November 30th: Wrapping up

It would have been awfully poetic to have finished the Amelia Cardigan on the last day of PostEveryDayvember. But I didn't. I attached 3 of 14 buttons and have the rest of the button holes lined up. When push comes to shove, I don't know bupkis about sewing, even buttons. So I just do my best! Here's the three. I've lined up the button holes with split ring markers.


So this posting every day project has been really interesting. I've learned a lot. I've learned that I don't have the content to post every day and come close to being interesting. I maybe have content for twice a week, if I'm lucky. I've learned that that light in this house is crap for taking photos, particularly at 10:30 pm, which is when I seem to post these things. And I've learned that I make a lot of declarations and then ignore them. Silly. But I kept to the 30 days and I don't think I missed any, even if a few are pretty half assed. So that's good.

November 29th: plans

Pants and I went shopping in the greater Seattle area today. That entails a car trip at least 3 hours round trip. Which isn't bad, because Snoqualmie Pass is a beautiful place to drive through. Particularly by the light of the full moon shining on the snow capped mountains tonight. But what I'm getting at is I'm tired. Wiped out.

We headed to a big fancy mall we'd never gone to before, and I realized a creepy stalker moment as I recognized a knit blogger as we passed in the mall. But the mall trip itself was pretty successful, in that we picked up a few gifts and worked out plans for most of the rest of them. Unfortunately, this entails my knitting a couple more of Secret Projects First and Second, making for Secret Projects Fourth and Fifth. And I don't think I can manage it with just stash yarn. I'll just have to buy some more. Woe is me.

But I'm getting into the holiday spirit. Pants and I got some Christmas candy the other day. This Santa shaped treat had us a little perplexed... in that its Santa shape was not so much accurate.


Pants gives the candy a lukewarm endorsement - "It wasn't bad... it's what was advertised." Meanwhile, my peanut butter tree was very tasty. But I love chocolate and peanut butter, so go figure.

Stay tuned for tomorrow, where I (hope to) post photos of a sweater with buttons and reflect on this post every day business. Riveting!

November 28th: Choosing

So I'm mostly done with First Christmas Project. Since it's a felting project, it knits up super quick and is a ton of fun to knit. Size 13 needles will do that.

I've picked out yarn for my Third Christmas Project (Second Christmas Project is the same as the First, but different colors and size). I'm really excited because I decided to use my Zauberball. This will be my first time working with a one ply sock yarn. Should be interesting! I am feeling a deep seated need to rewind it out of its fancy ball into a center pull cake. Because then I can knit from both ends of the ball and do two socks at a time - which I love to do.


The color of the Zauberball is great. So very green! I'm excited to see how it knits up with the pattern I've chosen.

November 27th: Holiday Spirit

Now things get a little tricky on the knitting front. I've started, and am about halfway though, one Christmas gift, but I'm not going to show it. Because that would be telling. (2 points if you can read my mind, identify the inflection in that last sentence, and guess the reference.) What I can tell you is that we decked the halls today.

Okay. One hall. Mostly the living room. Mostly our 3' tree. This tree is an upgrade from last year. Last year we have an 18" tree that we bought at Goodwill, with some ornaments still attached. The two years before that? Well, we decorated our oversized Winnie the Pooh. So a 3' artificial tree represents a substantial step forward in the realm of having a grown-up Christmas. Here's the full length photo of the Christmas area of the house.


That's stockings on the tv sideboard and Christmas tree on the table. The tree is decked with various ornaments we've accumulated, surrounded by a felt tree skirt, topped by a mini-santa hat. Here's a better shot of the tree, minus Santa hat, plus adorable cat.


Time to get in the spirit!

November 26th: New socks

There are a lot of things I'm thankful for. But I'm not going to speak to that today, not really. I hope you had a calm and fulfilling Thanksgiving holiday, or just a truly excellent Thursday (for those of you not in the US). Our holiday was quiet. We went to go see Fantastic Mr. Fox (which is really good, by the way, and very much a Wes Anderson film). Since I like to keep my hands busy at a film, I cast on a sock.

