Knittin' Crap: Ravelwhatsit Games, Day 3

Cast-on

Day 1:

Day 2:

Day 3:

Well, folks, we're past the 72-hour mark of the Ravelwhatsit Games, and after knitting my hands sore all weekend, I have finished most of the front piece of my pullover in the Sweater Triathlon event. The left shoulder area is all that remains. Note that in addition to knitting, I was also double- and triple-checking my alterations required for sizing up, which meant lots of fiddling with the measuring tape, counting stitches and rows, doing simple algebra, counting stitches and rows again, and squinting at the chart. I think they've worked out, although I'll be nervous about it until the sweater is done and I've pieced it together.

Knittin' Crap: Let the Ravelwhatsit Games Begin!

After that dust-up with the U.S. Olympic Committee where they had to add insult to injury in their cease & desist letter by talking trash like how making an afghan (the insulation device, not the nationality) was not a shitload of work, the Ravelympics ended up getting renamed to "The Ravellenic Games." Meh. Later said U.S.O.C. pissed off Congress (the same body that gave them extraordinary latitude with the Olympics trademark) by dressing this year's U.S. athletes in (butt-ugly and seriously overpriced) opening ceremony uniforms made entirely outside of the U.S. So, basically, the U.S.O.C.... assholes and morons. (What, did they think maybe no one would notice? Dumbasses.) Meh. Anyway, the Games start tomorrow!

Cast-on time happens to be 1PM local for me, and since I'll be at work... yeah, I'll be casting on anyway! Ha! Dippy here is helpfully posing with my event materials for the pullover I have delusions of completing in 17 days. Go, Team Minecraft!

Knittin' Crap: Starfleet, Tour 2, Command Missions

Tier Mission Requirements	My report
α: Chain of command is important in normal situations, but even more so in states of emergency. Knowing who is in charge and where you fall on the totem pole is essential to the division of responsibilities and ensuring that tasks are accomplished. In situations such as this where we are without communication to Starfleet Command, the captain is the senior officer in command. Your mission: In reverence to this position, craft something inspired by a Starfleet captain.
β: With panic a possibility in an emergency, it is important for an officer in command to maintain a calm and collected demeanor to reassure the crew. By getting crew members to work together on specific projects and keeping them busy, you will give them purpose and therefore lessen the chances of a panic. Your Mission: Craft something that promotes interdepartmental cooperation by combining colors, symbols, or concepts of two different sections (ie, make something blue and red to show cooperation between science/medical and command).	The Starfleet division colors blend to work together in this diffraction grating, which can help shield us from any harmful solar radiation on this planet. (There’s blue, gold, green (blue + gold), and, uh, purple, which is red + blue.)
γ: Sometimes being in Command means helping out wherever is needed, doing jobs that nobody wants to, or tying up loose ends. It is important for a commanding officer to be willing and able to step up to the tasks at hand. Tie up loose ends and finish a WIP!	I first began work on this mission for the last Starfleet tour of duty, but it quickly became clear that the scope of the mission was larger than I had originally anticipated and my other duties did not permit me to finish. I managed to finish it for this tour, though. This device is a flying wing, shaped for tracking air currents and with micro-transmitters embedded to send the data back. The cat in the picture is helpfully holding the flying wing down, because it is prone to sailing away when not rolled for storage.

Wingspan pattern by maylin Tri'Coterie Designs
Japanese Feather and Fan Shawl pattern by IzzyKnits

Other: Happy Bastille Day!

We had to memorize the first verse of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, written during the French Revolution. (Yes, it even predates our own unsingable American national anthem.) Over two decades later, it's still burned into my brain. So, when I finally get to France, I can still ask where the toilet is (although whether I'll comprehend the answer is another issue) and I'll be able to impress the local populace by butchering their national anthem.

