NaNoBlogMo 12 - Medfest 2007 Fight

Below is my favorite chessboard fight from the three I did in college. Feel free to just watch the video, or to also read up a bit more about it below.



Elysse, Tom and I were scripted to fight each other on the chessboard my junior year (Elysse's senior year, Tom's sophomore...spanning the generations, ah yeah). The script/notes for the chessboard said "TOM and ELYSSE fight. SPROFFEE wins." I loved it.

The backstory of our characters were that Elysse and I were sisters. She was a wealthy merchant and I was a fletcher (arrow maker). During the Crusades, since a lot of the towns men were at war, the duchess of Ravensburg (the town we were set in) had some women dress up as men and learn how to fight to protect that town. I was one of them, therefore Josephine became Jose'sph. Tom was one of the soldiers that came with a pompous lord to try and marry the duke and duchess's daughter and take over the town. Elysse was on the side of the chessboard with the duke's son (really their daughter in disguise) and Tom was fighting for the lord. When they ended up fighting on the chessboard, my character jumps in as the overly protective sibling to try and stop them, which is where the video picks up.

It is hard to make any stage combat look really good, and it is harder when you are trying to convey something other than just "I am trying to hit you with my weapon!". In our fight I was trying to just keep Elysse/Julia from fighting to keep her safe and actually hit Tom/the soldier, whereas both of them were just trying to kill each other and me if I got in the way. I hope that comes across.

On top of all that, a three person fight is trickier still. How many times have you seen a group fight in a movie, one of those unrealistic scenes were the angry evil hordes are facing your one hero and you can't help but think "why are they fighting him one on one and not all rushing him at the same time?" (At least that's what I'm thinking...I focus more on combat scenes in movies and TV shows since I started learning stage combat.) We tried to make the fight seem realistic in that no one was ever just waiting for their turn. We had a lot of moments where all three of us are actively moving/fighting/interacting, and any time where it was just two fighting we tried to make sure the third was doing something like recovering from a blow or retrieving a weapon. At one point I actually wrote us up a spreadsheet to show what each person was doing at any point in time.

As with any fight we practiced until we got it down cold. You always want to make sure you know exactly when to expect that great big piece of metal to be swinging at your head. I remember one rehearsal where Tom had to miss it but the chessboard head has Elysse and I run the fight without him. It was a bit like the two of us were fighting a ghost. I wish I had a video of that rehearsal.

Just as one last geeky note when it comes to this fight. I mentioned before this month what a nerd I am about Wheel of Time. There is a moment in one of the books (maybe book 3? I forget) where a character called Mat fights two people at once. He uses a quarterstaff and both of the others use swords. I love that moment in the books and have reread that scene constantly. When I realized I was going to be fighting both Tom and Elysse I wanted to recreate that moment, if possible. I know we do a lot of weapon switching, especially towards the beginning, but I was adamant that at some point I got to fight using a quarterstaff while they both had swords. My favorite quick succession of moves in the fight is probably from about 2:10 to 2:25.

Alright, that's all for now. Please excuse this post if its a bit crap. I don't really have time to review/edit as I'm a bit behind!

NaNoBlogMo 11 - My Ridiculous Scarf

I have one scarf that I wear the majority of the time during the winter months. When I want to be fancy I wear one of the nice pashmina scarves I got in China. When I want to be warm I wear my Homespun scarf (which I think is the first scarf I made for myself, out of leftover sweater yarn). The rest of the time? I wear my Ridiculous Scarf. My Ridiculous Scarf is ridiculous for two main reasons, it is ridiculously long and it also a ridiculous mix of different patterns. And I love it.

When I started my Ridiculous Scarf I wasn't sure what I was making. I had a bunch of bits and pieces of variegated sock yarns in different patterns and colors leftover from making cell phone covers and arm warmers. I tied them all together with no thought of matching, cast on and started knitting in the round. I remember thinking it could be arm warmers or maybe even an arm to a sweater, but I just kept chugging along knitting the tube. At some point it occurred to me that it could be a scarf and the thickness provided by the fact that it was a tube and not one flat piece would add warmth.

