Velvet Worms

It’s been a fairly lazy summer so far and the weather has been less-than-delightful lately, but today is absolutely gorgeous. However, we ran out of coffee entirely two days ago, so I wasn’t really up to writing a post, regardless of the weather, until I got at least two big cups of French roast into me.

I’ve been somewhat productive on the knitting front. Just small things, though. Image intensive content ahead.

A (roomy) dice bag for Nate, because the little faux-velvet thing one of his five sets came with just wasn’t cutting it for all those dice.

Pattern: Drawstring Bag
Yarn: One full ball of Peaches & Creme in Licorice
Needles: US 10.5/6.5mm

Another dice bag. Not as big as the one above, but still more than big enough for a few sets of polyhedral gaming dice.

Pattern: A heavy modification of the Drawstring Bag
Yarn: About 50% of a ball of Peaches & Creme
Needles: US 7/5.0mm and a size H/8 crochet hook (for the base)

And a quick little wrist pillow for Nate (who was complaining the edge of his mousepad was uncomfortable for his wrist and was using folded paper towels as a cushion).

Pattern: Improvised. CO 20 sts and worked a 6 inch swatch which I then folded in half, stuffed and seamed shut.
Yarn: About 25% of a ball of Peaches & Creme
Needles: US 8

I also decided to attempt a project with sock yarn and my size 2 Knitpicks DPNs, so I cast on for the first of a pair of Jacoby mitts a couple of days ago.

The cast on and first row or two were tricky with such small needles, but after that, it got progressively easier. So far, so good. I’m hoping once I get to the thumb gusset, it won’t be overwhelming.

In other knit-related news, I’ve been quite the bargain hunter. I found a bunch of people on Etsy who were doing destashing sales and managed to grab up approximately 1200 yards of hand-dyed laceweight wool for $8 USD (plus $4 shipping). It just arrived today and is gorgeous. I’m not entirely sure if it’s merino or just plain wool, but it’s fairly soft and definitely deserves an elegant pattern to do it justice. I’m thinking a shawl of some sort.

I also scored two skeins of Regia Galaxy sock yarn from Knit and Tonic’s destash (haven’t arrived yet) for a good price.

Knitting aside… I AM TERRIBLY UPSET. I was really, really looking forward to the Ghostbusters video game that just came out… only to discover that the PC version (the one I’d be getting because I’m primarily a PC gamer and don’t own any of the new consoles outside of my DS lite) has had any and all multiplayer capability removed. Sure, it’s $20 cheaper than the console versions, but what’s the point in playing that kind of action game when you can’t play it with other people? It’s being sold over steam, for christ’s sake, and you can’t do multiplayer?! Not even co-op??? What’s the sense in that?!

This is almost as irritating as Valve’s brilliant (read: idiotic) idea to announce a sequel to Left 4 Dead when they haven’t added hardly anything to the first game. L4D is hardly a year old and they’re already going to dump it for a sequel which looks and apparently plays (according to reports on trying the initial demo at E3) almost exactly the same as the first game?? That’s ridiculous. That’s why I’m currently boycotting it unless they can offer something more than reskins and a couple of new weapons for an additional $50 price tag.

At the very least, I’m hoping Star Trek Online won’t be too terrible. However, if it follows the god awful example of that terrible movie JJ Abrams made, I’ll probably be disappointed in that as well.