Brains......

Ever felt the need to know what you would look like as a zombie? Well, I did.

I seem to be sporting a decidedly creepy grin. Must be all those tasty brain I'm eating... If you want to zombify yourself you can do so at ZombieMe.com by clicking here to go to their free generator. Then go watch Shaun of the Dead. A romantic comedy. With zombies.

FigurePrint Contest Results

I am sad to say that neither my friend Amy nor I was the winner of The Instance's FigurePrint contest back on the 9th of Oct. While this fact makes me sad since we both worked very hard on our respective entries, the person who won, Gonz, really deserved first prize.

I feel very good knowing that someone that has as much talent as he, was the winner. So, now that I've declared his artistic genius, here is a link to his entry. I'm only posting a link as I don't want to hijack his picture, since I don't know how he would feel on the subject.

If you want to listen to the podcast revealing the finalists (in the first 5-10 minutes) and Gonz as the winner (towards the end) you can find the links to the iTunes subscription, rss feed and mp3 download here.

If you want to see some of the best figureprints made for the contest you can view them on The Instance's site in four different blog entries: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4-Finalists and Winner.

6 Hour Greenaway Mitts for the Faire

This is a neat air of mitts I started last night when I realized that being at King Richard's Faire today was going to mean being in garb in 46 degree weather. They came out really well and only took 6 hours to make the pair. So, I started last night around 8 and then finished them up on the car ride to Carver this morning. you can find the free pattern on Ravelry under Greenaway Gloves or you can go to the pattern maker's blog.


The second image is me wearing them under a really cool set of bracers my friend Amy made for me for my costume. Thanks Amy! We had a great day at the faire despite the cold, however, further faire discussion and pics will be in a post coming soon to a blog near you!

Super Secret Project Revealed: Knitted World of Warcraft Figureprint

Everyone, meet Thayolin, my level 80 Horde Paladin on the Durotan server of World of Warcraft. Why, you ask, did I knit a rendition of her? Well there's a bit of a story there.


The backstory:

My husband and I have been playing World of Warcraft together for about 3-4 years now. Recently I got an iPhone and started listening to podcasts on my way to and from work to entertain myself. My favorite is The Instance, a podcast by Scott (@ExtraLife) and Randy (@RandyDeluxe), that gives WoW players the news, rumors, and general discussion of all things World of Warcraft on a weekly basis with heavily douse of hilarity. In their most recent episode (#164) they announced a contest they are running to give away a free FigurePrint of a character from Figureprints.com Now, the concept getting a free FigurePrint is damn near irresistible to me.

Brian and I each have on of these and they are very cool. They are a 3-D rendering of your character wearing their armor and weapons and run you about $150 a piece. Brian got me one of Thayolin for Valentines Day this past year. I was so excited!

But I digress. To enter the contest I had one week to make my own figureprint out of anything I chose: whatever I wanted! Hmmm, what do I do for fun all the time? KNIT! And what do I have a metric ton of just sitting around our apartment? YARN! So, given this wonderful idea, I decided to give knitting up a Thayolin doll a go. I mean why not? how hard could it be?

The process:

Ok, it was pretty darn hard!!!! The podcast came out on Oct. 1 and the due date for submitting a photo of your figureprint was Oct. 7. That is not much time. Especially since I'm not a fast knitter, I have never made anything like this before AND I'm making up the pattern as I go along. So, 20+ hours later Thayolin's knitted persona was born. Below are some pictures of the process of making her. I have some notes on the pattern, but I generally just improvised it, so if you are interested in making one for yourself, I could give some tips, but that's about it.

Ahhh, the early stages... It's always fun to see a disembodied knitted head sitting on your desk.



Working down to the hip area. I even tried to make a basic skeletal system so I could bend her at the waist and legs. She bends a little but not too much, so I obviously have to work on this more next time.


For awhile she just looked like a voodoo doll because of all the needles sticking out everywhere. A certain member of my family who shall remain nameless was a bit concerned of what others might think if they saw me working on her at this point. Hehe...


A little bit of intarsia for the Wyrmrest Accord tabard. Not too bad for exactly zero planning beforehand.


Getting close, just the gauntlets, shoulders and helm (shudder) to go!


Here's a closeup of her helm. That is the piece that took the longest to make because I had to embroider the detail on it in order to make look even remotely ok. I probably put 3-4 good hours into this alone. But I am very proud of it. It even kind of looks like the original :P


So, wish me luck on the contest. My friend Amy also made a figureprint and hers is awesome. You can see it on her blog here. I know I have some good competition. Hopefully we will find out soon. My fingers are crossed and I'll post the results once I find out.

10 Reasons why having your car towed when in the North End could be much, MUCH worse

1) It could be much colder than 50 degrees when I don't have a coat.

2) It could have been 11:30pm when I discovered the missing car instead of 7:30pm.

3) I could have had no one to come rescue me and had to have taken a taxi to go to the bank, get cash out and then take another taxi to pick up the car, which would have had a lovely price tag.

4) Despite the car setback, I have managed to eat really good salami, bread, and champagne this evening.

5) I have an iPod, Twitter and a blog to keep me amused.

6) My car COULD have been stolen.

7) I could be stuck in some nasty backalley rather than this nicely lit section of the north end

8) I can go home and take a nice hot shower (now that our tub has been fixed). If this happened yesterday before the tub was fixed, I would have cried much more, believe me.

9) I might not be dining on my favorite candy right now (gummi frogs).

10) And finally, I'm going to get a big warm hug when I get home.