At some point I ran out of bits and pieces and I had to start massacring whole skeins of variegated yarn to continue the OMG WHAT IS HAPPENING pattern I had already started. The scarf started getting scarf-length. Then it surpassed scarf-length and started to getting long. Then it became ridiculously long and I knew I was done. I am 5'11" and if I drape the thing around my neck it nearly reaches the floor. I have to be careful not to close the car door on it (Seriously, I actually did close the car door on it yesterday when I got to work. Now I know how dogs feel when the reach the end of their leash.).
For the tassels I made sure that each tassel was different but that each was made out of only similar bits of yarn from the same skein, as an echo of the weird striped effect the scarf has.


This scarf goes with everything because it goes with nothing. I am pretty sure it has every single color on it somewhere. It is a little like Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat except its Sproffee's Ridiculous Scarf.

Being made both of variegated yarn and of many different yarns tied together, I think that the inside of the scarf is as interesting as the outside (though less polished looking). And since I left the ends of the tube open, I actually can turn the entire scarf inside out if I so desire. Keeping the ends of the scarf open has had other benefits as well. If I forget my gloves and my hands get cold, I can just stick my hands through the ends of my scarf for a little warmth. Occasionally I will scrunch the entire scarf on one arm to make a ridiculous arm warmer. Honestly I think my ridiculous scarf is as much toy to me as it is functional piece of clothing.


My Ridiculous Scarf led to a kind of fantastic moment recently. On November 6th I went to an improv performance by the students that were taking a class taught by my Sea Tea Improv colleagues. I was zipped up in my improv sweatshirt and wearing my Ridiculous Scarf. As I found a seat in the theater a woman and her friends caught my attention and asked "Excuse me, but is that a Tom Baker scarf?" (Tom Baker, aka the Fourth Doctor on Doctor Who and the bearer of the fantastic scarf that was one of my options in my "What Geeky Scarf Should I Knit?" poll). I was sad to say no, but then remembered what t-shirt I was wearing and unzipped my sweatshirt to reveal my "The Angels Have the Phonebox" shirt, a reference to the amazing DW pisode "Blink". We all had a laugh at the chances of it all. I then went on to tell her about my recent poll and if it had won I would be knitting a Doctor Who scarf, but instead pulled out my in-progress Pippin scarf to show them. She asked for my contact information, saying she may commission me to make a Doctor Who scarf for someone on her Christmas list. That would be amazing, but even if it doesn't happen, its a funny story. I later found out they were there for Karyn, someone I made friends with at an improv mixer earlier this year.

That of course meant I could stalk them later on facebook and find the picture they took of me as proof for when they told the story. It shows me in my full dork pride, improv sweatshirt at my back, Ridiculous Scarf (sadly not Tom Baker scarf) across my knees, Doctor Who shirt and knitting a Pippin scarf.

Yep, that's me.

NaNoBlogMo 10 - They Can't All Be Successes

I have mentioned a few times now that as a knitter I'm not much of a pattern person (which is very similar to how as a cook I'm not much of a recipe person). I tend to learn and make stuff up as I go (likewise for cooking). Now that is all well and good when I'm making scarves or even the occasional hat, but can someone BS their way through a sweater? Sort of. If nothing else, my first sweater taught me quite a few lessons about knitting, which I will tell you about below.

After I had been knitting for less than a year, I thought I would attempt a sweater. No big deal, I hadn't used a single pattern yet and had no idea how to read them but obviously I could just puzzle out what I needed to do. I had used patterns when sewing before so I had a rough idea what the pieces should look like, and I knew how to increase and decrease stitches so I could make the right shapes. I figured that was all I needed.

(Lesson One: Don't be Cocky)

I bought some nice cushy Lion's Brand Homespun in a lovely whitish/rainbowish color scheme. It was certainly cheaper than a lot of other options at 98% acrylic, 2% polyester, but since I was buying quite a few skeins to make a sweater, I didn't want to break the bank.