I chose a yarn that I had picked up one day at Joanns. I don't usually shop at Joanns; at this point I'm a pretty hardcore yarn snob, but I was engaging in retail therapy after a dentist appointment and noticed on an endcap Premier Yarn's Deborah Norville's Serenity Sock Weight. Why Deborah Norville has her own line of yarn, I do not understand. But the fiber content is 50% superwash merino, 25% bamboo, and 25% nylon. And it was like $3.50 for 230 yards, so $7 for a pair of socks? Not bad.*

So today I cast on 28 stitches at the toe and increased to 68 stitches around. I'm using size 2 needles - maybe 2.5; they're 3mm anyway. The fabric produced at this gauge is decidedly a bit loose, so I think smaller needles would be better. I'm really surprised and pleased with how this is knitting up. The bamboo gives it a silkiness and a drape which is lovely. The fabric is very soft. And the self-striping/self-patterning is fairly subdued in the purple spice colorway I chose. So far I'm really enjoying it! I'm surprised.



And also? I am loving this whole casting on thing. I cast on for this sock and a Christmas gift today. Wheee....


*Note: I would not, under most circumstances, pay $7 for a pair of socks from the store. But for sock yarn this is a good deal. So it goes.

November 25th: Button quandry

I got out of work early, so I went down to the single sewing shop in town to look for buttons. I bought some buttons that I normally wouldn't. They're very pretty buttons, but, well, I'm just not sure. Tell me, what do you think?




I finished the sweater tonight. Everything except sewing on the buttons. It's blocking upstairs. When I tried it on before blocking... it was a solid size too small. I've got it blocking very aggressively, pinned out to measurements that ought to fit me. But, I'm very concerned. And upset too. And I know I have no one to blame but myself. One of these days I'll learn the value of a thorough swatching process. Hopefully by my next sweater project. And, let me tell you, I have my eye on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Green Sweater. I fell in love with it when it was featured in the Twist Collective, and I look forward to owning the pattern and knitting my own. At the proper gauge.

But maybe the blocking will prove enough. I should know in a few days, when it's dry.

November 24th: Neckband

I've bound off the body of the Amelia Cardigan and started in on the neckband. Which, actually, shouldn't take very long. I am, however, becoming very concerned about the size of this cardigan... The yarn needs to grow during blocking for it to fit properly.

The camera flash washes out the black pretty severely. The neckband isn't much to look at, but it's quite a step.


And look what I picked up! 13 issues of The Workbasket from 1949 to 1958. Lots of great ads and a variety of patterns. I couldn't resist.

November 23rd; Mail call

I walked in the door from work and discovered the kitchen table covered in packages, most of them weighing down the newly arrived art for the living room (mildly NSFW). I swapped out the packages for cookbooks and hurried to open them all up.

First was a package from Knitpicks replacing the cable that broke. Thanks knitpicks! Second was a package containing vintage knitting and crafting magazines that I had swapped for. The new issue of Interweave Knits arrived too.


Most exciting was the box from the knittyboard secret pal I'm participating in. The idea of this one is that you gift from what you have on hand, with minimal outside purchases. It seems to me that this leads to spoiling your downstream more extravagantly than SPs where you are to spend X amount. I know my upstream certainly went all out for me. Ohmigod.

Okay. I've been receiving recipe cards in the mail all along, which has been neat. And today this big box comes. So. Check this out. These are the packages inside the box. It took three tries to get my cat out of frame


On top of the box there's a letter, a story really, which tells the story of Alfie, the little frog in Denver. Alfie is lonely and wants a friend. He thinks of all the things friends can do. Eventually he mails himself to me! The packages are all matched up to bits of the story. Pants read the story aloud to me and I opened each package as we came to it.

This is Alfie:


And these are the rest of the things in the package (notice cat creeping into frame again):


I am beyond spoiled. This package contained, in order of opening them:
- Alfie, the frog who wants a friend
- Cookie cutters and a cookie cook book
- Hot chocolate mix
- Three boxes of fancy chocolates
- A fantastic guide to home decorating from 1950
- A project bag
- Stitch markers
- Two hanks of Noro Kureyon Big (Not sure what to make. Something felted, perhaps?)
- A ball of Opal sock yarn
- A hank of Sheared Bliss Fibers own handspun in a lightish fingering weight (I think maybe a scarf or shawlette)
- 4 ounces of Sheared Bliss Fibers wool roving, dyed with Black Walnut and cochineal.

Which leads me to the conclusion that my spoiler is the one and only ShearedBliss (or visit her etsy shop)! Thank you, Angela!

Alfie has found a home with the Thrifty Critter:


Once I got him away from the cat, who loves him in her own way...

