Nerd Wars T9 R3 Recap

I had a very successful third round for Nerd Wars. I completed projects for every category which in Nerd Wars parlance means that I dwarfed the nebula. This is the first time in the three tournaments of Nerd Wars that I participated in that I managed to answer all of the challenges. One of the captains of Team Most Amused likes to recognize team members when they dwarf the nebula by making a humorous, quasi badge for them. Here is mine:

During this round, the team was a little less social but I think it is just the nature of the timing. December is a pretty busy month for most people with lots of family obligations and travel so there is just less time for knitting and internet shenanigans. We still ended up with 100% participation although we were one person short of having 100% participation for team unity this month. Our team unity for this round was to tie your project to Monty Python and, to extend the unity, our badges were all Monty Python related.

 

Giving Geeks:
This round of Giving Geeks was an end of the year special and you could answer the any of the challenges that had been done throughout the year. I went with the "donation inspired by weather" challenge and made a donation to the American Red Cross. I opted for this donation as the midwest had just been hit by several devastating tornadoes & the Philippines had just been hit by Typhoon Haiyan. My Britcom tie-in was the episode of The Vicar of Dibley when the vicar installs a plain window instead of a stained glass window in the church and donates the money she raised for a new stained glass window to earthquake relief.

Encyclopedia & Team Unity Project
The challenge for this round was to craft something inspired by some aspect of the European Medieval period. I took my inspiration from the Black Death, the largest pandemic in history, and crafted a black Thorpe hat. I crocheted the trim in red because I wanted to use the Black Knight from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail as my team tie-in and unity project. The Black Knight has a red symbol on his armor and he spouts quite a bit of blood over the course of his scene. I have a special fondness for that movie because I watched it several times with my Dad and brother when I was little. We still use it as a pop culture touch-point.

Discovery
For this round, we had to try something new. It was a pretty broad mandate and there is a lot that I haven't tried when it comes to knitting. I decided that I would try double knitting as my "something new." Although it was a little fiddly it is definitely a technique that I would use again. I went with a very basic potholder for my project so that I didn't have to worry too much about mistakes. I mean, an ugly potholder is still completely functional, right? I tied this project to the Britcom Mulberry as the titular character arrives in a long, brown coat.

 

Nerdology
The challenge was to craft something inspired by a pun. I found a hippopotamus pun about weight loss so I knit a hippo dishcloth. The pattern that I used suggested knitting with a size 6 needle instead of the size 8 that is often called for with dishcloths as the tighter gauge helps the pattern stand out. I tied the color of the dishcloth to an outfit that a character is wearing in the sketch show Little Britain.

Flexible Schedule
For the flexible schedule category you can submit two projects that you finished during the round, as long as you did at least two hours worth of crafting on the project during the round. If you completed an unfinished object, you need to provide a before and after picture to show how much work you completed. I finished a dishcloth that I had started for a previous tournament and I also knit a pair of slippers. I tied the color of the slippers to the opening credit colors of the Britcom Good Neighbors.

Team Most Amused First Place T9 R1

You can't see me but I am doing a little happy dance at my computer. Team Most Amused was in first place at the end of Round One of this, the Ninth Tournament of Nerd Wars. I'm sure that we won't end up in first place at the end of the tournament because other teams seem to focus on getting dissertation points which don't factor in until rounds two and three. That being said, I am pretty proud of my team. Moving on the my summary of round two...

First up, another picture collage of all the badges I earned from Team Most Amused.

Giving Geeks
Our prompt for this round was to "show the smallest among us that you care." To fulfill the challenge, I made a monetary donation to Crisis Nursery, a wonderful organization that provides respite care for children birth to age 6 when the family is in the midst of a crisis. In addition to respite care, the Crisis Nursery also provides parenting classes, support groups, postpartum depression services, play groups, and referrals to other community service providers to help the family to get through whatever crisis they are facing. Did I mention that the Crisis Nursery is staffed 24hours a day, all year long? They are never closed because they are aware that a crisis can happen at any time. If you have some spare money and are looking for a great place to donate it, I would recommend Crisis Nursery. Don't live if the area? See if your community has a similar organization and support it.

Discovery
For this round we had to craft a project in the colors of carotenoids and anthocyanins, the chemicals that are revealed during fall when the leaves change colors. I knit a brown Haka (a hat by Lee Meredith) and tied it to the brown outfit that Mrs. Doyle wears on the show Father Ted. The hat is a super quick knit and I will probably make more in the future for charity knitting. This hat is headed to the charity Wool-Aid as it is made of a bulky wool yarn and it has ear flaps for extra warmth.

Nerdology & Team Unity
The prompt for this round was to raise your nerd flag high and craft something inspired by another teams nerdery.  I knit a Nibbler dishcloth inspired by the cartoon Futurama. I am really sad that it is being cancelled. This project was also my team unity project. Our team unity for this round was a cross team unity so we had to craft something that was inspired by Team Space Alliance and they crafted something inspired by Team Most Amused. Futurama is one of the shows covered in their scope. I didn't know it at the time but Futurama is also covered by Team Shady cells so I got to be an honorary member of their team for this round. What does that mean? Another badge for my collection.

I hope that you are having fun with your knitting!

What's the haps?

It has been a busy couple of weeks and things won't be slowing down anytime soon. I usually try not to schedule stuff two weekends in a row because I like to reserve every other weekend to catch up on podcasts, reading, television shows & knitting. However I managed to book my weekends solid from June 2nd to July 8th.

