Category / Video Games

by TechnicolorMom

You’ll Always Find Me Knitting

I set some pretty lofty goals for myself earlier this year, and while I have somehow managed to find myself in possession of 30 skeins of yarn that I didn’t own at the start of the year (all paid for, of course, but some were gifts!), I’ve already knit 11 of the skeins!

I’ve finished up six (SIX!) pairs of socks already, and of course have my Hue Shift Afghan, which will eat up another 15 skeins of  yarn at least.

It doesn’t matter what I’m working on, but I’m always knitting. Minnie Mouse’s little song at the start of this short pops into my head whenever I sit down to knit!

If you remember, last year I signed up for Tour de Sock 2017, a Tour de France style knitting contest in which contestants knit a pair of socks in each 10ish day stage. I didn’t make it very far last year. My first stage was a disaster and resulted in a pair of socks that don’t fit anyone, and my second stage missed the deadline. I still haven’t woven in the ends on that pair or taken finished object photos, but they are super gorgeous colorwork. Eventually I will weave in the ends so my husband can actually wear them.

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Sadly, I didn’t end up finishing any of the other stages either.

So, why did I sign up for this competition again this year? When, arguably, I’m having the busiest semester e.v.a.r. at work? Well, because I like knitting socks! And I love competitions! And it will be fun!

I am pleased to report that I am off to a fantastic start so far. I am joined by 1696 other racers for the Tour de Sock 2018. All proceeds from the race go to Doctors Without Borders, which is so cool. I finished my pair of socks for Stage 1 in 301st place and earned 6 points for my team! Woohoo!

I used one of the sponsor yarns, Blue Moon Fiber Arts Super Sparkle in Plumpy. This was also an exclusive Eat.Sleep.Knit colorway, so here’s some double dipping for their Exclusively Exclusive Q3 KAL!

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For the tour, we don’t know what the pattern will be until the stage starts, so they give us clues and some ideas for what kind of colorway to use. For this first one, they suggested using a crazy or variegated colorway, so I thought this one would be perfect. Here is my ravelry page for the socks. This pattern is Plan A by Adrienne Fong. Unfortunately, I’ve already managed to wear holes in both toes of these socks. I’m not sure what happened here — if it’s because the pattern on top of the foot wanted to twist or because the yarn doesn’t have any nylon or because I made them too short, or just because I wore them around the house in the evenings for several days. I guess it’s time to fix some of my socks, so I’m in the process of washing all of the ones that have holes so I can sit down and do some mending.

For stage two, we had a gorgeous cabled pattern by Suzanne Sjögren called Odensjön Socks. I’ve already finished these as well! I used Madelinetosh Twist Light (which has some nylon!) in Seaglass. This was originally a colorway chosen by my husband (technicooldad) for socks for him, and I had intended to make these for him, but the cables drew in a little more on the leg than I had anticipated, so I made a last minute switch and knitted them for my feet. They are just gorgeous! I guess that means I’ll need to buy another skein of yarn to replace his?

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Here’s my ravelry page for these. Both of these patterns used a new gusset that I’ve never used before called the riverbed gusset. I really like how this gusset hugs my heels, so I will definitely be using it in the future!

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I am eagerly awaiting Stage 3, which starts tomorrow at 9:00p. I’m not sure which yarn I’ll use for it yet — I think I’ll wait and see the pattern first, but we do know it has beads, so I’ll likely go with a solid or tonal yarn again.

In the meantime, I’m continuing to work on my Hue Shift KAL afghan and I’m swatching for some new sweaters to be knit from my stash! I’m a bit behind on the Hue Shift, but definitely planning to catch up soon.

by TechnicolorMom

Where Does the Time Go?

For real. It’s just been zooming by these days! Baby Jaina is now 9 months old, is crawling (super fast!), can pull up on the coffee table, and has three teeth! She is happy, laughs all the time, and sleeps very well at night. We are just delighted with her. 😀 She has also started daycare since my last post, so we have pretty much had a constant cold in the house for the last two months. I think daycare has been harder on mommy than on Baby J, though. She loves playing, and as one of the oldest kids in the room, she has the run of the place to herself. She is very interested in music and anything that makes noise, all types of electronics (phones, printers, modems, xbox, computers, etc), her board books, and empty water bottles.

She loves crawling over and investigating things that mommy wants her to stay away from. Here she is exploring mommy’s computer tower (daddy’s is up off of the floor, so she can’t get to that one).

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Jaina & Daddy exploring Mommy’s computer

I’ve been working on a few knitting projects over the past few months, joined a guild in World of Warcraft (and am now raiding on Heroic level as a tank! go me!), transitioned back to being in the office at work (as opposed to working from home), and have generally been enjoying life.

