So to those who don’t know me personally, I’m a little bit odd. I also highly enjoy the odd and the peculiar; I am tickled by fandom, metafiction, and absurdity (this is probably one reason why I like A Very Potter Musical—it doesn’t strike me so much as a parody of Harry Potter as it does a loving mockery of Harry Potter fanfiction). Because of these interests, I tend to attract a certain caliber of friends—intelligent individuals that enjoy the geekier side of things. Part of my weekly schedule, after all, is movie night—not watching great works of cinema like Citizen Kane or The Godfather (unless it’s Valentine’s Day) or even A Charlie Brown Christmas (not enough explosions—my favourite Christmas movie is Die Hard). No, I watch BBC’s Merlin with medievalists (and friends). Or, if it’s out of season, Doctor Who.

Which brings us to today’s point.

I recently moved in to a new flat with flatmates of similar personality to those described above (ok, so one introduced me to Merlin, and started the movie-nights—credit where it’s due!). And when I live in a flat with people I like, I tend to get a bit crazy about themes and concepts that can be associated with said flat, though in a horribly geeky manner. Thus in undergrad our “quad” of four became Hobbiton; Frodo and Sam in one room, Merry and Pippin in the other. I’ve matured a little since then (just a little), and no longer need wide, overarching themes. However, there are certain things that geeky flats need.

DALEKS.

Okay, maybe that’s just what I think. But I suggested to my (then-future-)flatmate that maybe, just maybe, what our flat needed was a dalek. Which brings us to the “absurdity” mentioned above, because once seizing on an idea I can’t leave well enough alone. Thus my thought process proceeded something like this:

I know a knitting pattern for a dalek! Squishy knitted dalek! Yay!

Oooh, do you know what would be even more awesome? A TWEED dalek. He’d match Eleven!

NO NO NO. THE ONLY THING THAT CAN MAKE THIS MORE AWESOME? PURPLE.

Yes, folks, from the person who brought you the first-ever axe cozy (which I should really post on one of these days), I bring you: the purple tweed dalek.

And if you must know, I finished him while watching the whole of the Ninth Doctor’s series. In one day. I didn’t mean to, necessarily, but I needed a diagram on where to sew his blast-gun, etc., on to, and there was a picture in the booklet in the DVD boxset, and while it was out I might as well just watch a few episodes…

The end of the pattern encourages you to “go forth and exterminate the world with cuddly evil”. Now, I’m not so sure about the exterminating — I’d like to keep my visa, kthx — but cuddly? Boy, were they right.

Tags: art,Doctor Who,fandom,geek,knit,ramble,toy
Categories: uncategorized
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I currently have issues stringing a spoken sentence together, due to exhaustion. I spent this past weekend at a conference (if you know anything about medieval academia, you’ll figure out which one without me having to say), and I am SHATTERED.

Things I learned:

• Textile-loving people are awesome, regardless of where you are.
• An etsy-seller makes hair-swords. For buns. DUDE.
• I really need to get over  “OMG I TOTALLY CITED YOU IN MY DISSERTATION/THESES!!!” and remember that my heroes are, in fact, cool people with a shared interest.
• I can be a foreigner in my own country.
• People who study monsters are really sweet.
• Academic papers can sound like spoken word performances, if it’s the right paper and the right person.
• Someone will be obnoxious if your paper is rather spoken-wordy. NB: This did not happen to me personally, nor was I this person.
• You can live off of bad coffee and even worse wine.
• Dessert is a necessity.
• DO NOT TELL MEDIEVALISTS IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY. THEY WILL MAKE THE CAFETERIA SING.
• “Once Kalamazoo, always Kalamazoo.”

I will return when I have regained enough energy to both A) begin my fabulous research treks, and B) make something arty.

Oh, and by the way, SURPRISE I REDID THE LAYOUT. Relaunched the main site on 13 May, too. YAY.

Tags: academic,authors,conference,fandom,maintenance,medieval
Categories: Academia, maintenance
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The greatest killer to my pocketbook over August was the Book Festival. I love the Book Festival: two big tents of books (children’s and everyone else’s), writing workshops, and OMG IS THAT NEIL GAIMAN?!

Yes, yes it was.

Last year I met Terry Pratchett. This year there’s a list, and in order of appearance it was Ian Rankin and Neil Gaiman (TOGETHER!), Alexander McCall Smith, and Mark Millar. They were all incredibly sweet people. But let’s handle that individually!

Ian Rankin and Neil Gaiman spoke together, and were ridiculous amounts of fun. They enjoyed the BSL signer a little too much, and because of that I now know how to sign “balls” in BSL. But there’s a far better recap of their speech here that you should read if you want to know exactly what went on. I’ll fast-forward to the signing, shall I?

I was really quite nervous to meet Ian Rankin, especially as I’m miserable with small talk. I shouldn’t have worried—we had a very nice chat about the uni (and how, when he was there, one of my supervisors was a “hot up-and-coming lecturer”!), and when I told him I also want to write fiction, he was very encouraging. If I ever find him in one of the local pubs, I think I must buy him a pint.

I at least had some small-talk chatter to fall back on with Neil Gaiman, as I follow his Twitter. However, I had a minor freak-out when he took a look at my name (written on a sticky note to make signing books faster) and pronounced it CORRECTLY. This is a rather huge deal for me, as on a mission trip once I was called “Elsie” and “Elsa”, and once spent a semester of Spanish being called “Ellis”—and that was after my friend tried to correct the professor! Neil Gaiman was, of course, already known to be on the ‘awesome’ list, but when I told him this story his scoffing at such moronitude only raised him further.