(Lesson Two: If You Are Going To Take The Time/Effort To Make A Sweater, Invest In Decent Yarn)

I had this brilliant method I had deduced to give me a preview of how wide something was going to be when it was knitted...space out the stitches on your needle as you cast on about one stitch apart. Of course I was off. WAY OFF.

(Lesson Three: If Size Is Important In Your Project, Just Knit A Freakin' Gauge Swatch Already)

I knitted the ENTIRE front and the ENTIRE back of the sweater, all the while thinking that they looked too wide. No worries, I thought to myself, if its too wide I can just take it in a bit when I sew the pieces together!

(Lesson Four: Denial Doesn't Help Anything)

Of course they ended up too huge. Then I had another brilliant plan (and I'm sure you can see how far my brilliance had got me at this point), knitted things shrink in hot water and the dryer! I happily headed down to my dorm's laundry room and ran my sweater front and back through a hot water wash and a few dryer cycles, only to discover to my dismay that they ended up exactly the same size...only warmer.

(Lesson Five: Wool Shrinks...Acrylic Doesn't)

Facing defeat, I frogged what I had already knitted and remade the front and the back. I did have the presence of mind before I tore apart the giant sweater pieces to measure how wide I wanted the sweater to be compared to what I had already made, count the stitches that added up to that width and then remake the pieces with that amount. I had basically knitted the most unnecessarily complicated gauge swatches ever.

(Lesson Six: If Possible, Use Your Mistakes To Your Advantage)

The sleeves weren't as bad, but they certainly weren't good. I started at the shoulder and knit my way down, slightly decreasing the amount of stitches as I went. I often held up what I had made so far on my arm to make sure it would fit ok. They were shaping up to be good sleeves. At one point I held them up and realized they were a good length. Just to be sure they were going to be long enough once everything was sewed together, I knitted what I can only imagine was another 6 inches.

(Lesson Seven: Take Measurements, Then USE Your Measurements)

When all the pieces were done, I sewed everything together. That part went blessedly smoothly since I had a lot of hand sewing experience and had the foresight to match up the edges as I went along, etc. Finally I had the chance to try on my sweater...a sweater I had knit myself!

(Lesson Eight: Don't Get Your Hopes Up)

What a mess. The body was short, the sleeves were too long, the neck hole was huge and ugly. It was at that point that it occurred to me that I hated the way the stockinette knit rolled up at the edges and I hadn't thought about cuffs or a collar.

(Lesson Nine: Figure Out The Details Ahead Of Time)

Someone suggested to me at that point that I make a cowl neck to at least salvage the neck hole. Figuring I might as well, I knitted another sheet of stockinette (did I mention I didn't even know how to knit in the round at this point?), sewed it up and sewed it on. It didn't really help.

(Lesson Ten: Adding Frills To Crap Still Leaves You With Crap)

I wore the sweater only once in public that I can remember; to work to show to a woman who also knitted. I got a few stares that day. After that it was shoved into my drawer and half-forgotten. I didn't want to wear it, but I couldn't very well get rid of it...it was my first sweater! I dug it out when I was going through my clothes recently and put it on again for the first time in years just to take pictures for this blog post. As I was griping about how terrible a sweater it was, my mother said she liked it. In disbelief, I offered the sweater to her. It really was the perfect solution. I wasn't getting rid of it, and someone was using it.

(Lesson Eleven: Everyone Has Different Tastes, Especially With Knitted Goods)

I posted a picture of the sweater on Facebook and to my surprise... more people seem to like it. The flaws in it that are screamingly relevant to me don't even seem like an issue to some.

(Lesson Twelve: No One Will Ever Be As Harsh As You When It Comes To Your Knitting)

I obviously kept knitting after the sweater incident; sometimes with patterns, sometimes without. I learned from my mistakes and I always kept trying new things. I eventually learned things like how to knit on double pointed needles, how to do color work, how to knit cables and a bunch of other little knitting lessons that have been building up in my repertoire.

(Lesson Thirteen: Keep Learning)

And someday I do eventually plan to knit myself a decent sweater. For years I have thought about knitting this sweater from Knitty.com, and maybe someday I actually will.

