So I signed up for Tournament 3 of Nerdwars. Still with Team Bite Me. The roster is nearly twice as big! Unfortunately, not nearly enough have submitted dissertation proposals. I did submit mine. With this deadline of end of the year, hopefully I will finish an afghan which has been in my queue for awhile.
It is the Autumn Lace/Winter Lace/Mayfield afghan on the Lion Brand site. Winter Lace Afghan
You do need a membership in order to view the pattern on the site. This will be my first large lace project. It is exciting! Plus two rows of the 20 row lace pattern contain a centered double decrease. Last tournament, I found a suitable substitution given my slight hand disability.
T2 is over. Currently working on a 'rayer Shawl with Two Crosses" for my mom. Her birthday is mid October and I would like to finish before 10/1/11. Why? That is when T3 starts. Right now, I am trying to decide whether or not to join a team or be a ninja.
I really don't have the time to commit for 18 challenge projects plus a dissertation. Home repairs are calling. I need to get a leaking window repaired plus replace wood logs in the retaining wall out front.
Team Hellmouth won which really pleases me. However, I am sure that there will be a HUGE list of people wanting to join them. Of course, I will put it as a choice but since I can do the Buffy vampires in Team Bite Me, I might as well stay on this team. Fortunately, there are newbies lining up to join in. Maybe I won't feel the pressure for a huge output.
Tentative dissertation proposal...The Lion Brand Mayfield Afghan. It is large enough to take 3 months as I want to do it in worsted weight instead of bulky.
Well, I meant to do a project by project posting but things work, like and the challenges plus my sweater took up a lot of time. The last two rounds, I really had a hard time coming up with answers to meet the challenge and all my projects were turned in at the last minute which meant I had to start over again since a new round of challenges was issued. The third and last round was crunch time for my sweater too. I did complete it and it fits! That is it feels wonderful hugging the excess bumps which I am continually trying to lose.
I have 5 challenge projects in and 5 approved!! Just one day to go and I am more than 3/4 done with the 6th project. It would look nice for us to have someone with 6 completed challenges done on the Ravelry Nerd Wars visible site.
It had gotten so fast and furious that I did not have time to post here also. Will place those up after this round. I did 5 of the 6 challenges and one more to go which I cast on this morning. It is going to be a book cosy. Debated whether to knit a book cosy or an ereader cosy. Decided that having books in a photo will make a better impression in a photo and I will link it to the outward bookish vampire, the bespectacled Dalton, Spike's too human for a vampire, minion. Of course, Spike was Oxford educated..(shh..Slayer's not supposed to know) and he was a poet as a human. Also that was what he thought would be his final act, reading poetry at a poetry slam, before the huge all out demon battle at Angel's finale.
Last posted on Wednesday for the I See What You Did There Challenge. Well I am still waiting for an approval or nay. Another challenge I posted after that was approved and I had not even put it up here. Sigh. Possibly the CD for the video challenge is busy in her/his personal life. Yes, I found out that they were not all women.
Today at my LYS, found out the owner is a huge Buffy fan!! I have been going there for 3 yrs and only found out today because someone thought music playing was from Buffy and I corrected her..it was the Charmed theme. Then I showed them my watch to indicate that I knew my Buffy.
"Ooh, don't show that to A because she will want to know where you got it!"
This is the challenge:"Since 2005, one website has been grabbing your (and my) nerdy little eyeballs like few others, making you laugh, making you cry, making you ask “WTF?”: the great time suck of your late-afternoon work/study sessions, YouTube. You’ve seen the cartoons, the cute cats, the mashups, and the webseries. Your challenge now is to make something inspired by your favorite YouTube video.
A few restrictions before we start, because I know you Nerd Warriors are sneaky Petes.
* No basic instructional videos. I don’t want you to justify a pair of socks because you watched a Judy’s Magic Cast-On How-To.
* No clips of TV shows or movies, unless they’re more popular on YouTube than they ever were on their original medium. Be prepared to defend the increased popularity.
* Music videos are okay with me, as are TV commercials that were clearly designed to be viral sensations."
TEAM: Bite Me
RAV HANDLE: akarateka
CRAFT: Knitting
Queen of The Damned is just about my favorite vampire movie because of its stylistic qualities. In that way, it differs from the other movies from Anne Rice's works. Slow and moody in spots because vampires have a lot of time and thus they can take their time. The movie got cult status after the death of its star, Aaliyah. Plus Stuart Townsend is to die for :D.