November 22nd: Doubt

I got up this morning, bought a coffee, and settled in to knit and catch up on some shows. I knit while playing a board game with Pants. I knit while watching The Apartment (I didn't love the movie, but Jack Lemmon is very entertaining). So I got quite a bit of knitting done.


That's somewhere over 5 inches from where I attached the sleeves. And I just started binding off the neckline.


But I'm very concerned. I tried on the cardigan this morning. And despite adding in several stitches at the top of the sleeves, it's still very tight. I am crossing my fingers and toes that I can gain at least an inch in them during blocking. And I'm hoping the problem is just my sleeves, and not the whole thing. Watch and find out in the coming week...

November 21st: In the Kitchen

I have not knit a stitch all day. I got a call at 8:40 (I was asleep at the time, mind you) asking if I could move my hair appointment for the morning up a half hour. Okay, I can do that. So I get moving and grooving, Pants gets moving and grooving. We leave the house, go to the bank, then to the hair appointments.

We went to the local cosmetology school for haircuts, since they only charge $6 a cut. I got a trim and bangs! No photos yet, but trust me, they're cute. Pants just wanted a hair cut, but the student was a little unsure about the whole thing and his appointment took an hour. Yikes.

Grab lunch, check out St. Vinnie's, then go grocery shopping. Because I have plans. Dinner plans. And they involve Julia Child. I get the necessary ingredients and we head home.

I head into the kitchen where I bake some snickerdoodles out of my old Betty Crocker book. Pants tells me he doesn't like snickerdoodles, but he'll eat them. But when I give him one, he's confused. For some reason, he was under the impression that snickerdoodles are rice crispy treats with peanut butter on top. Odd.


For dinner, I decided to make potage parmentier or leek and potato soup, from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The grocery store only had onions, but Julia says regular onions are okay, too. And darn if that isn't a delicious soup. A bit thin to our sense of soup, but deliciously tasty.


I wanted to cook something out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking because, in the last month, I read both Julia Child's My Life in France and Julie Powell's Jule and Julia. My Life in France is fantastic - Julia shines through every page and it's fascinating. I read it in 48 hours on a business trip. I felt rounding it out by, you know, actually cooking something would be appropriate. And so it was.

November 20th: Friday!

And thank goodness for Friday. This week has just been exhausting. But it's Friday, so that meant time to kick back and enjoy the simple things in life.

Like Mac n' Cheese with Bacon. And Fraggle Rock.


Followed by knitting. And Fraggle Rock.


Followed by a two hour nap. Boy I sure know how to go crazy once the work week is done.

After my nap, I was really excited to watch the finale of this season's Project Runway. My favorite designer didn't win, but all three collections were nice. Project Runway is far superior to Bravo's replacement for it: The Fashion Show. The Fashion Show lacked something important that I can't put my finger on. You know, not that I can sew worth a darn. :P

November 19th: Nothin'

I got nothing. Knitting content is slim. I've made maybe 1.5" progress on the sweater, so that's quite dull. I went to knitting group tonight and wandered the store, wishing I could buy yarn, but knowing that I have zero need for new yarn right now.

Work was alternately crazed and calm. I spent quiet time photo editing and crazy time giving tours to a foreign dignitary (for real!) and setting up for a guest speaker.

So... here's a photo of my cat. Staring at you and sticking out her tongue.

November 18th: All together now

Eek! I almost forgot to blog! And where would we be then? Where I ask you? I was so caught up in the finale of America's Next Top Model that I almost missed it (shush, ANTM is a fine show and I'm not afraid to admit it).

Yesterday, as things were breaking right and left, I attached the sleeves to my cardigan body. I'm currently working on the raglan decreases; I'm about 1.5" into them. As I laid out the cardigan on the kitchen table to take a photo of it, I got a little worried - the body is looking kind of short, but I swear it measured what the pattern said it should. Maybe it's just the comparatively longer sleeves confusing me...


Of course, it looks okay from the angle I photographed it at. Go figure. :P

Now, in confidence, I am having urges. Urges, I tell you. Urges to cast on for new things. Urges to start new projects. But I must stifle them. I know I said that I would finish every thing I'd started before casting on, but in the face of my decision to knit for Christmas, I think I need to amend that somewhat. I will cast on no new personal projects until the ones I have are finished. I will work only on existing projects up to and through next week Thursday (Thanksgiving). After that, I may cast on for and knit Christmas gifts. Luckily for me, family won't be visiting until two weeks after Christmas, so there's some extra time.