On that note, I give you Henri:



I've watched several subtitled French films, but the narration of this one makes me think of "Alphaville," an Orwellian film by Jean-Luc Godard about a city whose emotionless inhabitants are ruled by a computer named Alpha 60. At work we've embarked on Project Alpha, but to me, it will always be Project Alphaville.

People should not ask 'why', but only say 'because.'

-Alpha 60

Knittin' Crap: Starfleet, Tour 2, Science Missions

The June/July/August Starfleet Fiber Arts Corp tour has started out a little differently. Because we have all gotten Lost! In! Space! or something like that, instead of doing 6 missions for each of the 3 tour months, we were given all 18 missions at the start of June, to be completed over the full 3 month tour. (Same number of missions, yes, but different timelines.) There are 6 mission divisions, each of which has three tiers, α, β, and γ. (Forgotten your Greek letters? Suck it up.)

I will be summarizing my mission reports here as I finish each division. I've finished all 3 science division missions first, so here they are:

Tier Mission Requirements	My report
α: Your Mission: Organize part or all of your data on Ravelry. Examples of tasks you might undertake are updating your stash, organizing your queue, filling your library, tagging your queue, favorites and/or projects, or adding your needles to the chart. This organization should take you more than one hour to achieve, with a target of two - four hours. You should provide at least one before and after screenshot to demonstrate your achievements. If your Ravelry is the picture of pristine organization, organize your physical yarn stash. Check for moths, organize balls, assign yarn to projects, and get your stash looking wonderful. You should take a photograph of your wonderful stash to demonstrate your achievements. If you are a paragon of organization when it comes to your Ravelry pages and knitting stash, please submit an organization project of similar rigor to the mission commander for approval. Once approval has been attained, you may begin.	As I have multiple hobbies/craft interests and a lot of yarn-y project ideas which don't fit in the Ravelry queuing system, I have been keeping a pencil-and-paper list. This morning I transferred the list to a Google docs spreadsheet, which will make it easier to maintain, and easier to figure out which projects are waiting for yarn when I happen to be in a yarn shop with my Android phone tricorder. As part of this project, I added relevant patterns to my Ravelry queue, which went from 42 to 54 entries, and highlighted projects which need yarn I don't already have in my stash. ETA: Just spent a couple hours adding photos to WIPs that didn't have pics and updating a few. All except 5 WIPs now have pics (I have a *lot* of WIPs) and I quit when I did because the male feline "model" had become a real primo don and I couldn't get rid of him. (He weighs 18 pounds; you try moving him.) Also, "before" picture of my project to-do list: ETA2: Fat cat finally moved and I managed to finish taking WIP pictures without his big, white, color-imbalancing butt invading the frames. Mission complete.
β: Getting back through the force field is our main concern at the moment. The first thing we’ll need to do is gather as much information as possible. Observe and collect data by looking up into the sky, using the few sensors in the shuttles that still work, that organization system you set up previously. Your Mission: Craft something inspired by the beauty of space. (There are some beautiful images to be found here: http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/)	Granted, this isn’t a view from our current position in deep space, but I have crafted what the Earth looks like from the Lunar Colony (assuming there were ever days with no cloud cover anywhere) for those of us homesick for the view: And here is my Felis catus, taking over the world. Or at least the picture of it.
γ: (WORKING WITH ENGINEERING γ) Using the information you’ve gathered about that force field, propose a hypothesis on how we can either shut down the force field, or break our way through it. Set up all the plans and blueprints for making it happen. Missions Options (the other half can be found over in Engineering) Option A: Write your own pattern. Maybe there’s something you’ve made in the past, but have never actually written it down. Do that now! (You do NOT have to actually work up the project.)	As shown in my Engineering Alpha mission report, I’ve created a genetically engineered creature to help explore the bodies of water we encounter. I have written up the design so members of other stranded crews can benefit from this technology. The pattern is here or you can go through the Ravelry pattern page for Lemon Shark.

Planeetta Maa pattern by Soile Peltokangas