Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

While we’re on the topic of geeky needlecraft, I challenge you to find something of greater awesomeness than this: tech specs for a standard LEGO figure, hand-embroidered onto fabric.

The only thing that could make it better is if it were stitched from hobbit hairs that had been gently caressed by Wil Wheaton.

I award 1 point for LEGO, 1 point for clever tech specs, and 1 point for geek craft. 3 points of awesomeness for Cross-stitch ninja, who gets a bonus kajillion points because of the other cool stuff that she has on her Flickr photostream. True, it’s not all cross-stitch. But the fact that she stitched the entire second world map from Super Mario Bros 3 (finished size is 59 x 18 cm, which I think is about the size of a football field! Okay, not really, but it’s still HUGE for a cross-stitch) gives her kudos of the highest regard in my book.

Cross-stitch ninja, if you’re out there, will you be my friend? Because I kind of have a giant crafter crush on you. I’ll do my best to not make it awkward.

Karen “PhileoSophia” sent me an email a while back* with a bunch of knitting-related suggestions for the Geek Test. What do you think about her proposal that there is a relationship between knitting and geekiness? Is knitting a hobby that attracts geeks, or vice versa? Perhaps you would be so kind as to draw a Ven diagram and/or a graph a scatter plot and include it in your comment below.

In any case, here is the email I received. At the very least you should check out the links at the bottom! I’ve linked to a couple before on my blog, but they’re all great enough to link again. And all are added to my “someday I’ll have skillz to knit that” pile. Especially the knitted dissected frog and rat, which I could imagine displaying in a shadow box on my living room wall.

Greetings Yvette,

I love your site!  I am a proud, female Major Geek as well as an avid knitter/crocheter.  I have noticed that there is an odd relationship between knitting and geekiness.  For the past few months, I have been trying to find the geekiest knitted items on the web.  I have found Futurama’s Bender toilet paper holder, binary scarves, probability sweaters, d4 shaped dicebags, R2-D2 hats, the Digestive system, a truly amazing knitted Brain, other *ahem* body parts and systems, and, (my personal favourites) knitted dissections of a frog and a rat.  Perhaps you should look into the geekiness of knitting and consider adding that to the test.  A couple of examples would be:  “Have you ever… Used dice to determine the cable pattern for a sweater you’re knitting?  Transferred a program in binary to binary knitting (where Knit=0 and Purl=1)?  Knit any body system?  (Bonus points for the Circulatory system)  Created amigurumi of any Star Wars character?  Star Trek character? etc, etc.”

Yes, I am trying to inflate my score…    For your amusement, I have included some fun links of geeky knits for you to peruse! Enjoy!

PhileoSophia
(A Knitting Geek)

Binary Scarf
Code Red Virus Scarf
Chaos Sweater
Star Wars Amigurumi
Knitted Dissections
Knitted Brain
Knitted Digestive System

*I’m behind in answering emails, in case you sent one and have not yet received a reply. I read them all and try to answer them all!

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.

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?