Easter, Steampunk Club stuff, and What I've Been Up To

I have been SICK and busy and SICK AGAIN. Which, of course, puts the blog in varying positions all over my To Do list so that it never gets updated. Which is a shame because Fun Things have been happening.

1. WIPs




I have been diligently working on my new socks and just turned the second heel last night. I'm in the home stretch! I'm comfortable enough with socks now to knit them without having to pay too much attention to them and (at least this pattern) no longer takes a million years to finish. I am pleased.

More moleskines! The embroidered moleskines over at my Etsy shop have been getting a lot of favourites from folks browsing over there and a definite sense of enthusiasm from those actually purchasing them. I thought it was about time to start working on some Doctor Who and White Tree of Gondor covers. If you folks can think of anything else you'd like to see listed, feel free to let me know.

Also, a white double seed stitch blanket/throw that I am aiming to use as a background for my product photos for Etsy. I'm having consistent trouble with lighting and getting white fabric to match in very bright lights, but I've had good results with natural lighting against white and mostly white textured fabrics. And I wanted big, easy project to chill with.



2. Easter 2013 - "Murder Eggs"


My mom delights in confusing young parents and store clerks. She really does. I'm 25, my youngest brother is 16, and my mom has made a game of choosing the most ridiculous and/or nerdy Easter egg dye kits for us to play with since I graduated high school. This year it was a pretty snazzy Star Wars Clone Wars kit.

Luckily, only three of us were home for Easter this year, which neatly divided us into the three factions represented in the kit: Jedi, Clone troopers, and Sith.

Now, let us first establish that we are a crafty family. We enjoy making things ourselves. We're great with finding materials and assembling with little direction. However, kits with directions tend to throw us for a loop. It took us 15 minutes to figure out that those little plastic sleeves needed boiling water and we ended up with two blue dyes and a dud red dye because we didn't notice the note that said not to add vinegar to the red and purple.

We fixed the red with a packet of red Kool-Aid. Because we are craft people. But that is a lot of powder for one little cup and Kool-Aid stains A LOT more than regular egg dye. This meant that we had blood red finger tips all night and a gore-like sediment pattern on any red eggs.

I'm sure there's something wrong with standing around in your kitchen dunking boiled eggs into a convincing fake blood/gore and shouting "MURDER EGGS" while applying stickers with the images of fictional murderers to the dried shells for a religious holiday. I'm sure there is. But it was great fun.



Pro-tip for would-be egg dyers out there: If you want texturing on your dyed eggs, scribble on them with different colored crayons before dying.



3. Steampunk Club - March




March's shipment from the Gnome Acres - Tangerine Designs Steampunk club arrived! Project bag, pattern, and cool things! Both of the other frequent nerd knitters in my house are supremely jealous and want to go back in time to join this club. My mom hadn't even heard of steampunk before this, but she's excited about it if it means there might be weird mustache things and cephalapods in top hats and monocles.


4. The Return of Shows

I'm always excited for new episodes of Doctor Who and I spent the premier day over at some friends' house playing board games for International Tabletop Day and nerding out and knitting those steampunk yarn socks. It was fantastic. The episode fell on a bit of the 'meh' side for me, but I really enjoyed watching it with friends again.

Also, Game of Thrones has started back up again. I eat this stuff up. Even if I don't like changes, I can't complain because I've been enjoying it so much.

Also also, I've been reveling in the History channel's Vikings. It hits all the right buttons in my brain right now. I need the opening theme playing on a loop because it curls up my spine and settles contentedly into the base of my skull. I say contentedly because the image I have of the sound is always a small dark, clawed creature with glowing yellow eyes and it has that kind of rumbling undertone that means it is much more powerful than it is choosing to appear right now. It's that kind of good.