My Crafting Year: 2008 in Review

I was thinking about how little I had accomplished on this project this year, and feeling pretty gross about it. Yeah, I made a few beholders... the curly eyestalks were fun. They're in a box, somewhere....

But when it came to filming, not much happened. There have been issues with the camera. I don't have a stable base for it yet from which to line up my shots.

So what did I accomplish this year? Thanks to Ravelry, I have a clue.
3 lace shawls. The first one took me 3 months to make. That's three months, no other projects, roughly 6 hours a day, every day. It was the Rona Lace Shawl from Knitpicks. A second Rona shawl is 50% done. I had to take a break.

The other was a rectangular shawl which took me 5 months, interrupted by other projects. It was knit with Ellyn Cooper's Yarn Sonnets yarn Tingles in colorway Smokey Opal, on #9 Brittanys. Did I swear through the whole making of said shawl? You betcha. Was it worth it to present a shawl of my own design to my wonderfully sweet MIL? Absolutely.

An infant gift set of an Irish cable cardigan, hat, and shoulder cloth from the Gift Knitter book. Have I mentioned how much I dislike children, and also sewing little seams?

Scarves. Two faves - the Wishing Scarf, knit for a friend, and Peaceful - one I made for me as an amulet against those selfish stupid people in the world that I am forced to interract with.

Chemo caps. I made a few for a friend in SC who was diagnosed with breast cancer this year.

Tofuttens. I made a pair for another friend of mine. The colors remind me of Hoodsie cups.

Historic, manly muffatees - Tofutten friend's roomie threatened to steal her other pair of mitts for use, so I made him some nice ones with a hunter green & grey tweed yarn. I believe the pattern was ca. 1830s.

Moon Muffin Menstrual Pads! I designed my own washable/reusable, eco friendly pad. It is crochet. Viva Lion Cotton. I've been tweaking the design to allow for different...ahem...volumes.

I also got most of the way through a splendid winter hat for my MIL before an injury to my hand in early November put me on the crafting DL. The early word is psoriatic arthritis. I'm mending slowly but it really derailed my holiday gifting plans. I've started crocheting again, but have not resumed knitting, as it still hurts to do that.

But considering what I did manage to accomplish, I'm fairly pleased.

Ravelry Inspires Me

...to come out of hiding!
I'd nearly forgotten I had this whacky mental cupboard-under-the-stairs. Ghah, the cobwebs in here...

This week I acquired a Ravelry invite. Sweetness. The organizational genius of the site is not to be believed. I am finding artistic inspiration, as well as a strong desire to organize the pit of chaos that is my collection of knitting & crochet implements! They have this cute little chart, that you can print out and take with you when you shop - so you don't end up buying three of the same hook, or two pairs of the same size and length needles, like I did before I discovered this wonder. I also joined about 14 groups with similar interests... we'll see how active they are or how active I remain in them. "Oddballs" seems the most interesting and lively so far.

Anticraft's Imbolc 2008 issue is up, with even more inspiration. A crochet toy Beholder pattern and the Beholder dice bag are in my knitting queue. I'm liking the mini Cthulhu crochet doll as well, but not sure if it's my favorite version of the Elder God. I want one with really cute wings, you see. Preferably ones that I could embellish with leftover Tingles yarn by Ellyn Cooper.

Recently, I've let mini monster knitting take a back seat to lace knitting. I've been knitting mostly shawls and mitts this winter. You'd think I was gearing up to costume some Andrew Davies' Austen adaptation. I'm hoping to catch up on my backlog of photos though and have examples of past work available for your visual critiques soon!

Meanwhile, if anyone sees a pattern for a knitted, 3-dimensional marshmallow peep, drop me a line. My monsters are wanting some for their Ostara baskets.

Houston, we have....Eyestalks.

Regina, the beauteous, beneficently evil mastermind behind Monster Crochet, has granted me a boon!

I wrote her to inquire about using her delicious eyeball pattern as a character in my film. She assented, and I received the pattern yesterday evening. Thank you, Regina!

Looking over my stash of thread, I think I should be able to come up with some wonderfully twisted Beholders. What could possibly be wanting now?

Oh, yeah. A pattern for the knitted Ilsensine. Ghah, I really need radioactive green yarn now...

THE BRAIN SLUG?

Hooh, boy. The first run of this little monster did not turn out as intended. The Brain Slug, of Futurama fame was supposed to look like this little guy here on the left.


However what I ended up with, after knitting the thing on US #5 needles, more closely resembled a Vlassic Willy Warmer than anything from outer space.




I chose the smaller gauge due to my stash-busting choice of lurid green sportweight yarn. The stitches cannot look too open, otherwise the stuffing will be visible through them. On reflection I think the wiser choice would be to up the gauge, and use two strands of yarn. The sample looks like it was knitted in a worsted weight. I never thought I'd ever hear myself say this, but I wish I had some yarn in "radioactive green" right now. Not that the yarn color has anything to do with the shaping of the monster in question; I just think it would show up on video better.

Ah well, back to work...

Off Topic -Viva Piñata

In my daily life I'm not just an artist, I'm a computer nerd.

That's right, I said it.

As I scan the release date lists of upcoming computer games, I notice that on the Xbox Live site, Viva Piñata is cheerfully vague - Holiday 2006?? Does that mean before, or after Thanksgiving?

For me it isn't a question of will-there-be-a-copy panic. It's already been preordered. What I'm currently feeling is more akin to the impatience of a 5 year old waiting for their birthday or the holidays. Viva Piñata promises to waste more of my time and brainpower than even Sid Meier's Pirates did - and you know I disappeared for nearly three straight weeks to terrorize the Carribean when that came out.

It has been a while since a building sim game has captured my imagination like this, the release of Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile being the most memorable. If you like sims, or like anything to do with Ancient Egypt, you will want to play that game. The graphics are gorgeous, the gameplay is rich and interesting. The designers paid careful attention to the history of the culture, and that always wins big points with me. VP may not have all the complexity of CotN, but it has enough robust features that I think one could play it for a good while without being bored by it. I'm hoping, anyway. VP was one game I really wish I'd been on the beta test list for. Sigh.

Anyway, I'll let you folks get back to your regularly scheduled reality while I knit nervously, awaiting the latest delivery of junk food for my brain. After all, we must have monsters.

IN THE BEGINNING...

About oh... twenty years ago when I was still a rugrat in school, some classmates and I were enthralled with stop-motion animation. Gumby and Pokey, Davey & Goliath, that sort of thing. Ideas were exchanged, stories were scribbled in notebooks, but sadly it went no further. Being all of thirteen, none of us had access to the necessary technology to edit together a short film back then.

Cue the 21st century.

My current project idea burst upon me as a way to find a use for all the "useless monsters" I've been knitting out of end bits of stash yarn. It's logical, right? I mean, if you don't have little kids or pets who eat these things faster than a black hole gorges on a neutron star, or work for a cereal company where you could stuff them into boxes as the "prize inside", what else are you going to do with them?

Past monsters I've made were of my own design. Some of them look like they could work for film; others....not so much. I polled my friends at Knittinghelp.com to find the best monster patterns out there. In came a treasure trove of suggestions! Some were specific to genre (Lovecraftian), others looked like they could be more malleable and used in a variety of stories. So I'm going through the collection - holding auditions, screen tests, and whatnot, trying to find that elusive knitted beastie with enough star quality to play the hero(ine) in this first feature.

Stay tuned for future developments!