Anne Rice wrote in the book "He found rings and cuff links of gold. Now he was beautiful, as he had once been in other garments long ago. .."
Those gold cuffs really drew my attention. Alas, no gold to work into a project so gold colored yarn made these cuffs. I can wear them as a symbol of this movie.
I don't have a tripod so I put my hands in front of the camera to take a picture of both.
Another project done which took a couple of days. It is for the video challenge "I See What You Did". I am using a music video...very nervous because I have never posted a video in a forum panel before so I need to get it all on text and post very slowly. The project is cuffs. After I post it, I will start the next challenge project which will be a bat dishcloth.
I am afraid that I have not timed myself properly. The month is nearly half gone. In a month, I will need at least half of my sweater done. Last night I knit a bit on it but the rounds are going slowly even though it will be an easy knit until I get to the collar. So I am not dubious about being able to have half done by July 15th. Just need to put in the time.
Two members of Team Bite Me got nominated for bonus points! WOOT! That gives us more of a chance to move out of the middle.
On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, vampire Spike came to Sunnydale once again with the intent to kill the Slayer. While he was concentrating on watching her, The Initiative snuck up on him and blasted him with a large jolt of electricity via taser.
My project is a cloth that represents the zigzaggityness of electricity.
What can I say? The CD (Challenge Decascus) thought my dishcloth was a stretch to link it with lightning. Looking at the others..yes...they DIRECTLY related to lightning. Last tournament a woman used a spider in the nebula challenge and got her 18 points.
Trying again with this pattern, Zig Zag Dishcloth:
June 15, 1752, Ben Franklin conducted his famous kite experiment, proving lightning is actually electricity.
To honor Franklin’s June discovery, the June challenge is all about electricity!
Electricity (n): any phenomenon associated with stationary or moving electrons, ions, or other charged particles
Whether it is lightning, the current powering your computer, or the sparks that flash when your cat tries to curl up on a fleece blanket in the winter, electricity is everywhere! Let it inspire your creations this month!
Begin and end this project within this month (Eastern Time).
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Team: Bite Me
Rav handle: akarateka
Lightning leads to thunder. The vampires in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight need lightning and the accompanying thunder to hide the thwops of their hard hits of baseball bat meeting ball. My project is a a symbol of the instrument, baseball bat, knitted in a dishcloth to answer this challenge.
Finished the Baseball Dishcloth. When I get it blocked and photographed, it will be posted to meet the Scientific Challenge. I guess I gave it away in the title...so excited. There is a lot of vampire genre to peruse to meet challenges that's for sure.
Participating in Nerdwars is a great learning experience. I am not a techie but it seems that you have to know how to do geeky nerdy techie things in order to get your points across in posts. Before I presented my dissertation, I had been on Ravelry for 3 yrs and never had occasion to really use pix in posts. (As if it is not obvious by the lack of technical skills in this blog!) I had to find pix and link those pix to make my presentation. By July 15, I must have made the halfway point in progress and prove by pix and measurements that my project will be what I started it out to be. It's like being in school. It is a wonderful way to improve your skill.
It is good that the mods know that many of us nerds are book types as opposed to computer types. There is an entire thread titled The Resource Room that has all the instructions about posting images on Ravelry etc.
Last night I started on a project for the Scientific Challenge related to Team Bite Me. Because I am doing the major project or dissertation, I am looking for small projects to aid my team in the challenges. It is a dishcloth of a baseball bat. I am not writing about the tie in just now until the project is done. I made it to Row 16 of 55 rows currently. Hope to finish it today after shopping and yard work.
I missed church this morning because I forgot about the Summer Hours. So I went to a rummage sale and did the bag sale thing. The bag was so heavy that I could not hold it properly walking the block home. My back hurt so I put placed it on my head and carried it easily. Now I know why African women carry things a long ways on their heads without stress.
The moderators liked my dissertation proposal and the Team Captain congratulated me. Most of the folk participating in the tournament are about half my age or younger or more familiar with the style of presentation. Heck, I graduated from college 40 years ago!!
