Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

I do a little knitting from time to time, but I’m not very good. Mostly scarves and/or abandoned projects. (We shall not mention the cowl I made with my own non-pattern for a friend’s baby a few years ago.) I can knit and purl and even There’s just something about interpreting a pattern with 3-letter abbreviations (dpn, ssl, omg, wtf) that makes my eyes spin. I can’t even understand the concept of a “yarnover.” A yarn over what?!? That’s an incomplete sentence, not a noun!

Anyway. I have these fantasies of knitting some fabulous items for fashion, warmth, and expression of geekiness. Of course they only take an hour or so in my fantasies and turn out perfectly and I’m even sipping on margaritas while happily clicking my needles together and there’s nary a knot or dropped stitch.

Also, Matt Damon is doing shirtless sit-ups in my living room while Mike Rowe shovels something and sings to me.

….Um. What were we talking about? OH YEAH. Knitting.

At this point, I’m a little bit of an obsessive pattern saver. I know what I want to knit—I just need to develop the skills and patience and dedicate time to it and stuff. Once I do, though, here’s what I want to tackle first: knitting Star Wars inspired hats! These are my 3 favorite fangirl patterns:

R2D2 knit beanie by CarissaKnits. A very awesome (free!) pattern that is somehow made by the telescoping lens thingy on the front.

A Leia knit wig by ansleybleu. This one’s not free—the downloadable pattern PDF costs $7.95 from her Etsy store. It was apparently originally a commission specifically for Carrie Fisher (through one of her friends). It’s basically honeybun earmuffs with a beanie instead of one of those annoying headbands. Oh, and Princess Leia Buns of Hotness!

Finally, the Yoda knit hat, felted for extra coolness, by Sunshyne. The free pattern is for a baby-size head. But by the time I develop mad knitting skillz with the first two projects, I bet I will have the skillz to resize this pattern for an adult noggin. Now that I think about it, though… it would be very cool to wear the knit Leia buns and carry around a baby* in a knit Yoda hat. That sort of cosplay requires a little more, though… maybe a third character… anyone know of a free Han-Solo-in-Carbonite knitting pattern?

*So I guess in addition to mad knitting skillz, I would also need a baby. Or, if you’re following the Star Wars mythology that is expanded in books and such, I would need two babies since [SPOILER] Han and Leia have twins (a boy and a girl, natch). There can’t be two Yodas, though. I cannot think of a good solution to this problem. Oh. Em. Gee. I just did! One of the babies would wear the R2D2 beanie!!! Now that’s a full circle Star Wars geek craft geek-out. If I had a lightsaber, it would be extended.

Though I never played it much myself, the 1990s computer game Worms always reminds me of college. A few of my guy friends were really into it. I didn’t own a copy—not that it mattered, since my hand-me-down PC probably wouldn’t have supported it. And it’s not like my guy friends were willing to share their explosion-filled game with a girl…

(Around this time I happened to be experiencing Crystal Quest withdrawals since I grew up in a Mac family. Worms would have been fun for me.)

But check out these awesome little polymer clay Worms and accessories by PlanetJune! Soooo cute! I need to get a copy of the game and see how I like Worms in 2010.

PlanetJune is a very crafty geek chick who also recently created and blogged about a highly detailed polymer clay R2D2. It even has a rotating head. Beautifully crafted genius!

I want to be her friend. Who wouldn’t?

I need to share some other braintastic stuff I’ve come across recently. First, there’s the Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art in Oregon. Its images stimulate my crafty nerd synapses and make me squee! My favorite is the Knitted Brain, which took one year for Dr. Karen Norberg to knit. There’s an article about her project here. It reminds me of the knitted digestive tract I came across last year but looks a lot more labor-intensive.

And then there’s the recipe for chocolate ganache-filed brain cupcakes by notsohumblepie in Seattle. “Because it is a well known fact that human brains are filled with chocolate ganache,” she says. Tee hee! They look delicious, and could be easily translated to a zombie-themed fest if the decorative icing were placed on a red velvet cupcake.