(Lesson Fourteen: Cry, Then Laugh, Then Try Again)

NaNoBlogMo 9 - A Blanket for Lee

Let me tell you about my friend Lee. She is very strong-willed and persuasive. She is also a wonderful friend and in general pretty awesome. So when I asked what I could make for her for her birthday one year and she said "I'd love a knitted blanket for my queen sized bed..." I agreed right away.

It wasn't really until later that the enormity of what I had agreed to set in. A queen size blanket...that is a LOT of knitting, especially for a rather new knitter (as I was at the time). I needed to produce what seemed to me "a never-ending expanse of blanketness", one might say (as Lee described the picture of said blanket on the right). When I asked what she had in mind for the blanket (in terms of material, style, etc), she said that she liked the scarf I was wearing. A simple garter stitch scarf made with Lion's Brand Homespun. We went to the craft store and she picked out a fun pinky-slightly-orange yarn.

I asked if she wanted any other colors or any sort of pattern or design (not like I had any idea how to do something like that at the time, but I figured that I would just learn as I went along as I have done with the majority of the knitting skills I've learned). She said nope, a solid color garter stitch blanket was fine.

Once again, as with the Jayne hats, I did no gauge swatch, (although I seem to remember counting the stitches on my scarf width and extrapolating, if that counts for anything). Of course that does mean the blanket ended up rather oddly shaped (as you can tell from the picture on the left of it hanging minimally over the sides of the bed and excessively over the end). The work was rather mind-numbing. I remember taking a break from the blanket and whipping up a pair of cut off gloves for another friend just because I needed a change of pace. But when it was done I was so happy to have completed something that took a lot of time and effort that I could give to Lee.

You ever have one of those friends that means a lot to you and you have known forever but its really hard to get them good gifts? With this I knew I was making just what she wanted, and she knew how much I cared about her since she knew the effort I was putting into her gift. It was a comforting feeling. Although now that she has moved to Florida I'm not sure how much need she has for it!

I think my knitting as a whole has certainly improved since making this blanket, my most recently knitted blanket (made for my parent's wedding anniversary) probably being the knitted project I am most proud of. I am sure Lee and I will be friends for years to come and eventually I will make her an even better blanket to replace this one. Or maybe something more fitting for a Floridian...

It occurs to me now that Lee's birthday is a week away and I have no idea what to get for her this year. Hmmm.

NaNoBlogMo 8 - Ikebana

**Note: I am completely ignorant when it comes to Ikebana and this post is just about what I can remember from the one time I tried it. By no means should you use me as any sort of reference on Ikebana.**

In October of 2009, while I was still living in Shanghai, I planned a vacation to visit my friend D'Arcy. She was living in Katsuyama, Japan and I was beside myself that I was going to visit a new country (having previously only been to Canada and China) and that that new place was going to be JAPAN. I'm sure if I had gone with a tourist group, I might have been to more touristy places or more of the bigger cities, but I wouldn't trade my trip for anything. I did my share of "touristy" things, like visiting the deer park in Nara and getting a geisha make-over in Kyoto, but I also spent a few days in small and lovely Katsuyama, seeing what life in a normal Japanese town must be like.

One day, D'Arcy took me to her Ikebana class, which she had been going to for a while. I was thrilled to get the chance to try a new hobby, especially in the country it originated in. I had never done any sort of flower arranging before, unless you count picking out a few types of flowers at Stop & Shop and then having them combine them into a bouquet.

The majority of the class was doing a specific assignment (they had certain materials they had to use), but D'Arcy and I were allowed to pick our own vases and flowers to work with. I picked a low, wide bowl/vase and after some advice from D'Arcy about not going overboard, picked three different types of flowers and a large fern-like-thing...I don't know plants.