Here is my dissertation proposal for T2:
Rav handle: akarateka
Team: Bite Me
Pattern: Corona
Yarn: Plymouth Galway
Summary:
Submitting a dissertation on Corona by Canary Sanctuary. Pam on True Blood is inimical and thus fascinating. On the show, most of her wardrobe is very tight and sexy. However in the Sookie books, Pam is much more conservative and wears muted colors like pink. Occasionally, she does wear pink on True Blood (attach picture). This picture captures her in a pink sweater with cables which is rare from my not recent watching of the show.
My project is a compromise. It is the standard stereotypical red which attracts the attention of other vampires but it is just curvy enough to be sexy but it has a cabled collar.
Category.
This project will take me three months as I have never knitted sleeves, a collar, nor a hood. My skill level is Advanced Beginner. Hence it is being placed in the Technical Category. The collar will be the slow portion as much counting is required to get the sequences right .
Time Justification:
See Category. In addition, my jobs take over 50 hours a week. Plus I have an old home to maintain, a garden,a grandson to visit plus keep up (karate) training .
Swatch:
The only gauge specified in the pattern is 5 stitches to one inch of stockinette which I made with a size 7 needle which I get with Plymouth Galway worsted wool.
I was holding off on doing certain challenges because I could not figure out a tie-in to my geekdom, Team Bite Me. The game master explained that we do not need the geekdom tied in in order to meet the challenge. The team spirit points (3) will not apply but it is better to go for those 10 points if it meets the challenge instead of the 13 we had to get.
I have been competitive most of my life. Nothing gets me going as much as going for the win. Our team is the smallest but I figured if we all went for the 100 point dissertation for a large three month project, we would be in the running but we all must do in. Got shot down today when one person blythely stated...no dissertation. What a sinking gut feeling.... But I know this Nerd Wars is mainly just for fun. The moderators state so..but then there are people like me on other teams and some teams filled with those who push themselves.
Now I realize just how fortunate I am to even be on a team. Over 75% of applicants in Nerd Wars got their first choice but some got their 3rd, 4th choice or even did not make it onto a team. I suppose I am a bit bummed because the enthusiasm within the team I am on is so much less than on my first choice team. But I'm going to work with it and do the best I can. The team captain has only posted ONCE for goodness sake's! I feel she should be out there encouraging us and getting up the team spirit. Hopefully she is just resting and waiting until the start on June 1st to be more communicative with us.
As a Christian, it is surreal to be a team member with a real life Lady of the Night. In this person's country, that occupation is legal. And she seems like a nice person from her posts..so I will just ignore the occupation then.
http://deliciousstitches.blogspot.com/2008/01/lace-panel-raglan-pattern.htmlWell, as much as I'd hoped to get onto Team Hellmouth, it did not happen. I am now a proud and willfull member of Team Bite Me! And I still can incorporate my favorite Buffy verse vampires...very much of the good. Just have to hurry up and revise my dissertation plan. Maybe I can use the sweater I picked as being for Pam from True Blood as she likes to wear pink/lavender. Originally, I'd planned it for Dawn,Buffy's human sister, which won't be acceptable for this group.
So psyched! On Ravelry, I joined Nerd Wars and hope to be a member of Team Hellmouth which supports the universe of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I am a huge Spuffy fan! The site linked can give some ideas of items to knit. Currently rewatching and getting ideas. One woman wants to knit kitty beds to support the poker kittens. That's an allusion to the currency of kittens used by the demons in a poker game.
Lately, I have not been really satisfied with my projects. In fact, I have felt downright incompetent because of all the frogging done. But whenever there is set deadline, I seem to have no problems rising to the occasion. Recently also, started a new business venture which means less time to devote to projects. Between my full time, training for the part time business, karate and other geeky interests, the time for knitting/crocheting has decreased significantly. However, always can devote the half hour before I get out of bed and the hour before going to sleep to knitting and crocheting. Just slower ..that's all.
Anyroad (yes, Lennon fan here), Nerd Wars is scheduled to begin 6/1/11 and I am in on a Buffy related team. Probably small projects due to my time limitations. Currently thinking, patrolling beanies and a vampire themed pair of socks.
My knitting/crocheting have sucked lately. There was always something wrong...CO wrong amounts, item too big or just blah and I ripped. And I did not go to my fall back project (socks) either. Well that is over now.
Divided my vest and was explained how to knit the fronts and back on this one piece item. Feeling good about that...THEN I cast on a fall back socks project. So happily knitting both now.