I’ve fallen a bit behind on my Dreaming in Neon blanket, but I did manage to finish a couple of hexes. One of these days I’ll get caught up, but this is definitely a long haul kind of project. I switched to working the “pointless” charts for the hexes, and I get a lot less of the dome shape in the middle — they now lay almost perfectly flat. I’m thinking that for my next hex, I’ll use the gray main color and use a single color for contrast instead of going through all of the rainbow. For science. Then, if I love that even more, I can make blanket hexes with just two colors!

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Unblocked Pointless Hex

Eat.Sleep.Knit hosted a KAL of my Speckled Space Socks pattern, and now there are 500+ projects! What is life??? How cool is that?! It was a Flash KAL to finish the socks in a week. I got close, but then we had company over, and I fell behind. Anyway, I did manage to finish mine. I went with Madelinetosh Twist Light in Electric Rainbow, with Edison Bulb toes, Robin’s Egg Blue heels, and Hedgehog Fiberarts Sock in Harajuku for the cuffs. I love them so much. My husband chose the colors for these, and they turned out amazingly. I called them my “Speckled Easter Egg Socks.” I used a Fish Lips Kiss heel instead of the pattern’s toe-up gusset & heel flap in order to not interrupt the variegation/change the pooling.

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Speckled Easter Egg Socks — Original Pattern by Me! (Called “Speckled Space Socks”)

I also started four-ish projects, including a skirt, two more pairs of socks, and a hat. Eventually I will finish them. Eventually. The skirt, which is a pattern by Lauren Riker called “She’s Electric,” is coming along quite nicely, and I’m already to the waist decreases after only a week. It is fitting in the Q2 Summer Yarns KAL! I can’t wait to get the skirt finished so I can wear it!

And, of course, there’s no shortage of projects I would like to cast-on. I’m planning to participate in the Tour-de-Sock event later in the summer and the Q3 Rhinebeck Sweater KAL starting in July. I also am daydreaming of knitting “shortie” socks of the Rose City Rollers variety. Baby J needs some new booties and cute outfits too, so I need to get on those as well! You know, in my spare time.

Finally, I had a mini sock blocking/washing party this weekend. I’ve made lots of socks for myself, and I have yet to complete a pair of vanilla socks. My husband’s first pair made an appearance, too.

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Sock Blocking Party!

I don’t know how I did it, but my Senna socks turned out to fit me the best of all of the socks I’ve made so far. (I’m wearing them now!) I think I made them a little smaller than usual, so I’m going to have to count rows so I can make sure my future socks fit too! This weekend was the first time I blocked them since I made them…last year. LOL

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Senna in Madelinetosh Tosh Sock, Esoteric

How many projects are you working on? Tons? Share them in the comments!

by TechnicolorMom

Knitting and Fishing

wowscrnshot_011317_220237The two go together pretty well, I think. Both require a lot of time and patience, and for fishing, at least the kind that I prefer, you don’t need to pay much attention.

For those of you who know me, you might be thinking, what in the world is she talking about? I am not exactly known for my love of the outdoors. I prefer climate-controlled, bug-free locations. And, as my husband reminds me, I once mused, “I like the outdoors in theory.” Beautiful landscapes, grass, trees, the oceans, all that jazz.

But there is one place that allows me to fish and knit and be comfortable. And that is in the World of Warcraft. Joel introduced me to WoW in 2013, not long after we started dating. I already had a penchant for video games: I grew up enjoying and playing a Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, and later a Wii, and I was quite adept at some mobile games. Shortly thereafter, he gifted me with my very first gaming PC, complete with a Haswell i5 processor, a GTX-660 Ti videocard, Razer Naga and, very importantly, a pink case and green LED fans. It was beautiful. Maybe a little tacky. It was the only pink case we could find, and I loved it.wp-1484797565458.jpg

Fast-forward to 2017, and I’m still an avid WoW player, but with a more powerful computer with a sleek black and green case and color-changing accessories (of course). We raced the clock with the birth of my daughter, who was due just 5 days after the launch of WoW’s most recent expansion, Legion. She was born three days late, giving us about a week to experience the new content. We took a short hiatus, and recently our precious girl has blessed us with an earlier bedtime, allowing us to resubscribe to the game.

There’s a game mechanic that allows you to fish, and you can listen for your bobber to splash in the water. It’s quite relaxing and entertaining for me. And best of all, I can knit and fish at the same time.

I’ve just completed a pair of WoW-themed socks for my husband, at his request. I used madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Ink and Liquid Gold to represent Alliance colors. Early last year, I made him a WoW-themed hat with the Alliance crest on it, so now he has the set!

 

My next project is an afghan using fingering weight (sock) yarn (i.e. it’s going to take the whole year), and there’s an achievement for catching all the rare fish in WoW, so I will be doing a lot of fish/knitting in the next few months!