When Fandom meets Craft

Finished and blocked!

While I learned to knit as a child, I didn't do much with it until I rediscovered the craft in my adult life. And thanks to youtube videos and the folks who run the Handknitting Association of Iceland, I learned how to make stranded colorwork yoke sweaters in the past year or so. 

The first few sweaters I made, I followed specific patterns, but then found a wonderful book about the process of creating a stranded colorwork sweater by Tin Can Knits called Strange Brew. 

I decided that I was going to make a bespoke sweater for myself with motifs from my favorite fandom: Doctor Who. 

A trip to Webs Yarn and I found Debby Bliss Fine Donegal - the perfect fingering weight wool and cashmere blend in the exact color I wanted: TARDIS blue. (It wasn't called that, but it should have been!)

Then it was time to design the sweater and plan the motifs. First I did a sketch. 

Initial concept sketch

I have a kindle scribe which I use for a lot of purposes. It was purchased primarily so I could edit my manuscripts on it, but it's also amazing for notating/adjusting knitting patterns (you can write on pdf's) and for sketching out concepts. 

Motif design for the TARDIS

 

Motif design for K-9

Then it was time to do some math. (Or maths as my friends across the pond say.) After making a swatch and measuring gauge (yes, it's a pain. I hate doing it. But I did it anyway.), I chose the size M/L in sock yarn as the template in the Strange Brew pattern book. That meant I knew how many stitches I had to work with around the cuffs, the waist, and the yoke, so I could layout the motifs and know how many repeats I needed to do and how many stitches I needed to put between them. 

For example, the question marks were 6 stitches wide by 11 stitches high. 

I had 60 stitches around the wrist to work with. That meant 6 repeats of the motif, with 4 stitches between them. (making the motif 10 stitches wide including the background color stitches.) Sleeves incorporate increases, and the overall pattern called for increasing 2 stitches each 6th round, but there's definitely wiggle room, so I did the increases before and after the question mark motif rounds without any issue. 

A tip for motifs: put in stitch markers all around to mark each repeat. For the question marks, that meant every 10th stitch. That way if you make a mistake, you catch it after a single motif instead of at the end of the round.

A second tip for motifs - set the 'beginning of round' to be at the back of a shoulder to hide any jog of the pattern. You may need to use some math to figure out where the first repeat starts so your design is centered the way you want it.

The entire project took me from initial design and starting on the sleeves in January of 2024 (if you saw me at Arisia or Boskone in Boston, you might have seen me working on it) to blocking the finished sweater in September of 2024. I did a few other smaller projects in between, so maybe 6 months of actual knitting time. That's actually not bad for a sock weight yarn and size 4 needles. 

I may turn this into a cardigan at some point, so I laid out the motifs so there would be a clear line down the middle to steek, but for now, I'm happy with it and will be wearing it at Arisia. 

I highly recommend getting the Strange Brew book if you have any interest at all in creating your own yoked stranded colorwork sweaters. The geek in me loves to know how things work, so it was definitely something I knew I wanted in my library. Or if you have a sweater pattern that you like the fit of, you can always just use it as the template and create your own fandom designs with a little math and patience. 

Closeup of the motifs during blocking

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Hey! That's me!

Last night, I appeared on Buddy Gott's Writing Show, where he regularly interviews writers (wow - I bet that was a surprise!) on a live video stream which is then archived on his youtube channel.

 

I have to admit, I was initially nervous at the thought of being interviewed 'live'. I'm a writer. I rely on the ability to edit, rethink, and rewrite my words. It's the ultimate 6 second delay. Having to speak 'off the cuff' is something I'm not practiced at.

My one experience prior to this, where I had to speak to an 'invisible' audience, was from over 30 years ago. When I was in college, I worked at our college radio station, doing advertisement and public relations. In the interest of trying out other aspects of the station, I tried a stint as an AM radio DJ. I figured it would be a low pressure gig, as the signal was basically just strong enough to reach the student union. (Shout out to the University of Rochester and WRUR!)