If you are in any way geeky, nerdy, or offbeat, you really need to check out her recipes… especially the ones labeled science and weird. They’re all complete with mouthwatering photos. Well, all of the photos are mouthwatering except the petri dish cookies. Having been a biology major at one point in my life, and having a vivid smell memory of petri dishes in the lab, the execution of her design with all their isolated colonies kinda makes me want to hurl. But you go ahead and enjoy!

I scored this embroidered zombie lady, complete with the mirrored “vintage modern” frame, at a white elephant party a couple weeks ago. My friend Marie made it, and I luuurve it! It’s on appropriately honorable display—chilling on the living room mantel. Here is a closeup of the stitching.

This photo was taken on my ironing board today in the indirect afternoon light of my living room. I like the way it turned out with the stripey ironing board pattern. Happily, a shiny new high-capacity memory card arrived in the mail this afternoon… so I set up a white sheet of paper on the ironing board to document its arrival. It’s a Class 10! I sort of know what that means!

It also has 16GB capacity so I’ll never need to empty it. Now I can return the 2GB memory card to my point-and-shoot camera where it belongs. I’d like to make a cheap lightbox (like this one, perhaps) for future object shoots.

Periodic Table Quilt

Originally uploaded by fadinghippie

A quilt in the shape of the periodic table! In delightful patchwork! With rainbow colors designating element categories! Flickr user “fadinghippie” is a genius!

I twittered today that I wanted to embroider and frame a periodic table, and my friend John sent me the link to this rainbow piece of nerdy/crafty/geeky delight.

What a lucky person the recipient is. My sister is getting closer to finishing her PhD in neuroscience, and I was just going to get her a subscription to “Over-Educated and Under-Employed” magazine.

Now I’ll feel lame if I don’t do something crafty for her, like paper mache a brain and turn it into a lampshade.

Any other suggestions for an appropriate nerd craft item that I could make and bestow upon her when her Day of Nerdoscience arrives?

As if I needed ANOTHER reason to learn how to crochet, I came across this creative DIY project: the Pie-ret, presumably pronounced “pie-ray.” It’s 44 flavors of fiber genius!

Product image yoinked from Monster Crochet

As soon as I learn how to crochet, I’m going to buy this little pattern ($10 to have the Monster Crochet creator email me a PDF) and make wearable pie berets for every day of the week. And then maybe grab some recipes from pieofthemonthclub.org and bake a pie every day of the week! I’ve been pie-ning for a purpose in life like this…. (Um, I just made myself groan from my own pun. That can’t be good. And yet, I’m still not going to edit it out. You’re welcome!)

Speaking of pie, don’t forget that Pi Day is coming up on March 14. I’m going to start planning a party on Friday, which is approximately 3.14 weeks before Pi Day. Hmm… I hope I have enough time to learn how to crochet so that I can greet people at the door with a beret that looks like this:

Photo yoinked from Monster Crochet

On a scale of 1-10, I find this really wacky/zany/awesome/weird: A hand-knitted model of the human digestive system (aka gastrointestinal tract for you sciencey people) from strangebuttrewe.com. Visit the site for more close-up photos that will blow your mind.

I have been meaning to post this for a long time, and now the time has come:

It’s 3-D Mario World Paper Crafting like you’ve never seen before!!! Thanks to WithaK for originally sharing the nerd-craft blog post with me.

Naturally, since I love Mario and work in the scrapbook and paper craft industry, I found this particularly amusing and awesome.

Many people (yes, 99% women) who scrapbook and do crafty things are hot for all things Disney. If I were in control of licensing for my company (or other scrapbook industry companies), I would defintiely skip Disney in favor of stalking the good people at Nintendo for their approval to use characters from the Mario World in many varied crafting products.

Though if I were a SAHM (stay-at-home mom, acronym courtesy of all those scrapbooking forums I occasionally read for work) I would probably spend my free time actually playing Mario on the Wii than filling my scrapbook with his likeness. And maybe taking care of my child.

But if/when the time comes to have a baby, I have a bitchin’ idea for a maternity t-shirt. Oh yes, you will just have to wait and see. Until then, I will leave you with a wonderful example of other other Mario merchandise that is currently available on ThinkGeek.com
: a USB Mouse in your choice of Mario or Star!