Nerd Wars Swap.

Yep, more Nerd Wars. What can I say, my non-competetive crafting has been a been a bit lackluster this summer. The NW swap was great fun and small enough for me as a first time swapper to test the waters. I'll be honest, when I first read that my swap partner was KokoCat, all I could think was: "I can't possibly spoil this woman! For Bob's sake, she has her own yarn store! She's been knitting for longer than I've been alive!" But that's what happens when you hang out with a bunch of knitting nerds, they are awesome and you just have to deal with it. This is what I ultimately came up with:

I actually had to buy the seeds and sweets to get above the minimum amount to spend. Thrifting, Ebay and handmades are real budget savers. I included three knitted items, although I had a lot more ideas (but not the time).

Crivens!

A tiny Nac Mac Feegle. Incidentally, I finally bought a copy of I Shall Wear Midnight which arrived yesterday. The Tiffany arc is one of my favourite since Wintersmith was the first Dicworld novel I read.

It's the Doctor's name. We think.

A cowl inspired by Doctor Who. Not a Doctor Who scarf, though. I may be an ambitious swapper, but I would have needed a Tardis, time-turner or other nerdy device for time travel to pull that off. I wasn't a bug fan of cowls before, but now I can see the point of them. Well, at least the longer ones you wrap around once or twice.

Mio pattern.

These didn't come out as nice as planned. It's a cute enough pattern, but in 100% cotton (Schachenmayr Cotton Eco) they lacked a bit of stretch and the rolled-up thumb edging is a bit bulky for my liking.

I was alternately hating and loving the colours as well, but didn't have a suitable backup yarn. I hope it'll wear better than the first blocking suggested. Argh! This is why I don't gift hand-mades! (That and I've embraced the principles of selfish crafting(tm).)

Nerd Wars Projects.

The 3rd Nerd Wars round is almost upon us, so it's high time I shared last round's projects! I have yet to find a better way to stash-bust and get motivated than these challenges were. All in all I completed 12 out of 18, which seems like a good if slightly obsessive quote. Some of them were really boring, but the results I quiete liked are:

This lightning scarf wouldn't have come out half as nice
if I hadn't run out of red yarn halfway through! (Pattern)

Bookmark. Although spinning plarn makes it a lot nicer to work with,
crocheting is still easier than knitting. (Pattern)

It may not be the cutest kid's set out there, but I love the hat pattern.
I should make one for myself some time.

These are easily my favourite two projects.
Plarn Cthulhu and Tiny Old Spice man.

Starting Saturady, I'll play for team Shady Cells (comics, animation, etc.) which should be fun because there's very little in popular culture that hasn't had its own comic at some point.