FO Friday 10/28/11

FO Friday 10/28/11, a photo by Paula knits on Flickr.

The 3 month long project I'm doing for Nerd Wars is a lace scarf. It has been trying my patience, so I've been finishing up other projects in between.

The top two are from a set of 7 anklets from Knit Picks. I'd forgotten them for over a year.

The bottom pictures are of Owlie socks. Do you see the little owls with their beady (pun intended) eyes? These were knit from some Lorna's Laces sock yarn I got from the Cookie A sock club. I don't recall why I didn't use it for one of the sock club patterns.

I attempted to start the Double Heelix socks from Knitty late last night. I nearly threw a tantrum. There are four working threads and they never ended up at the right place at the right time. I think I'll go back to knitting the lace for a while.

FO Friday 10/21/11

hexsocks, a photo by Paula knits on Flickr.

I am getting better with the camera, but this shows I clearly need more practice. These are the latest from the Cookie A sock club. I signed up for another year of patterns, yarn, and cookie recipes.

I found a bag of projects that were set aside when Nerd Wars began. I'm alternating between them and the lace scarf I'm doing as my Nerd Wars dissertation.

FO Friday 10/14

FO Friday 10/14, a photo by Paula knits on Flickr.

Can you tell I've been feeling better? I finished all my Nerd Wars challenges already. There's the Allons-y scarf, a crocheted bow tie, a knitted bow tie (failed because I couldn't tie it), a crocheted cover for my camera, a mini K-9, and a pair of Cookie A club socks.

The socks are alpaca blend and I may never take them off. The yarn's from Alpaca with a Twist.

The K-9 has his own haiku (part of the challenge):

A little tin dog
K-9 always saves the day.
"Good dog!" "Yes, master."

FO Friday 10/7/11

fof10711, a photo by Paula knits on Flickr.

It looks like I'm going to have to study my new camera's manual to get some better pictures.

The creature is a pteradactyl named Myfanwy, a Nerd Wars project. The pink socks are called Daphne. The blue socks are called Velma. Daphne and Velma are the previous Cookie A sock club projects. The gray socks are the Rose Bridge socks from Knitters Brewing Company.

Camera has arrived

and the darn thing has to be charged before I can play with it. It has lots more megapixels and is much tinier than my old one. It wants a memory card that I don't have but it has something like 20 meg of memory that lives in the camera. Tomorrow there should be a pile of finished object pictures.

It was the computer this time

I'm getting better, but the motherboard on my antique computer gave out last week. I got my new computer yesterday. There have been some good surprises, such as how fast it is and how much better some things run. There have been some not so good surprises, such as my antique digital camera not being supported under Windows 7. There's a way around that, but I think I'm going to just replace the camera.

When I got back online after nearly a week, I found out that I won the Nerd Wars battle. It was that game where characters from various nerddoms battled each other in an imaginary tournament. River Song won (of course).

I have been knitting, but with no camera connection to the computer, there are no pictures. Yikes, with Nerd Wars tournament 3 starting today, I had best get on top of the camera situation right away. I finished the last two pair of Cookie A sock club socks plus the Knitters Brewing Company's Brige of Roses socks. Those are challenging and really cute. They've got a trellis pattern with a little bridge on each side. There are green "stems" on them and then you embroider little roses and rosebuds on them. Pictures coming as soon as I have a new camera.

Sunday Afternoon Rambling

No posts in a month. It's not surprising. I've been fighting this infection and everything else got swept to one side. I think this is the longest I've gone without knitting in over a decade. No worries, though. I'm on the mend. I got myself this groovy cane with a pink flower print all over it. Since it is my frequent Companion, I've named it Sarah Jane.

Nerd Wars update: I melted all my cubes (completed 18 projects for Tournament 2). I think Team Tardis placed third. It is strange to think that had I gotten even halfway on that darn afghan, we could've been second. Nobody blames me but me, but I still feel a little bad. I did decide to play in the next tournament, but I'm putting less pressure on myself. I'm even volunteering to give up my place on Team Tardis so that one of the kids on the waiting list can have a go. I've also decided that the afghan is not going to be part of the tournament in any way. I'll finish it when I finish it.

Elyse and her volunteers have been making Nerd Wars extra fun. I participated in a Nerd Pride swap. I hope the person who got the stuff I put together had half the fun I had with what I got. Among the excellent prezzies was a hand-knit scarflet. I discovered that I really like these things. They're kind of halfway between a scarf and a shawl and drape nicely around the neck. My other most favorite-ist thing from the swap was limited-edition Hello Kitty Duck Tape. I have no plans for it at the moment. It's pink and printed with Hello Kitty and needs no other reason to exist.

The other fun thing right now is a hilarious nerdy battle whose name escapes me. You know how kids will argue about who would win in a battle (Spiderman vs. Batman for example)? The Nerd Wars crew has picked up a tough person from each of the teams' fandoms and set them up in this tournament bracket thing. They did a writeup on each participant. Based on that and prior knowledge, we worked out how we think who would win each encounter. I'm not doing badly so far. It is probably because I end up with River Song winning. She's too much of a badass and a wildcard for anybody to do much of anything against her.

Yarn indulgences have been minimal, but I have managed two. Knit Picks has re-released Time Traveler (self-striping, 6 of the 7 colors of the original Doctor Who scarf). I'm stashing a bunch because I don't trust them not to take it away again. The other is a yarn club. It's my birthday present to myself. I think it is called the Smartass Yarn Club or something like that. Yarn weights vary. You get a pattern. You get something yarn-related that is artisan made. It comes from Canada so who knows when it'll show up. It'll be a nice surprise when it does.

Knitting, yeah, that was what this was all supposed to be about.

• Jim the Fish socks. A Cookie A pattern knit from ooak Schmutzerella Yarns. Completed just before my leg started to misbehave, these just need a wash and a block.
  
• Tardis Afghan. Untouched in a month.
  
• Beekeeper Quilt. 45 units. This is mindless knitting that I keep next to the computer. Computer becomes slow, Paula picks up knitting to keep from breaking computer. Many units are completed.
  
• Pair 1 of the current Cookie A sock club have been cast on. That's up to the point where they are joined in a round. They've been set aside for higher priority work.
  
• Shedir cap. I'm using the softest, smoothest cotton silk blend yarn for this. The big C has come back to visit Cousin Patty and I'm pissed off. If you say prayers, visualize healing light, make wishes, or anything else of a positive nature, please include Pat the next time you do.