Stargrace

Yarn Sales? YARN SALES!

Since I just recently started knitting (September of this year) I’m still learning about the ins and outs of yarn purchases. What I do know is that the yarn I usually get from Michaels (the only local craft store in my area) is not as nice (also the price is very expensive) as the yarn I get from say.. KnitPicks while they have their cyber monday sale going on. That means that most of last week was spent stocking up on a lot of yarn. I mean, a LOT. Probably too much. OK definitely too much. I do have quite a few patterns in mind and added to my queue which should take care of most of these, but here’s the grand total of what I’m waiting to show up at my door. They should arrive throughout the week and into next week, hopefully:

Lint Shaver
Locking Knitting Stitch Markers
Blocking matts
2 Cobblestone Heather Brava Worsted
2 Dublin Brava Worsted
2 Baker Street Felici Special Reserve
2 Rainbow Felici Fingering
2 Fedora WotA Sport Yarn
2 Forest Heather WotA Sport Yarn
2 Thyme WotA Sport Yarn
1 Black Brava Sport
1 Dublin Brava Sport
1 Silver Brava Sport
1 Umber Heather Brava Sport
1 White Brava Sport
2 Rainbow Felici Fingering
2 Time Traveler Felici Fingering
2 Black Stroll Glimmer
2 Sagebrush Palette
1 Blue Varigated Special BUY
1 Denim Varigated Special BUY
1 Fashion Varigated Special BUY
1 Peacock Varigated Special BUY
2 Purple Varigated Special BUY
1 Red Varigated Special BUY
2 Black Brava Sport
1 Celestial Brava Sport
1 Dublin Brava Sport
1 Eggplant Brava sport
1 Fairytale Brava sport
1 Grass Brava Sport
1 Lady Slipper Brava Sport
1 Marina Brava Sport
1 Red Brava Sport
1 Solstice Heather Brava Sport
1 Wine Brava Sport
2 Fanciful Felici
5 Clover Palette
2 Jay Stroll Glimmer
2 Potion Stroll Glimmer

Most of the yarn was less than $2 per skein, the felici was a bit more, but it’s amazing sock yarn. The blocking mats I really needed since I have nothing to lay projects out on at the moment, and I still have my shawl ongoing. I bought brava sport in colours to make a hue shift afghan, and I saw a stranded colourwork mitt done with stroll glimmer as the background colour that was just amazing. I’m hoping that this is enough yarn to keep me busy for the next year, and my goal is not to buy any yarn at all, but instead to work on my knitting skills, gifts, and enjoy my hobby. Don’t forget, if you’re on Ravelry you can add me as a friend here. I’ve got my projects posted, my yarn stash (to date) posted (I haven’t added the KnitPicks sale items yet as I haven’t received them) and I’m pretty active on the forums in a few groups that I have found.

This weekend I started working on my 2nd pair of socks, the first sock should be completed today. It’s amazing how much faster they go once you’ve made a pair, my first pair took me a week per sock, these ones are three days per sock (approximately). They’re a pair of patterned socks, since my first pair were plain I wanted to keep challenging myself. More pictures in tomorrow’s post!

Graviton Physics – The bane of my existence

[31/50] Doing L1 distribution missions in my Tengu – why? Because I can. Well actually it’s more like because I have to. See, I recently returned to EVE Online and wanted to check in with my R&D agents – except one of my agents now suddenly hates me and won’t talk to me, even though I’m pretty sure we parted on OK terms last time I was playing. I’m not quite sure what happened, maybe I left a faction quest incomplete, or maybe I worked a quest for an opposing faction that lowered this one. In any case, my R&D agent is insisting that I run lower level missions and earn back her trust.

Low level missions are not much of a challenge for me these days, but everyone has to start some where, and hey I needed a refresher course in pretty much everything anyway.

[32/50] I did also manage to cut down some of the crap that I had floating around at various stations. I even made a little notebook dedicated to EVE Online stuff and marked down which stations were service what purpose (ie: home storage, invention, etc). Nothing fancy, but I do love organizing.

[33/50] I put a blueprint original in to copy, and was a bit surprised at how quickly it completed. In the past there were days when I would have to wait almost a month for a copy to complete, but now it was just a matter of hours. I also put in a few manufacturing runs, creating more drones and then T2 drones from those runs. Eventually I’ll need to make a run to Jita to sell everything I’ve been collecting, but it’s quite a jump from where I’m set up, so I’ll wait until I have a good amount before setting out.

[34/50] I haven’t started back into Planetary Interaction yet, but everything should be set up so that all I need to do is go collect my storage items and set the factories running again (I know they’re not actually called factories, but that’s what I consider them to be). I had thought of starting up some new PI from scratch, as my setups are quite old and are probably not optimal any more, but on the other hand, why re-do it when they already work. Components from my PI setup used to sell for a pretty nice amount in the past, but I have no idea if that’s still the case. I suppose I’ll see when I haul it all to Jita.

[35/50] The changes to the skill queue system are not that new any more, but it still surprises me to see when I have 139 days worth of skills queued up. Right now I’m working on shield emission systems, mostly because of the reduced capacitor need for shield emission system modules. I have a bunch of ‘reduce capacitor need’ skills in the queue right now, my Tengu fit isn’t stable – though it doesn’t need to be because I rarely have everything active at once, still the longer I can keep it running, the better. Once I’m done with those skills (is anyone ever really ‘done’) I’ll go back to my production / mining skills, and toss a few more drone skills in there just because.

