Nerd Wars

I am participating in a competition on Ravelry called Nerd Wars.  You join a nerdy team (I went with Team Unseen University) and you complete projects each month for three months with a theme.  There are 6 catagories that stay the same each month and each catagory gets a challenge.  We get bonus points for connecting the projects back to our team in some way.  I actually managed to get all 6 projects done in June. 

Team Spirit Challenge: There is no Eye in Team- demonstrate what you love about your geekery. 

Challenge explanation: I very much consider the fiber arts to be part of my geekery. And my fiber arts have become very linked to learning belly dance. My belly dance instructor is a founding member of our knitting group. I dragged along now two members from my knitting group to the belly dance class. And a girl I met in belly dance has started coming to the knitting group and we are teaching her how to knit. to make it even geekier. She said she was excited to hang out with girls. She only ever hung out with guys and played and talked about video games. I told her that now she could hang out with girls, learn to knit, and still talk about video games and other nerdy topics.

Team Spirit Explanation: This project was inspired by the country of Klatch on the continent of Klatch. The descriptions of Klatch always have a very Middle Eastern feel and description. The landscape is mostly desert. The primary modes of transportation include camels and magic carpets. The capital city of Klatch is Al Khali, which is known for its harem frescos. A common misconception about belly dance is that it originated in the harems, places full of sin and debauchery for the men, as a form of seduction the women used. In actuality, the harems were merely the womens’ quarters and very few if any men were allowed. A lot of what we know as belly dance did start in the harems, but as a form of entertainment. The women would dance for each other as a way to pass the time. So I imagine those harem frescos in Al Khali involved a lot of dancing

Technical Challenge: Dimension- project must have dimension.

This project meets the challenge by being beaded crochet in a tube. Essentially it is a beaded, crocheted I-cord. It was a challenge because this is only my third go at beaded crochet and I dropped to a size 8/0 and my other two were 6/0 (ie. the beads got smaller), so it meant smaller hook and smaller thread.
Team spirit explanation: Some of my favorite Discworld characters are the witches. They are wise and usually mean well. They also subscribe very heavily to the practice of Headology, which includes Boffo. Boffo is defined as the strength one gains from behaving exactly as someone expects you to. For a witch, this means riding a broom, wearing black, and for some wearing trinkets and beads with “magikal” powers. Letice Earwig is one of those witches that is very fond of crystals and trinkets, even though they are considered useless by most of the other witches. Not that all Boffo is useless, but as Granny Weatherwax says you don’t have to go believing it yourself. I think this bracelet would fit very well in to Letice’s Boffo collection. And I will probably wear it as a bit of Boffo of my own.

Giving Geeks and Nerd Culture Challenges:  This project counted for two.  Giving Geeks was to make an item to give to a newborn charity and Nerd Culture was to make an item based on a YouTube Video.  So we have the Double Rainbow baby hat.  I even edged the rainbow in Octarine to get Team Unity points (using a predesignated team theme).  

Scientific Challenge: Lightning- Create a project related to lightning.  A written description of how your project answers the challenge: To meet the challenge, I made a camera case using the zig-zag/lightning crochet stitch. It relates to Discworld because Rincewind (a wizard) had a discussion with an imp (who runs an iconograph or camera) about using a different sort of magic than what the Disc was used to seeing. Rincewind talks about harnessing lightning (electricity). The camera imp thinks such an idea is a load of rubbish because even if you could get it harnessed, it couldn’t pull a cart because it only goes up and down and you would want it to go along.

Intellectual Challenge: Adage a day.  Create a project related to an adage. A written description of how your project answers the challenge: I used an adage that was adapted by someone and then used by Terry Pratchett (author) in The Light Fantastic. Benjamin Franklin said “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. Terry Pratchett (and apparently borrowed from James Thurber) said “Early to rise, early to bed, makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead.” In the spirit of Terry Pratchett’s version I made a sleep mask to make sure I don’t get up too early in the morning or for napping on the couch in the middle of the day (see photo). Also it is octarine (the color of magic on Discworld).

Now to start on July