first every other time. Hardly anyone seems to care, so I'm not going to let my epic fail on the epic afghan bother me any more.

I'm considering not playing in the next tournament. There are a bunch of things that I want to make that can't easily be used for challenges. I've got three pair of Cookie A club socks that I want to do. I want to try out Cat Bordhi's Sweet Tomato heel. I want to knit a baby sock monkey. And I want to work on that afghan without having to work on it.

Tournament 2 Round 2/FO Friday

Tournament 2 Round 2, a photo by Paula knits on Flickr.

I finished all six challenges again this round. There are earrings knit from wire, a cat cushion with a Dalek on it, a fish hat, a mini Dalek, and a River tam. The last picture was the scientific method challenge involving spinning.

I continue to slog away at the Tardis afghan. I'm about 110 rows in on my second try.

Tour de finished

Before and After, a photo by Paula knits on Flickr.

These are before and after pictures of what I spun for Tour de Fleece.

The top one was about half done when I started the tour. It's about 415 yards of what I'm hoping is fingering weight.

The bottom one has about 250 yards so far. That's about a third of the braid.

FO Friday

Several things are done, but no pictures are handy.

• River Tam for Nerd Wars
  
• Mini Dalek for Nerd Wars
  
• 415 yards of handspun for Tour de Fleece
  

The big deal this week was deciding to start completely over on the Tardis Afghan. There's too much work going into it for me to ignore the mistakes. I'll find some way to do the border correctly. This means it's almost certain that it won't be done by the end of the current Nerd Wars tournament. I don't want to let my team down but I want to have fun. So far the afghan's mostly been Not Fun.

Spinning's been fun so I'm doing that. I got through the 4 ounces of alpaca/punta/merino in about a week. Today I get to start in on a big braid of many different colors.

A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Lose

I haven't been knitting much because the edges of that Tardis afghan have been making me crazy. I've analyzed the pattern and made a shortcut chart to keep from having to count out the stitches every row. I'm still screwing it up.

I set it to one side and have been spinning with my new spindle. It goes much faster than my old one. I don't know why. I don't actually have to start spinning until tomorrow, but it is nice and soothing. Maybe the afghan will go better if I'm calmer. Hey, it could happen.

It's the first of the month. I knew that the next round of Nerd Wars started today, yet I was surprised to see the new list of challenges:

• Team Spirit: I have an idea for this. It involves The Master.
  
• Nerd Culture: I'm ready to start this one. We do something for another fandom and hopefully tie it to our team. My choice is the Browncoats.
  
• Giving Geeks: do something to make a pet's life better. I'll check to see what kind of donations the local pet shelters will take. My cats are so spoiled that they do not need any life-improving knit toys.
  
• Intellectual: do something involving a myth. Pandora's Box is the obvious choice, but I may do a little research. I think some of the earlier shows may have some good leads.
  
• Technical: knit/crochet/spin with something non-traditional. I may pull the yellow pages out of the recycle bin and crochet with paper.
  
• Scientific: use the scientific method on this project. They haven't given a sample yet of what this will entail. This is probably going to be the hard one. Yes, harder than crocheting with strips of paper.