Advent Calendar, Day 6

Today's activity: Pizza and a Doctor Who Christmas special.

There are plenty to pick from--there has been a Christmas special every year since 2006, when David Tennant first took over from Christopher Eccleston. It was Jason's turn to pick, so he chose "Voyage of the Damned," in between season 3 and season 4. 

It's a good episode, though the ending is bittersweet. Poor Astrid. I would have liked to see her have a few more adventures with the Doctor. 

I went with another Who-themed snowman today: the Cy-brr-man! Or, alternately, the Snowberman.

My package from Think Geek came today. Along with the artificial snowballs, I got us a wreath.

Eight-bit Christmas to all, and to all a good...save state? At any rate, it's geeky and festive. Can't beat that! I also got a string of TARDIS lights, which I plan to string across our balcony as soon as it warms up a bit. If it's going to be twenty-five degrees, I want snow, darnit! Something white and fluffy and clean. Hmmm, that reminds me...better wash the towels this weekend.

Clockwork Droid Complete!

I finished my clockwork droid costume in time for Halloween. Here's a reminder of how the dress looked when I started:

And now the final product...drumroll, please...

Ta-daa! The dress is surprisingly comfortable. I wore it all day on Halloween, minus the mask. I told the kids at my daycare center that I was Cinderella. I also wore my hair down and added a pair of long white gloves. Unfortunately I forgot to get someone to take a picture of my full get-up.

The only problem with the dress is that the shoulders tend to fall down. When I wore it on Halloween, I wore a long-sleeve shirt underneath and pinned it at the shoulders, which solved the problem, but I would like a more permanent solution.

Jason and I went out in costume on Halloween. There's a great retro game arcade in our area--Galloping Ghost-- and they advertised that they were having a costume contest. So I went in my droid costume and Jason went as Smoke from Mortal Kombat.

Galloping Ghost has all of the Mortal Kombat machines, so this led to some very meta pictures.

Flawless victory!

Smoke is also an accomplished light saber duelist.

I posed for a picture in front of the Nerd Fighter game. DFTBA!

Yes, I know it's really called Aero Fighters.

Jason and I decided to play through the TMNT game together. One of the great things about Galloping Ghost is that you pay an entrance fee, but all of the games are on free play. So instead of adding a quarter every time one of us died, you just need to press the "credit" button. Anyway, we were between levels when the owner came over and let us know we had won the costume contest! We won free passes for our next trip. Good times.

Birthday Gifts

My brother's birthday is coming up this week, so Jason and I went to my family's house to celebrate on Sunday. Johnny was very excited to see the Mario hat. He immediately put it on and requested I take a picture of him wearing it.

I had several gifts for him, including another craft project. I had been wanting for a while to decorate an iPod case, ever since I saw Epbot's tutorial on custom iPhone covers with scrapbooking paper. I snagged a couple of clear cases off of Amazon on the cheap, and my idea was to paint a design on the inside (so it wouldn't rub off). Jason and I went to Hobby Lobby a couple weeks ago to look for paint. I wasn't sure what type of paint would be the best, so I finally ended up with a set of paint markers that are supposed to work on nearly any surface. 

I went with a simple design for my first attempt: the little star guy from Mario. I printed out a picture to use as my template and taped it right underneath the case. I did the black first to outline the star and draw the eyes. Since your design will be seen from the back, the background color needs to be done last. After the black was dry I filled in the middle with yellow. I probably could have waited a little longer, because the black started to bleed through just a little. You'd have to look pretty close to notice, though. Here is the completed case!

I took this one at home before I wrapped it. That's not an actual iPod in there, just the cardboard insert that came with the case (hence the shadow in the picture).

I have another case for my own iPod, but I have a different idea in mind for that one. Stay tuned!

Hat #5 (Hat-a-week): Pac-Hat!

I have decided, with January coming to an end, it will be much easier throughout the year to count the number of hats I've made instead of the number of days in 2013...

My fifth hat is inspired by an icon of 1980s arcade games, the one and only Pac-Man!