And, in the meantime, I'm cautiously optimistic about finishing this sweater by next Thursday.

November 17th: Everything's falling apart!

Ack! Everything is falling apart! It started a couple of weeks ago when the zipper pull on my Knitpicks Options Case fell off. Just... broke and fell off. Oh well, I thought, I can just move the slider back and forth. Annoying, but still functional. Well! Then, this weekend, the slider just breaks apart. *poof* I can no longer close the zipper.


This is what's left of the slider thingy.

I contact Knitpicks and they are quick to respond and mail me a new one. I was going to wait and mention it once I receive the replacement, but then two (2!) things busted tonight.

First: One of my 40" options cables pulls apart. This is not quite a *poof* moment because I was pulling on the cable from the needle end. Still, I did not appreciate that breaking. I'll be letting knitpicks know what happened, but it's probably more in the realm of user error than defective item. Thankfully I didn't drop any stitches.


Second: One of my favorite stitch markers went poof. This is what they look like:


But this is what one of them now looks like:


The bending is my fault. Inexplicably, the bead portion just fell off! It's still whole, so I tried to force it back on, and cannot. I guess the marker is technically still functional, but it's gonna catch on everything now. :P


I mean, really, what the hey? I understand things break, but this is all going down at the same time. The needle broke on my first row of joining the sleeves of the Amelia cardigan to the body. The stitch marker went sometime in the next couple of hours. Yeesh. Here's to hoping everything stays in one piece tomorrow.

November 16th: FO: Pink Granite socks

More knitting! I call these my Pink Granite socks because the pink and the grey reminds me of stone.


I knit these on size one needles using J. Knits SuperwashMe Sock. These are a basic toe-up stockinette sock. My go to movie theatre knitting. In fact, according to Ravelry, I started these on May 10th of this year.


The first sock was knit with a short row heel. The second one got an afterthought heel - I got to the heel point just before we left for the movie, so I decided to put in some waste yarn and have different heels on the sock. Not a big deal, since these aren't gift socks. But I definitely think I like the short row heel better.


It's amazing how hard it is to get a decently lit picture in this house. I went out to our mudroom and brought out my sheepskin rug to cover the grody carpet that's out there. The light lasted about as long as I took photos for. Maybe on a day when the sun is actually out....

November 15th: Mom's lap blanket

I started knitting during the summer of 2004. I told my mom and learned that she used to knit. I was really excited about this. So for Christmas that year I bought her a pair of size 8 needles and two hanks of what I think might be bulky weight Blackberry Ridge Kaleidoscope from The Sow's Ear back in WI. Shortly after, she borrowed a pair of size 15 needles from me and cast on as many stitches as the long needle could hold and began knitting back and forth. She'd work on this every once in a while, but mostly it was held in a cupboard where the cats couldn't reach it.

She knit continental. I never really caught onto continental.

In July of 2007, my mom was killed by a drunk driver. As I dealt with her estate in the month that followed, I found the lap blanket she'd started. I took it back to Washington state with me and knit on it some. I finished the first ball of yarn and began knitting from the second. I would only knit a row or two at a time, and then put it away.

It felt like a connection to her.

But now I've finished it. I bound off the edge I finished with a crochet loop to differentiate it from the cast on edge. The finished lap blanket is really more of a shoulder shawl. It's wide, but not that long. It sits nicely around my shoulders. Or over my lap if I'm curled up on the couch.

I have mixed feelings about having finished it. But it's done.

November 14th: Girth

I finished knitting and cast off my mom's lap blanket while playing Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo with Pants. I did a crocheted bind off. I wasn't sure what size crochet hook to use. I figured I should use something about the same as the needles I was using. So I grabbed the biggest crochet hook I have - my selection isn't great, though it's not bad - and went for it.


I maybe should have gone with my second biggest crochet hook. That's the hook I used, the size 15 knitting needle I had been knitting with, and a standard #2 pencil for scale. That hook? Is behemoth. It worked, but it was not the easiest way to do it. Lesson learned.

I think I'll go weave in the ends and watch some Ghost Hunters. I'll start the heel on my sock as well, I think. I slept in until nearly 11am this morning, so I might be up for a while...