The weekend of June 2nd was the wedding in Nashville and the next weekend was Relay for Life. It was the first time that I participated in Relay for Life and despite some flaws, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I was on the Connie's Crusaders team that was formed in support of a friend who is currently undergoing treatment. Our team raised just under $1,800.00 for the American Cancer Society which I think was pretty respectable since it was our first time participating. There were a lot of people on the team but thanks to my finely honed night shift skills, I was the only member of the team who stayed all night. Thankfully some of my friends stayed late, until about 1:30am and 3:00am, which really helped me stick it out. A special shout-out to K & T who found the indoor restrooms so I didn't have to use a port-a-potty! You know what the other secret to staying out all night & walking laps is?

Junk food! Don't judge. Junk food makes 4:00am feel a lot better. And yes, the junk food is hanging out on my yoga mat. I did do a little bit of yoga in the wee hours of the morning and when I wasn't yoga-ing, the mat was nice and comfy to sit on. I did take photos of people but again, I didn't think to ask if they minded being on the blog so no awesome, sweaty, hopeful Relay for Life people pictures. I think that my favorite non-people photo of the night was the picture I snapped of sunrise.

The crowds had dispersed quite a bit by sunrise but the people that were left really seemed to get a second wind once the sun started to rise. My only complaints about the event dealt with some organizational glitches that will hopefully be fixed next year. The relay had twice as many teams this year than they had last year so I am just chalking it up to growing pains. So, if you are on the fence about attending an event life this, then I would say give it a shot and if you can, stay all night!

This weekend, I hung out at my mom's & dad's house to celebrate Father's Day. My dad seemed to enjoy showing off his new lawn mower and he even offered to let me drive but I totally chickened out. It steers with levers instead of a steering wheel and goes pretty fast and I was afraid that I would run over some of the landscaping that he has been spending his weekends doing! The yards looks really fabulous with lots of flowers and a new water fountain. It was really great to spend time with them.

There hasn't been a lot of time for knitting and right now I am spending my free crafting time poking around Ravelry trying to find a pattern that sparks my knitting mojo. I just need to stop waffling and pick a pattern and start knitting! I did so a little stash enhancement but I will save that for my next blog entry. Until then, keep it nerdy!

Who doesn't love a care package?

I know that I loved getting care packages in college: it made me feel connected to home which sometimes felt very far away and I was only in the neighboring state, not half a world away. So today I spent a couple of hours helping put together care packages for a local organization, Toys-for-Troops to send a little love and support from home to those who are serving our country overseas.



A little bit of everything went into each care package: t-shirt, socks, playing cards, letters from little kids, DVDs, beef jerky, candy, toothpaste, soap, granola bars, snack mix, homemade cookies, hand sanitizer, bandages, and silly putty to name a few. We wrapped the big stuff and the smaller stuff went in as is. Here are some of the DVDs that I wrapped...there were at least 150 DVDs so I grabbed a quick photo of a few while I was wrapping.



Here is part of the line of boxes that we filled. They are the military flat rate boxes and they look small but you can jam a lot of stuff in them!



Honestly, the biggest challenge of the days was trying to avoid the news cameras that were there to collect footage. I turned down two requests to be interviewed on camera...um, no thanks! There is a reason why I am the person who takes the pictures...so I can avoid being in the pictures! I did agree to answer a couple of questions for the man from The News-Gazette as I have a soft spot for print journalism from my time working at The Daily News when I was in college. I was not the most coherent so thankfully I don't think I will end up in the article.

If you want to help this organization, it isn't too late. If you go the the website, you can still submit a donation to help cover postage.

'Tis the season

In my family, December has always been the time of year that we actively do something charitable. We give money to various causes throughout the year but in December we like to be a little more hands on with our giving: putting together food baskets, adopting a family for the holidays or buying gifts for kids who are wards of the state. This year my mom got two names off the DCFS tree at her workplace and tonight we went shopping and bought presents for a 17 year old (who wanted items for her baby) and a newborn. I think my mom always picks babies to buy for because she has no grandchildren and won't be getting any grandchildren anytime soon! In addition, I purchased some items for the Crisis Nursery which is a privately funded local organization that provides 24-7 emergency help and respite care for families.

As some of you may know, for several years I have been trying to convince my parents that I don't need presents during the holiday season. I have suggested they give the money to charity in my name or buy things for a charity instead of getting me something but every year I get shot down. They are my parents and they want to get me gifts. This usually leads to a feeling of guilt during the holidays. I am very fortunate and I don't really have any needs, just wants and I feel bad when I get more stuff every year. So this year I finally came up with a win-win solution and I talked with my mom and she agreed to go with it. My parents will be buying me yarn so they can give me something (which makes them happy) and I will use the yarn to knit for charity (which makes me happy). I think that most of the items that I make will go to Warm Woolies, an organization sends wool clothing to children in need all over the world.

I am interested in hearing what you do to support charities around the holidays. Do you do something new every year or do you have a charity or two that you always? I am sure there are lots of great organizations that I don't know about and lots of creative ways to help that I haven't thought of so please leave a comment and educate me!

Clutter

I stumbled onto this wonderful idea while I was looking at Cast-On [a knitting podcast and website]. The project, Seven Things, is all about getting rid of the stuff that is cluttering up your home and passing it on to people who can use it. I have great intentions when it comes to getting rid of stuff...I bag it up and put it on my to do list. Sometimes, the bags of stuff even make it to the car but once in the car it takes a while before the stuff actually makes it to Goodwill. I am better about getting old books donated to the Books To Prisoners project but I still have more that I could donate. I just have way too much stuff! Maybe periodically reading a blog by someone who also suffers from too much stuff will supply me with the urge to actually get the items I want to donate to the proper place!