For me, EVE is a very calm game. I know that isn’t always the case, especially with so much PVP built into it – but as a PVE player, I adore it. You just have to remember not to get too attached to your thinks.

Canal dredging and Bridge Building

[28/30] This week I’ve been busy working on the market area at P22 on the Xanadu server. The canal dredging is coming along, but it’s a huge project so there’s still lots to do. So far Yetian (alliance member) has managed to complete the Northern end of the canal, and we’re working our way further down. As I mentioned before, right now the canal is only deep enough for boats like knarr and sailboat. It’s our intention to dredge it down to a depth so that the larger ships are able to pass. The shallow depth meant that I could easily walk between the market and my own deed with animals, the new depth meant that we needed a bridge. I’ve started a brick bridge over the canal, and have been busy collecting clay to turn into mortar so I can continue with the construction. It’s not difficult, but it does use a lot of raw materials.

[29/50] In the screenshot here you can see the shallow depth of the canal. This is what we’re working on lowering. To the left is my main deed (a bit through the woods) and to the right hand side is the market. A huge thank you to my alliance members for helping out with this project. Wouldn’t be able to do it without them.

[30/50] I’ve also started working on some of the decorative aspects of the market. I began a Vynora colossus closer to the water, and I’ve started placing some statues. I’m hoping to create some dye to help make them pop a bit more. Last week I also brought home a hell horse, I’d like to get a pair and start breeding them. I’ll just have to see how that goes. All in all, it has been a pretty productive week!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

A Love of Steam Screenshots

[23/50]It’s another screenshot dump! This time from my steam library. First up? The Flame in the Flood. This quirky little game is still in beta, but developers have been updating it on a regular basis thanks to feedback from players.

[24/50] Next up? H1Z1 by SOE. now, yes, when I first bought this game it was specifically because it was created by SOE and I was still in love with EQ2 – however, those days are a bit behind me now. That being said, the game is still absolutely breathtaking.

[25/50] Another amazing steam game – Life is Strange. This game.. I just don’t even have words. If you’ve never played it before you should pick it up (especially if you’re into any sort of games with great stories).

[26/50] Of course lets not forget Magicka – the game I spent more time killing my team mates than any other game. Oy.

[27/50] The final one for today, Pillars of Eternity. Another beautiful game with an amazing story.

It Takes a Community to down a Dragon

[19/50] Wurm Online has these massive battles (basically raids) where players go and kill “uniques” on each server. There are rewards for anyone hanging out in the general vicinity of the fight, then there are rewards for all players who land a hit on the unique, and then there are treasures on the corpse that are handled by the organizer of the event. In yesterday’s case, the organizer decided that all loot would be rolled on by those who participated. The crowd gathered at Summerholdt market, and wow, was there ever a crowd.

[20 / 50] In total there were 50 players not counting alts who showed up. People started showing up the night before, but when I got there at 4am PST the crowd was already bustling. Once we gathered at the market we moved to the staging area of the event, which was about 5 minutes away by horse. People generously offered up mounts, along with wagons for those who had come by foot. No one was going to be left behind.

[21/50] These events are a bit more complicated than just going out and killing one of these uniques. Wurm Online has a code built into the system that only allows for a certain amount of people to be actively hitting the target at once. That means in order for everyone to get credit for the kill players are required to take a swing, and then back off to allow for others to take their swing. It’s a fight that requires coordination and cooperation more than it requires anything else. For this fight in specific, there were absolutely no issues, everyone got their hit and moved away. We waited for the all clear, and then swooped in again.

[22/50] GM Renegade even showed up ahead of time while we were staging to chat with players and see how we were all doing. It was a nice little touch. Once the dragon was killed, Booskii generously offered to create potions from the blood we all received. In order to create the potion you need a source salt and you combine it with the blood. For this particular white dragon hatchling we received a potion of frost. This imbues weapons with frost. I was thankful she offered since I didn’t have any source salt on me.

After the kill we all went back home, whatever way we had gotten there to begin with. I was contemplating gating, but I had sailed up in a boat, and I didn’t want to just leave it behind. Thankfully it was a pretty fast trip back home, the entire East Coast is easy for me to travel these days since I can just cut across to Release and travel up that much smaller coastline – then head back to Xanadu, and have traveled the majority of the way. A 1h trip is much preferred over a 8 hour one depending on winds.

I also just want to wave and give a shout out to Kohle who sent me a PM in game mentioning they just recently started reading this blog. It makes me smile when I get these little messages, as most of you know I’ve been playing Wurm Online for over 6 years now, and the community still surprises me almost every day. They’re wonderful people, and it’s a major reason as to why I keep playing. Thank you for that!

Once I made it back to my deeds, it was time to get back to work on the market. The canal dredging is coming along nicely, and I have started my very first bridge. That will be in tomorrow’s post. It’s brick, and it looks stunning.

I also purchased a few more rare tools yesterday, trying to grow my collection (especially blacksmithing). I now own a rare carving knife, small anvil, hatchet, and saw. My priest Maivis owns a rare rope tool and spindle. Unfortunately a purchase I made from the Wurm Online web site didn’t go through, so I’m missing 10 silver, but I’ve put in a ticket and hopefully this week someone can help me out.

In the meantime, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!