It looks like a big chunk is missing from the middle, but that's only because the mouth is black yarn and I took this picture on a dark purple background.

Here is the design from the front:

And from the other side:

Waka waka waka waka waka!

There is no chart for this one, but if you are interested, I started out with 6 stitches of black yarn and then added 3 black stitches on each side of the mouth, every 2 rows, until the mouth is 42 stitches across. The top of the mouth is worked the same way in reverse.

I may make a ghost hat at some point in the future...right now I don't think I have the right colors of yarn.

Also, for anyone interested, I am now on Pinterest! I haven't posted any of my hat designs yet, though. Right now I'm still learning the site. There is so much to navigate.

Hat-a-week, day 19

My third hat is complete! Mario's actual hat is more of a baseball cap, but my brother requested a ski cap with the Mario "M," so that's what I made. I rather like it.

I sewed up the back and worked in the loose ends last night. I went with a fairly tight gauge--about 5 stitches per inch--so it would be extra-thick and warm.

What is gauge?
I'm glad you asked! The gauge of any knit or crocheted item can be measured by counted the number of stitches in one inch across. Seriously, you can calculate the gauge on that sweater you bought at the Gap. You probably have no need to, unless you want to make one just like it, but you could.

The type of gauge needed for a project depends on two things: thickness of the yarn and how loose or tight you want the finished item to be. This hat is made from worsted-weight yarn, which is the most versatile yarn weight. You can really use almost any needle size, depending on the look and feel you want for your project. For something you want to be very tight, like mittens, the needles will be very thin (size 2 or 3) and the resulting mitten will be sturdy enough to keep your hands warm in the coldest weather. Hats and sweaters are worked on medium-sized needles (size 6-8) for an item that is sturdy but still has enough stretch to fit over your head. Items like afghans can be worked on needles that are even larger (size 10-11), although those patterns will probably incorporate something like slipped stitches to keep the gauge from getting too loose.

For this hat, I used size 6 needles. This meant that I needed more stitches in each row, so the hat took a little longer to make. It also means that the logo in the middle is smaller than it would have been with a looser gauge. Incidentally, if you want to figure out how big a design will be, it is a simple matter of dividing the number of stitches in your design by the number of stitches per inch.

For example, my Mario design is 14 stitches across at the widest point. 14/5=almost 3 inches. Most hats are worked on slightly larger needles for the yarn I used (size 7 or 8) for a gauge of about 4 stitches per inch. 14/4=3.5 inches.

As your reward for slogging through all the knitter's lingo and math talk, here is a Styrofoam head wearing the Mario hat!

Yes, I just happened to have a Styrofoam head in my apartment. It belongs to my hubby, who got it with his Emperor Palpatine mask. Incidentally, those white streaks you see on the hat came from the baby powder that he puts on the mask to keep it from cracking. Whoops. Good thing my hat is washable.

Hat-a-week, day 15

I have not had much time for knitting, and even less time for blogging, so here is a quick update on my latest project. I spent Saturday afternoon sorting through my stash; after only two hats I realized I could make a hat every week for a decade and still have too much yarn. So I went through my various sources of yarn and filled a bag of remnants and yarn I know I'll never use (lightweight yarn for baby sweaters, anyone?) to donate. I found an unholy snarl of yarn at the bottom of the chest that I ended up just tossing, along with a couple half-started projects full of dropped stitches because I pulled out the needles to use on another project. The chest of yarn now looks like this:

Some of the yarns I sorted into bags, like wool for felting and red, orange, and yellow yarn that I want set aside for a hat I have in mind...stay tuned!

I also started work on my brother's birthday gift. He requested a ski cap with the Mario logo. I decided the easiest way to knit it onto a hat was to start with a picture of the logo and transfer it to knitter's graph paper (which is different from regular square graph paper, since knit stitches are wider than they are tall). Here's the  logo pattern:

The main yarn I'm using is KnitPicks Swish Worsted, which is a superwash merino wool. I had a couple balls left over from a sweater I made my mom a couple Christmases ago. The white is the Hobby Lobby brand acrylic, which is also nice and soft. I worked the white circle using the intarsia method, which can only be done by going back and forth, so this is another hat I'll need to sew up the back when I'm done. For those interested, the M in the middle was done with Fair Isle. It could also be done in duplicate stitch after the hat is finished.