I initially planned to see Alexander McCall Smith because my mum loves him, and I was interested in hearing him speak, as he’s local too. However, Mr. Smith wins the “most awesome author” award for this year. If you peak at the picture above, you’ll see that the name in the books is not mine. When I went to his signing, I informed him how it kills my mother that I get to go to the Book Festival (and see him) and she can’t. He paused, then told me to ring her on my mobile, and he’d say hello. Made my mother’s day—and mine, too!

Mark Millar is cool. I mean this with all the gravitas a slang word can hold. I know many people I would call “a cool guy” or “pretty cool”, but Mark Millar is cool. If Terry Pratchett’s Monks of Cool weren’t rather dated, I would suspect that Mark Millar inspired them. How cool is Mark Millar? He invited everyone at the talk and signing to the pub afterwards (alas, I couldn’t go).  He had a proper chat with every single person at the signing. He didn’t swear because there were kids in the audience, but he made sure to see how the signer signed “eviscerate”. While we’re at it, here’s a pic of the wonderful signer, whose presence was most excellent:

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes – Mark Millar is so cool that he knows Damon Lindelof. He wore a suit, and drank wine through the whole thing. That’s how cool Mark Millar is. And like Ian Rankin, he encouraged me to give up my day job and just get into the entertainment biz.

Of course, if I gave up my day job, I wouldn’t be able to have a nifty title for my blog, and then where would we be?

Tags: authors,books,comics,fandom,festival
Categories: Arts, comics, creative writing
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So, on promised pictures, we have my cousin Leah’s stackable cats!

The StackCats were made of handspun (or handdyed… I don’t exactly remember which) Scottish wool. Mmmm. Sooo much fun to knit with! The cats were made from a pattern by MochiMochiLand and have been sworn into the service of attacking people who enter my cousin’s dorm room. Yay!

Other knitted deliciousness: a Golden Snitch!

Pattern here at Inner Child Crochet

And, finally, my mother asked me to knit her a nativity set. Unfortunately, I only finished Mary and Baby Jesus before Christmas:

However, since my mother got to pick the yarn, I’ve worked with WONDERFUL yarns, especially this absolutely delicious soy-wool blend. I’m currently working on Joseph, or rather, his robe–his body is finished. I’ve decided I really can’t STAND cotton yarn; I’ve gotten such huge blisters/calluses from knitting with it. Ugh.

But anyway.

SEE YOU IN THE NEW YEAR!

Tags: fandom,nativity,stackable cats
Categories: crochet, knit, projects
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Every now and then, I get the semi-perverse desire to express my fandoms via worn objects. As I do not yet have the guts to cosplay (or the people to cosplay with), this has in the past been limited to collecting appropriate LJ icons, those wonderful 1000-pixel pieces of art.

No more!

I have decided it is time to begin (or at least plan) my Fandom Knits. These will, of course, be secondary to Christmas presents and whatnot, but I figure it can’t hurt to start thinking.

The one requirement? Every object I knit/crochet must have the potential to be worn with the rest. This means head-to-toe fandomwear. My one exception: I will not force myself into making all the colours match. Therefore, I probably will not wear them all together. But it must be possible.

From head to toe:

For Firefly, everyone and their brother makes Jayne hats. But Jayne hats, as much as I would like one, are not conducive to really wearing, unless I decide to cosplay someday as Jayne (that would be interesting). However, jeshknits has two lovely Firefly-inspired tam patterns named “Simon” and “River”. The pun makes these a must. I’ve yet to decide between Simon and River, but they’re my two current options.

For LOST, the ravelry group has selected several patterns for knitalongs until the new season. I am quite taken with both Scaruffle and Ice Queen, but Ice Queen seems to be the winner for several reasons: it’s free (yay Knitty!), I have some frosted blue beads that would work with it divinely, and as a cowl/wimple-type it’s slightly medieval, which I can’t resist. I would still like to make Scaruffle someday, though, and I think it would look lovely on my mum.

For Pirates of the Carribean, I have yet to find something, though I know what I would like: something like this ruffled corset belt, which I intend to crochet in its own right for bellydancing. But I’d rather like to do something slightly more edgy, less structured and symmetrical, and red, inspired by Jack’s headscarf. Which means doohickies hanging off of it!

For Batman, which is not so much a fandom of mine excepting that I love the newer movies (and the new logo, such lovely parallel lines!), I think I would like to make a pair of convertible gloves, where there is a mitten-flap that covers the tipless fingers. I’d stick in that lovely logo, possibly on the palm. I’d want to go for subtlety, so even if it were on the back of the hand I might simply do it in two different fibers of the same colour…

For Discworld, I want to do socks. What sort of socks, I do not know. Perhaps I should experiment with cables (after I learn how to make them), a la the Bloody Stupid Johnson hat.

And let’s not forget accessories:

For Lord of the Rings, I’d like to make some jewelry. Perhaps now would be time to figure out a way to combine wire-crocheting with maille.

For Avatar: The Last Airbender, I’m considering adapting the Four Elements throw into a handbag. Still with the lovely pattern layout, but with far less time. Or, I could make a handbag with the Earth Kingdom symbol (note: awful representation of the design, but it’s the best I could find in a ten-minute search. For serious).

That’s it (for now) for my Fandom Knit plans. If I think of something appropriate that would fit into the wearable plan from another of my fandoms, I might add to it, but this is the current plans.

Stackable Cats update soonish.

Tags: fandom
Categories: projects
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