Nerd Wars Round One

Well, Nerd Wars on Ravelry is in full swing.  I am in Team Hellmouth focused on all things Buffy and Angel.  It has been a BLAST!!  Last month we were given six challenges to complete by February 29th, and I managed to complete them all as well as starting on my three month long dissertation project.

In Nerd Wars, there are six categories - Giving Geeks, Nerd Culture, Scientific, Technical, Geek Pride, and Intellectual.  Each month you are issued a challenge in each area, and it's up to you, the knitter, to figure out what to knit and how to tie it to your geekdom.  This contest/challenge goes from February 1st until April 30th.  At the time I'm writing this post, we have completed round 1, and the projects are in for points assignment - the team with the most points wins!  I wanted to be able to keep track of my projects for each round, as well as share out some of the patterns I've made for these projects - namely I am designing a scarf I'm calling the Scythe Scarf from Buffy Season 7, but that's another post.

Here were the challenges and the associated projects from last month.



Giving Geeks - Hat's Off
Donate a hat or money to charity in need of hats.  I took a bit of the Lazy Way with this one.  I donated money to the Hats off for Cancer mission mostly because I didn't have the type of yarn in my stash that I wanted to use.  Next time though, there will be many knitted and given!

Nerd Culture - I, For One, Welcome our New Manmade Overlords

The "sports car" of books

Create something inspired by technology and human (or non-human, I suppose) ingenuity.  For this challenge I had to step a bit ahead in the Buffyverse and assume that at some point in time, Giles would accept a Kindle Fire.  It's book related, and think of all the Tomes and Volumey Texts he could carry around with him.  Plus, it probably seduced him with its shiny black plastic and spiffy screen (far reaching attempt to reference Real Me and Giles' Sports Car).  With that thought in mind, I made a tweed Kindle Fire cover - complete with a cedar smell from the chest I had stored the yarn in, since knowledge is supposed to be smelly.

Scientific - All for One, and One for All

They missed a spot...

Create an item that requires only one (piece, skein, or spinning singles) - imitating the complex simplicity of the single celled organism.  I decided to go all out on the Oneness of this project.  This was also my Team Unity project.  For our team unity theme, we chose to knit based on the episode Once More With Feeling.  My inspiration - They Got the Mustard Out.  I based this cowl on a pattern called mustard garter stitch cowl, used a mustardy colored yarn - which was much less than one skein - and modified the cowl to be knit in the round all in one piece.  I did modify the design since I really don't like purling in the round.  I knit 12 rows in garter stitch, then knit 14 rounds and then finished off with 8 more rows of garter stitch.

Technical - What's your Specialty

Mr. Felted Pointy

Using what you consider your specialty, create a project and relate it to your nerdom. I love to felt wool.  It is an obsession almost. So, for this challenge, I knitted Mr. Pointy - Buffy's favorite stake to take on patrol.  The pattern was a freestyle pattern that was just basically knit a triangle and then stitch it up.  The pictures don't really do it justice since it's not in action, but if any yarn vamps came around, I could dust 'em!

Pattern:  CO 24 sts and knit 4 rows in StSt.
K1, SSK, K till 3 sts remain K2Tog
K for 4 rows

Repeat this pattern till 3 sts remain, then icord for 3 inches.

Thread a pipe cleaner into the center of the icord

Sew up the side, stuff fiberfill into the stake and sew the top closed and felt it

Geek Pride - Wove, Twue Wove

Mawwige... Mawwige is - well, actually, not marriage.  A relationship.  Could be a deep friendship, sibling relationship, or a romantic relationship, but the inspiration was supposed to be around a relationship in your nerdom.  I chose Willow and Oz.  Those that know me know I love Seth Green, so how could I not choose to knit something based on him.  I decided to knit a hat for this challenge.  I had several partial skeins laying about in "Willow and Oz" colors, so I just went with it and knit up a beanie.  I call this Willow and Oz colors because Willow tends to wear a lot of purple, and Oz is gray when he's a werewolf, so it works!  You might be asking why I didn't donate this hat?  Mostly because it was too big around to be a kids hat, and too short to be an adult hat to many people - did I mention I was using up leftover yarn?  Plus it was wool, and most donations don't want wool just in case there are allergies.

Intellectual - Memoria Technica

Craft something inspired by a mnemonic or memory tool.  This was a hard one for me.  I kept thinking of different things I could do, thinking about doing CPR and relating it to Prophecy Girl and The Body, but the mnemonics my mom and sister came up with kept going through my head.  In the end, I went with sentiment instead of sentimental.  I remember Beth studying for Chemistry and trying to memorize the major elements of the periodic table, and mom telling her she could remember gold and silver by "AU!  Give me my GOLD watch! AG, it's only silver."  Buffy also had to study Chemistry and had to have assistance in how to remember and make sense out of the subject.  So, in honor of that, I made a gold watch pin cushion!

I set a personal goal to be done by February 20th, since I was starting a new job and wanted to focus, and I made it with two days to spare!  As part of that, I earned the following badges!

Love the badges!