November 13th: To Washington!

Pants and I just finished watching Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for the first time ever. It's a wonderful film.

I spent the movie (except our break for popcorn - I <3 my Whirley-Pop) knitting on my mom's lap blanket. I'm very nearly done. I need just to finish the row I'm on, and I think then I'll move to a crochet loop bind off. I think I'll just wing it.


Size 15 needles.... what size crochet hook do you suppose I ought to use to bind off?

November 12th: Long day

When I'm really tired, my legs feel tired. I don't know how else to explain it than my legs feel tired, and I get spazzy if I can't put them in a comfortable position. I've got that kind of tired now.

It's been a long day. Up before sunrise, run around right before I have to head out the door because I've lost track of time. Busy day at work, with at least three crises, and I end up staying 9 hours instead of my usual 8. Run home, dinner with Pants, then off to knitting. Knitting for a couple of hours, which flies by. Then home where Pants and I pick out art for our living room walls. This takes two hours. So it's 10:30 now and I have some time to think about blogging. And I am just weary. Mostly in my legs, but I think I'll fall asleep pretty quickly.

Anywho. At knitting tonight I bought a pattern. A pattern I was going to mention, but since I am thinking about knitting Christmas gifts from it, I had perhaps better not mention it. Initially, I'd planned not to knit much in the way of Christmas gifts, but I'm feeling pretty broke right now and knit gifts are sounding better all the time. We'll see how this all shakes out.

Also, I'm at 13.5" on my sleeves. I need 18". According to the pattern, I'm nearly done with the increases, but I think I'll be adding more for a better fit. It's good to see progress.


It's funny though - I'm fixated on this sweater, but I'm almost done with two of the other wips. My socks just need a heel. Just one short row heel. And the lap blanket can't be more than a couple of hours away from done. And I'm working on this sweater. Maybe it's the onset of winter. I guess it's supposed to snow tonight/tomorrow.

November 11th: Tangled Mess

Today is a state holiday - schools and state employees have the day off of work. A good day for tackling those projects you let go. One such project was to clean up my scrap yarn bag.

To be clear, I have two bags of scrap yarn. One is for sock and laceweight, the other is for everything else. The everything else bag is the problem.


No, really, look at that mess.


And that was even after I'd pulled out some of the more well behaved balls of yarn. It took about 10 minutes of detangling, but eventually I got it sorted out and looking more like this:


Ah. Much better. I have two scrap yarn projects percolating in my brain. The first is barely worth mentioning. I need a coaster. See, we decided we need to respect our furniture, now that we've got a few pieces worth respecting, and coasters are part of that. We have this great set of coasters that are red with white flowers in the center, but they're also curved up at the edges. Which is great for juice glasses and whatnot. But I favor large nalgene style bottles or large pottery mugs which don't sit nicely on the pretty little cup holders. Thus, I need to knit some coasters.

The second project I am contemplating is a felted cat bed, ala Kitty Pi minus (probably) the fun fur. This would lighten the scraps load considerable like, I think. The cat clearly has a fondness for knitted things. Why just today she was scaling Mount Blanket.


Mount Blanket features my last stashbusting effort, the ugly afghan and a wonderfully warm shawl gifted to me by my friend Laura.

November 10th: Forearms

I took today off of work. Pants and I ran some errands, but were thwarted by long waits at our primary objective - the Department of Licensing. So we still need to update our addresses with them. Le sigh.

One thing we did accomplish was cashing in our coins at the Coinstar machine. We got an Amazon gift certificate with the money. Apparently, there's a promotion right now where if you cash in $40 or more of coins, you can send in for an extra $10 Amazon gift certificate! That's awesome!

While I didn't use today's certificate for knitting related purchases, I do have my eye on a number of knitting books. Knitting in Plain English and The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques, notably. I want to get a better technical understanding of this knitting thing. I have a pretty good functional grasp, but feel that a good solid grounding in the technical will improve my finished projects considerablelike.

Catching up on reality shows and watching Brazil has resulted in sleeve growth. My forearms are substantially covered, now. I think there's some more watching of things in the plans for tomorrow, so I am expecting further growth.

I don't have a new photo for today, so here's a photo - taken by webcam - of the view from the 9th floor of the tower at the Catamaran Resort in San Diego. I stayed there overnight a couple of weeks ago when I presented at a conference. The weather is turning downright cold around here, and San Diego was nice and warm, but not too warm.

