The Other Half of the Sock-Along

Well, I finally finished the first of the Elementary Watson Socks.  They're only a season late, right? 

The pattern is actually quite awesome, and it is free, but the woman's size knits up big.  A lot of people in the Sock-Along found too big, sadly.  I have small feet, but I also knit these at tighter tension then the pattern calls for, and it worked out ok, even if they are a touch long in the foot. 

Anyway, I've started in on the toe of sock number two, and I must say, they seem to be knitting up faster this time.

I've had lots of knitting time, since I finally got Sim City 4 to work on Windows 7 (and that took a lot of fiddling, let me tell you!)  I've also been doing a lot of knitting to Babylon 5, since I've got a bunch of upcoming deadlines for things that need to be done.

However, I'm looking forward to this Friday. Assuming all works out with getting a reservation, I have a date night on Valentines Day!  (Ok, it's sappy, yes, but I'm still looking forward to it.  We're making it a treat and going to a seafood place, so it should be tasty!)

Birthday Socks and finishing by Sunday. . .

So, the Birthday Socks have to be done by Sunday.

I don't have any pictures of this frantic knitting, but it is frantic.  To keep my brain from exploding, I've started playing Knights of The Old Republic (and it was a trick to get it running on Windows 7, let me tell you!) Like most video games, I knit during cut-scenes and while waiting for Force Points to recharge.

That being said, though, KoTOR has an annoying tendency to crash-to-desktop. (It's supposedly due to the 'new' mult-core processors that are standard in most computers now).  While it does mean a bit more knitting time while it boots back up, it is rather annoying.

Anyway, this knitting and gaming has gotten me to the gusset decreases.  Considering that I only recently started the second sock, this is actually going surprisingly fast.

I'll have tomorrow and Saturday (including an RPG session) to finish the foot and toe.  And if I'm weaving in ends on the TTC Sunday morning, I can live with that!

Well, anyway, back to knitting and gaming. I get to go talk to the Jedi council now, and I want to see if I can finish the gusset decreases tonight.

Knitting Marathon and a Yarn Order

Hello again all!

So, life's gotten somewhat busier.

1) My role-playing group just started up a new game (we're running a game in the Star Trek setting, after the Dominion War.).  It's the Last Unicorn Games version, which, while a little clunky, is still fun.

2) The new job isn't too crazy, but it is requiring an adjustment given that I haven't been working for a bit.  I'm still having to get in the mindset of 'going to the office.'

3) Given the new job, however, I splurged and got a few more skeins of Lady Godiva from EatSleepKnit.  It's one of their "Power Boost" yarns right now (they change them up once every quarter), where you get additional 'yards' for their loyalty program.  This yarn's going to be a Maddy tank. (Ravelry Pattern link here.)

4) And with all this (or maybe in spite of it), I'm really on a knitting marathon. I -need- to finish the Birthday Socks. I've got two weeks to knit the foot of one sock and all of the second sock.   I can knit during the role-playing session, like always, but I'm actually quite concerned about if I can get these done. So today, I started up season 2 of Babylon 5, (sorry, U.S. link only, also see here) and I'm just going to knit like crazy.

Also, as a useful resource, I found this. It's a shoe size and foot length in inches conversion chart that gives a really good idea of how long you need to make a sock based on shoe size. I needed it for the Birthday Socks.

Ok, that's it for now, now to get back to the knitting.

Crochet, Christmas Presents, and Distractions.

Hello all!

So I'm still working on the Hooded Lace Scarf.  

No photos yet, right now it just looks like a long, annoying snake.  I know that's an odd description, but with a pattern that has a foundation chain of 448, it is -long-.

Long and annoying.  Each row takes me over an hour.  The pattern itself it not hard at all and easy to remember.  But the rows just take -forever!- It's great as a brainless project, because I can just kind of keep going until I hit the end, but it's unfortunately, not a very interesting project, even if it also crochets up relatively quickly.


This is not helped by the fact that a friend was kind enough to gift me a copy of Shadowrun Returns.

It's a lot of fun! It harkens back to some of the older CRPGs; and also manages to capture the feel of the Shadowrun universe quite nicely . . .

And with it as a distraction, I've done very little knitting over the last few days.  I've put in the odd stitch or two during loading scenes, but that's pretty much it.  Despite it using a turn-based combat system, I can't really knit while the enemy is throwing grenades or fireballs.  I need to be paying attention, I find.

So yeah. 

I'm trying to tell myself that come Monday, I'll buckle down and actually knit more.

Maybe.  I'll see.   No promises.

Knitting and Gaming

So, I had someone ask me at one point: "when do you get the most knitting done at home?"

I know I'm a major transit knitter, but where/when else do I knit?

I answered, much to their surprise, "while playing video games."

I think that needs a bit of an explanation.

First off, I should be specific.  I'm talking about computer games here, not console games.  That does make a difference for this purpose.  The reason it doesn't work as well with console games is simple -- the controller.  It's hard (at least for me) to switch between controller and knitting needles, it's far easier to switch between keyboard and mouse and knitting needles.

But, in answer to the question, yeah, I do a lot of knitting during video games. I knit during cutscenes, while waiting for mana/shields/energy to recharge, while traveling on the world map, while waiting for something to load. . .  the list is pretty endless. Right now I'm playing Arcanum, and while the game is fun, combat either runs super-fast real time, or super-slow turn-based.  I'm opting for super-slow turn based, and knitting (or right now, ball-winding) while all the other characters act.

So long as it's something I can put down, this works really well for me.

As an interesting point, I'm a television knitter, too, (it's exactly the same principle, at least to my head) but we don't watch a lot of televsion, and don't have cable.  So unless I'm purposely putting on a show or movie, we just don't have the TV on a lot.