And here are some progress shots of the hat! 

Close-up of the logo:

I have until early next month to finish it up, so this hat will definitely be done on time!

Costumes and other Halloween stuff

Ah, Halloween. The costumes, the candy, the scary movies, the haunted houses, the jack o'lanterns...I love it all. This year I have a homemade costume. I'm going as a vampire, complete with a cape that I made myself. Actually, it's not that much of a costume. Black pants, orange shirt, the cape, and a pair of fangs. I've learned from trial and error that not all fake fangs are created equal. Obviously, the cheap plastic ones are out. They also have ones that look like dentures, but with fangs. You stick them over your regular teeth with this putty stuff. I tried those a couple years ago. The putty works well, but because the appliance itself goes over your regular teeth, it comes out looking like you've got teeth that are twice as long. I came out looking like a vampire dweeb, which was definitely not the look I was going for. The best ones I've found are these:



They also attach with the putty, but they're much smaller and you only cover the canine teeth (which are the ones that are supposed to appear longer and pointy). And they come in a little coffin box, too, which is a nice touch. They're kind of hard to find, so I actually picked up a pair last year shortly after Halloween and, by some minor miracle, actually remembered where I put them. Four bucks at Wallgreens, which isn't too bad.

I'll have to post some pictures of the cape. Actually, I'll have to take some first. Look for them after Halloween. I found some great fabric: black with a silvery spiderweb pattern. The cape ended up being simpler than I'd originally thought; I found a pattern for a vampire cape and decided that my rudimentary sewing machine skills weren't quite up to doing something with a lining and a stand-up collar. I opted for a witch cape instead, which looks really cool with the spiderweb fabric. I probably should have tested the pattern before I cut the fabric. I'm not sure if I switched to the wrong size in the middle of cutting out the pattern piece, or if it was just designed for someone really tall, but I had to shorten it by ten inches.

I love homemade Halloween costumes. They just have so much more personality and imagination than the packaged ones. I've seen some great ones over the years. Back when Tomagotchis were all the rage (remember them?) I saw a Tomagotchi costume that was just great. And one year a music-loving friend of mine went as a piano in a costume made from a cardboard box. My brother's friend went as Larryboy one year when they were little (ten geek points if you know who that is!). Some family friends are bringing their kids around on Halloween so I can see their costumes, sewn by their mom. They've got a five-year-old going as a shark and a seven-year-old going as the mascot for LSU (which, I'm told, is a tiger. In a football jersey). I've seen some of the progress, and I think the mom may have had to design the shark outfit herself.

Oh, and here is a random bit of advice if you want to save money. Never buy sewing patterns unless they are on sale. I'm not sure exactly why this happens, or how widespread it is, but patterns at Hancock Fabrics (my normal haunting grounds) usually run $10-$15. Then they go on sale for $1.99 or sometimes even $0.99. So if you live near a Hancock Fabrics (or other store that operates this way), watch the sale papers for when they're putting patterns on sale.

Before I forget: Neil Gaiman has a great idea for a new Halloween tradition. He suggests giving someone a scary book as a Halloween gift. He's calling it the "All Hallow's Read." I don't know too many people who enjoy scary books, but I do have someone in mind and I even know what book I'm going to pass along.

If you need an idea for a book recommendation, allow me to suggest The Graveyard Book (written by, yes, Neil Gaiman. I decided to read it for Halloween as my own "All Hallow's Read" gift). One of the first books I've read in a long time that I felt the need to finish in one sitting. The characters, the pacing, everything was fantastic. I found it at the library in the children's section, but if Harry Potter has taught us anything, it's that children's books aren't only for children. Please don't let that stop you from reading it. The Graveyard Book is about a boy whose family is murdered when he is a baby, and he is adopted by the ghosts in the nearby graveyard. The ghosts are quite nice, really. Nicer than most of the humans he meets, in fact. I can't really say much more without spoiling anything, but apparently it is heavily based on The Jungle Book (Rudyard Kipling's original, not the Disney version). I shall have to add that to my list of books to read.