November 9th: Cookies

Today, I made cookies. I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from this recipe. And I wore my brand new apron, which I mentioned yesterday.

But what fun is wearing a classically styled apron if you don't go full 1950s housewife on it?


I'm even wearing pearls (oops, I wrote purls first) and heels. The heels lasted through about the middle of actually baking the cookies. Then I switched to slippers. :D

The oatmeal in the cookies really bulks out the batter. You get about 40 cookies per batch. Also, this batch and the previous are the first times I've used honest to goodness butter in baking. I was raised on margarine, what can I say? But butter cookies are so rich and decadent.


I'm not 100% with the consistent sizing of cookies either. But as far as I'm concerned, it's not the way they look, but the way they taste.


The last few cookies spread out too much and got kind of caramelized/crispy. Pants didn't care for them, but I like them. When I was done, into the cookie jar go the cookies. And we have, in my opinion, a truly excellent cookie jar.


It's not bigger on the inside, unfortunately.

No knitting yet, but I think I'll stay up a bit and work on my sleeves once this is posted.

November 8th

Today's knitting amounts to about 4 inches of garter and stockinette. Not very interesting photo material. I lazed about. Caught up on some shows in the morning, finished a book and napped midday. And in the afternoon we finished unpacking and picked up in the play room. We still need some furniture in there - there's just one shelf. But it's a start.

I decided to take most of my yarn out of the fabric cubes that the cat destroyed and display it openly. We keep the door closed, so the cat doesn't have access.

This is the sock yarn and books:


Looking at it makes me want to cast on for something. That mini-mochi in front calls to me. And the Fleece Artist and the Zauberball are enticing as well. But first I must complete the projects I have going on - it's for the best. And I fear that's going to take rather a long while at the pace I'm going. But Wednesday is a holiday, and I think I'll take Tuesday off too, depending if anything comes up tomorrow.

November 7th: Still not knitting

Nope, no knitting today either. I got up at 6:15 because I had a meeting at work this morning. On Saturday, yeah. It was done by 10:15 and I reclaimed my sewing machine (which was still at work from the last time I used it) and headed down to the local fabric shop.

You see, I want to make an apron. More appropriately, I want to HAVE an apron. A particular apron. This Apron. (This apron was featured in a post on Cake Wrecks a while ago.) I became obsessed with this apron. A friend tracked down the exact sewing pattern for it and I promptly bought it from eBay.

So I get to the local fabric shop and tell the woman inside that I have this pattern and no idea about anything else.

Have I mentioned that I have never sewn from a pattern in my life? Also, I don't sew much at all in general? Anyway.

The woman at the shop is very helpful. But I have sticker shock. Most of the fabric is $9/yard. Especially the fabric I like. So I back out. I'm pretty sure I'm going to maul the thing, so I'd rather not use $9/yard fabric.

In the afternoon, Pants and I head down to Yakima. We hit up the fabric stores. Fabric costs less, but it's still pretty expensive and I'm not in love with anything exactly. That doesn't prevent me from wandering back and forth for an hour muttering. Eventually, we leave empty handed. We go next door to Goodwill. I find this:


Fabric! For $1.99! Does it look like an old bed sheet? Because that's what it is. But I like it and I feel thrifty all at the same time. And sheepish. I feel a little sheepish about the three fabric stores and hours spent muttering.

Then we go to Target. And darned if I don't find an apron there that's nearly what I wanted, and in a fabric I like to boot. Yeesh.

November 6th: Not so much knitting

I knit, like, three rows on my sleeves today. And that's all the knitting that happened. I unpacked the rest of my yarn and related materials, but this is not about that either.

You see, the husband and I are Nerds. With the capital N. Mister Comfypants recently bought Dune: The Board Game at the local Goodwill. This game, despite being very nerdy, in a beat up box, and 25 years old, had all of its gameplay pieces. And there are a lot of them.


(I would have included one with my knitting in it, but, look! Patrick Stewart!)

Here we are, after starting the game. Reading the rules took nearly an hour. You can see we are playing the game, and yet Mr. Pants needs to consult, NOT ONE, BUT TWO sets of rules to figure out what's going on. It's a complicated game. But, actually, surprisingly, a good game. It captures the intrigue, which is unusual for a movie tie in.

Knitting content tomorrow, I swear.