It was a nightmare.

I was so nervous about filling silence and not messing up the segues between songs - this was in the days of turntables, remember! I felt like Lucille Ball in the chocolate factory episode! (Only less fun, because you couldn't eat the music. . . )

2 hours later, and I swore never to be near a live mic again.

But Buddy made our conversation an enjoyable and effortless experience, making sure the questions and conversation flowed smoothly.

If you want to see some of my Doctor Who loot (I have a wall in my office liberally decorated with it), hear about my travels through Kyrgyzstan, learn about my accidental poetry collection, or just put a voice and face to the words, take a look see.


Oh, and I also talk a little about my books. My husband has already told me that I sat too close to the laptop, and if I was a little bit back, it would be in better focus. Ahh, live and learn. Also, it was a good thing that the camera only showed my shoulders and up - I spent a good chunk of yesterday in the ceramics studio and there is dried clay all over my clothes. :)

Halloween 2013: The Doctor Who Edition

Ever since we moved into our home, nearly 21 years ago, I have enjoyed decorating it for Halloween. It's a nearly 100 year old brick tudor, so it really lends itself to the haunted house vibe. Besides, when my husband and I were in our respective High Schools and then in College, we both enjoyed the tech side of theatre. So it was a natural match to pair our imaginations and creativity with Halloween.

You can search the 'Halloween' tag on this blog to see what we've created, going back to 2005 when I started blogging. There are many years of themes we have photos of buried on a hard drive. Some day, I'll find and organize them all.

Some people have attics full of Christmas decorations. I have boxes of spooky: lights, extension cords, timers, spiders, fog machines, ghosts, skeletons, costumes.

A small subset of what we've collected for Halloween over the years

It's a ridiculous amount of work for one night, but that's part of the magic, I think. In the past, I've struggled to come up with the theme, but not this year. From the moment Halloween 2012 ended, I knew I wanted to do something to honor the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. It's a show near and dear to my heart: I've watched it since I was 12. I still have the color changing pin I got for joining the Doctor Who Fan Club of America in the 1970's.

So I decided to build a TARDIS.

The humble beginnings

If I'd had my 'druthers, I would have built a permanent structure from plywood and then used it as a garden shed after Halloween, but time and circumstances made that impossible, so I grabbed a bunch of moving boxes we had in the attic and started to build.

If you notice the small black 'dots' holding the levels together, those are cardboard box rivets I found on the internet. Reusable and very clever.

I bought paint and a foam brush, because you really don't want to soak cardboard with paint, or it will collapse. I love TARDIS blue.

Now this is starting to look distinctly more TARDIS like. White paint and black electrical tape for the windows and 'box' trim on the body. If I'd had more time, I would have used paint. One of the disadvantages of living in a changeable climate come fall, is that the shift in humidity makes it tough for the tape to stick.

Of course, we needed the door sign. Fortunately, images of the sign exist all over the net, so I grabbed one, manipulated it to be 8 1/2 by 11, and printed it as a photo on photo paper. Hot glue guns are your friend for adding detail work, as well as fixing any spots where the paint made the box edges spring apart.

My secret weapon is my husband, who has wonderful handwriting and is far more artistic than I will ever be. My contribution to the signage was to paint the panel black.

And there she is, my TARDIS, parked every so completely inconspicuously in front of the house. The roof was constructed with a small box and then insulation squares taped together with blue painter's tape to make the leveled top. The lantern was a battery powered lantern we had, covered with blue lighting gels, courtesy of our local HS theatre department.

'Would you like a jelly baby?' photo by N. Halin

And this is what it looked like on Halloween eve, with the addition of the 4th Doctor (me!) and some Doctor Who themed pumpkins (weeping angels, daleks, and cybermen, oh my!)  and lights, fog, etc.

If you want to see the whole set of Halloween night photos, taken by my husband, photographer extraordinaire, here's the flickr link.

And if you've ever been involved in theatre, you know the particular mix of sadness and satisfaction that is strike.