Going back to costumes: I love having any excuse to dress up. I went to my first sci-fi convention this summer (and my second), although I didn't dress up beyond wearing appropriately geeky T-shirts. I'm planning to go to C2E2 next year (Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo) and I had this crazy idea for a costume: Princess Peach...with a badass weapon. Sort of inspired by the "Self-Rescuing Princess" t-shirt from Thinkgeek. My boyfriend and I are still debating about what her weapon should be. Possible ideas include a sword (classic), a giant Nerf gun (over-the-top), a flamethrower (a la Ripley from Alien), or a lightsaber (because...why not?). I've got time to figure that out. The more important thing, to me, is the dress. This is the look I'm going for:


I did a basic search for Princess Peach costumes. The little girl costumes are, oddly, much closer to what I want than the adult costumes. Or maybe it's not so odd, because costume companies have decided that any female over the age of sixteen (or twelve?) who bothers to dress up in a costume must want a skirt that comes halfway down her thigh. I want a big, poofy skirt, dammit! I did find some adult costumes that look pretty good, but still not exactly what I'm looking for. I'll probably keep searching. I don't want to spend a ton, either. It would almost be worth attempting to make it myself, but again, I doubt if my sewing skills are up to the task. It's much easier for me to revise a knitting pattern, just because I've got more experience with it.

Question for the comments: What is the best homemade costume you've either made yourself or seen on someone else?

Crochet Project: Tetris Afghan

As I mentioned in my last post, most of my crafting comes from knitting and crocheting. I knit more often than crochet, but it's nice to be able to do both. I like crochet for smaller projects, and I love making granny squares. For those not in the know, you've probably seen projects made from granny squares without knowing what they're called. Here's a nice simple one:

(Source)

They're small, easy, and addictive. Even beginning crocheters can churn them out easily. There are whole books of granny square patterns--they can be plain, like that one, or have color changes and patterns in the middle--and are the building blocks for larger projects like pillows or blankets.

I was inspired by the simple beauty of the granny square to make some sort of picture...but what could you make with only squares? The answer came almost immediately: Tetris! I will admit that, when it comes to video games, I am usually pretty lost. Most of my video game knowledge is picked up by osmosis from my brother and/or my boyfriend, and my strategy usually consists of pushing random buttons and watching what happens. But Tetris is one game I actually enjoy. So I set out to design a Tetris afghan. After A LOT of design ideas, I finally came up with two that I really liked.



The one on the right could be an actual Tetris game...if you were really, really bad. It was easier to design one with black squares on every row than it was to design one with no black squares, but the neat thing about the one on the right is that there are exactly 20 squares of each color: 20 black squares and 5 of each Tetrimino shape. The one on the left is really more inspired by Tetris, because of course the shapes packed so closely together wouldn't be found in a real game. I turned the Tetris-game design into a real afghan for my brother's birthday last year.



The color scheme that I chose is from the iPod version of Tetris (SO addictive, aside from the finicky controls) except I realized, after the blanket was complete, that I'd mixed up the colors for the red and green pieces (the red ones are actually supposed to be green, and vice versa). Oh well.

It's 10 blocks wide and 16 blocks tall, which works out to 160 little granny squares. These are pretty small, and they work up quickly, but it was A LOT of work to assemble. I sewed the Tetriminoes together using the same color yarn as the block, and then I joined the different blocks and black squares together using black yarn and slip stitch. The slip stitch join is slightly raised, which gives it a bit of texture. I put a lot of work into the design, and I'm really pleased with how it came out.

You can use the granny square idea to assemble any kind of (small) picture...I think it works really well with 8-bit video game graphics. What next? My new favorite video game is Pac-Man...I swear those ghosts are ganging up on me!