The vase was interesting in that on the bottom it had a disc of sharp-ish spikes coming out of it, that way you could stick each flower/stem/etc EXACTLY where you wanted it and it would stay. I had no clue what I was doing, so apparently I was doing freestyle Ikebana. I trimmed and placed and debated. I learned a trick of stabbing smaller stems into larger stems and then sticking those into the spikes. I tried to arrange my flowers in a way I thought looked good, and also a little like I imagined actual Ikebana was supposed to look. At left you can see my eventual product.

I can't remember exactly what she said, but the teacher said of my work something along the lines of that she could tell I hadn't studied Ikebana, but I had a feel for it. Whatever it was, I remember her comment giving me happy fuzzies. Of course she could have just been being polite to the giant foreigner, or since D'Arcy was translating she could have actually been saying I was an idiot but my friend thought to soften the blow. Hopefully not the case!

The teacher was amazing. The place was amazing. Oh...did I forget to mention that the teacher lived in a temple and that's where the class was? After the class she gave me a tour and I followed her, slack-jawed, in disbelief that someone could live in such a beautiful place. I am not a religious person in the least but I find temples and churches beautiful and in an odd way, calming.

For a while after we sat and drank tea and she talked about the temple and Ikebana and her life. I tried so hard to pay attention, but I can't remember anything specific about what she said. I was too busy thinking "I can't believe I am drinking tea in the temple that this woman lives in after doing Ikebana in Japan" over and over again. At right you can see the teacher, the other two students, D'arcy and myself. D'Arcy's arrangement from that class is in front of her, mine is to the side of me. You can see that the other two students were working with these tall, thin green things and big yellow flowers (did I mention I don't know plants?).

Somewhat recently I had an idea for a TV show, either for something like the Discovery Channel or the Travel Channel. They send the host (of course me, its my idea) to a country for a period of time. While there, I learn about, study and attempt a traditional craft from that country. Think of it! Making tapa cloths in Fiji, bilum/net bags in Papua New Guinea, paper cutting in China! It would be a new way of looking at a country/culture. I can't believe I would be the only person that would find a show like that fascinating.

Imaginary TV show or not, I hope I get the chance to try more traditional and varied crafts in the future.

NaNoBlogMo 7 - Craft Exchange

I am a fan of "craft exchanges". There are some crafty things I do well and there are some crafty things I rather suck at. So I like it when every once in a while I make friends with someone who excels where I am lacking and we can have a fun exchange.

My friend Rose, who I have mentioned previously in this blog and who is pictured at the left, was my room mate my senior year of college. Our birthdays are also very close together with mine being at the end of January and hers being in the beginning of February. We decided one year (if I remember correctly it was her idea) that we would exchange crafty gifts. What she desired, and I was happy to make for her, were sparkly purple arm warmers, also pictured at the left. We are very different in that respect, as the majority of my wardrobe is rather dark and hers has an abundance of pinks and purples. The arm warmers were easy enough to make, just ribbed cuffs to keep them snug and a tube of stockinette in between. And having Rose next door while I was working on them was great. I could have her try them on and let me know details on things like how long she wanted them. Something I can't really do if I am working on a project for someone as a surprise.

My present was a drawing of me (shown below with the picture she used as a reference). Rose has this amazing skill where when she draws a picture of someone...it actually looks like them. That is something that is just beyond me. I think my drawing skills are probably about average, I am ok with things like prospective and such, but whenever I try to make a picture actually look like someone I usually can't show it to them for fear they will be insulted.




















I am always looking for new and interesting craft exchanges, so anyone interested should let me know!

NaNoBlogMo 6.5 - What's In A Name?

This is just an extra post to say that I noticed awhile ago that the title I gave this little project is erroneous and a little ridiculous.

My inspiration came from NaNoWriMo, aka National Novel Writing Month. For some reason, probably late one night while I was thinking of my "posting once a day project", my mind said NaNoBlogMo and the title stuck. Of course that means it works out to National Novel Blog/Blogging Month...which makes NO SENSE, especially in relation to what I am doing.

But I am a stubborn idiot and I refuse to change it. Besides, I think NaNoBlogMo rolls off the tongue better than NaBlogWriMo. So I am open to suggestions of a new way to redefine the acronym/abbreviation that I have already assigned. Any ideas?