Knitting + Nerdery + Christmas = Awesome Ornaments

Most of November and December was spent completing orders and making Christmas gifts, but now that things have started to wind down for the year, I've had time to work on personal stuff. A friend of mine mentioned making knitted Christmas ornaments and I really liked the idea. The only problem was that the usual Christmas decor didn't seem right for Mr Morrgan and me. It didn't take long for a suitable idea to pop into my head, though. What better theme for a pair of long-time gaming nerds than old school gaming geekery!

The first imagery to come to mind was an old classic; the aliens from Space Invaders. It's as if these guys were designed to dance around in a circle in ornament form. And no, I'm not quite old enough to have played this back in the day, though I have some vague memories of having played a remake at some point.

Doom 2, however, I did play back when it came out. We didn't have a PC at home at the time, so I spent many, many school breaks playing it on one of the school computers. Ahh, fun times. Mr Morrgan played (and still plays) it way more than me though, and it was he who suggested I make this guy. He's called Coco the Cacodemon and he's a bit grumpy because I left out his ability to shoot lightning balls when I made him. Thought it'd be safer that way. Don't want a tree on fire for Christmas!

Next up will be another familiar floating face from Doom 2, the pain elemental, possibly a few of his lost soul buddies and finally a bit of D&D nerdery in the form of a Beholder. Then we'll have the most awesome tree in the neighbourhood!

(Note to self: need a tree.)

Introducing Claptrap of Borderlands fame!

Greetings traveller! I am CL4P-TP; you may call me by my locally designated name, 'Claptrap'.

Claptraps are fun little robots you encounter in the Borderlands games. The poor things are often used for target practice and abused in other ways by the bandits of the Borderlands, so I spent much of my playthroughs wanting to give these poor guys a hug. Well, now I can!

Knitted Claptrap and Game Claptrap.

Work on Knitted Claptrap started in 2010. I made decent progress for about two weeks, then Christmas season kicked in in full force and I had little time for extra projects. Alas, after that poor Clapson had to sit on my desk in a semi-finished state for almost two years. When Borderlands 2 was released earlier this year, it inspired me to finish my own little robot!

Then for some oh-so-important numbers and other facts.

• Mr. Claptrap is knitted both flat and in the round, from various DK weight wool blends.
• Special techniques used include intarsia and i-cord knitting.
• He needed a ridiculous total of 40 separate pieces, if I counted correctly.
• He's a respectable 40 cm / 16" tall, making him the perfect size for hugs.
• Working on him gave me a really sore neck on three occasions.

I wanted Claptrap as detailed as I could make him by knitting alone (plus a wee bit of embroidery). I could add a few more details, I suppose, but then I might go insane, so I say he's ready now.

So, what do you think?

Tuesday Finds: Stacking

Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners, have you played a game called Stacking by Double Fine? You should. It's awesome, adorable, wonderfully silly and features nesting dolls!

Red Matryoshka Dolls Burp Cloth by
laundrymonster.etsy.com

Babushka Nesting Doll Pendant by
Fingerprince.etsy.com

Red Matryoshka Necklace by
tetabina.etsy.com

Dinosaur Nesting Doll Eggs by
SavageArtworks.etsy.com

Minecraft

Now for something a bit different than the usual posts on this blog. Today I bring you a game recommendation! The indie game in question is Minecraft and it has given me more excitement and intense adventures than most games I've played recently.

Oh my, look at those huge caverns. Who knows what riches and dangers await inside.

You start off with nothing in a randomly generated HUGE world (apparently the surface area is about 8 times larger than earth) and your goal is simply to survive. It's a bright day and everything is peaceful, maybe with some cows, chickens and such wandering around. However, at night when it's dark, monsters will come out and it's a bad idea to be out in the open at this time. In order to live through it, you'll have to gather some resources and make a few basic tools, so that you can build a shelter lit by torches (light equals safety). You'll want a safe place that the monsters can't get into. Once you have one and have made more tools (including a weapon) and gathered supplies, it's time to start exploring!

Some worlds are snowy ones. Behold my house built on a cliff by the seaside. On the right you can barely see my greenhouse, growing crops for food.

For me, the appeal is two-fold - creative creation and danger-filled exploration. First of all, everything that you have in the game are things you've made yourself. There's a certain pride and satisfaction you get from that, even in a game. You can build a house (or a fort, or a mansion, or an underground lair with a moat of lava...) for yourself, in any shape you wish. You can use a variety of materials and decorate the place with things like paintings and bookshelves. For example, you can collect sand and clay to make glass for windows and bricks for walls, respectively, by heating them in a furnace. Use your imagination to your heart's content. How about a rollercoaster?

The scary scary dark night. The greenhouse is on the left and on the right is a big lighthouse I built because it seemed like a cool idea. I'm also hoping it will help me find my way back as I explore the surroundings. But mostly I built it just because it seemed like a cool idea.

Actually, there's a nostalgic element to this too. The blocky look of the game reminds me of building secret bases and such out of Lego when I was a kid. Back then I'd always run out of pieces before I was finished, but in Minecraft I can go out into the huge world and find more. Awesome.

Mr Morrgan enjoys the game too. Here's his house by the sea, complete with a manmade stream and planted trees and flowers.

Second, the world is full of cool caverns and cave systems to explore and mine for useful things like iron ore. The deeper you go, the better materials you find for making better quality tools, weapons and armor. It's dangerous, as these are dark places and monsters could be anywhere, but oh so exciting. I have had several great adventures in such places.

These waterfalls lead into dark caves below. Dare you go in and explore?

And after a scary adventure in the deep, it's a big relief to get back to your house by nightfall. Then you are safe in your home while zombies and other creepy things roam the land outside, and you can fry some bacon for dinner and work on more tools and weapons for your next expedition while you wait for morning.

Darkness falls and the moon rises as I return to my house just in time before the monsters come out. What a welcome sight.

Well, these are just some examples of the things you can do. If you're interested in the game, you can go to the Minecraft website to get the Alpha version that I have (a beta version should be available soon - yes, the game is actually still unfinished). There's also the older but free Classic version you can try out to see if this is your thing.

Inside Mr Morrgan's house.

You can also check out this series of Minecraft gameplay videos to get a better idea of the experience.

The view from the balcony of my cliffside house.

My Creative Space: Yarn trouble

This week I bring you a tale of woe, misery and broken dreams. And socks.

Remember the beige and green socks I'd just started on last week? Well, that project failed miserably.

It wasn't anything to do with the pattern or the knitting itself. One sock turned out just lovely, and the other was going well. And then I ran out of yarn. Yarn I'd bought about 5 years ago, so I can't get more of it now. Arrrrrgh.


I undid the 2nd sock and started again, making the sock a bit smaller this time. And ran out of yarn again. I then undid the finished 1st sock and am currently making it in the smaller size too. Hopefully there will be enough left over from that to finish both socks, and all this yarn puzzling will result in two fine, albeit smaller than planned socks. Hopefully.

So that's the reason why these socks are still in the works this week.

(Well. That and the fact that I may have gotten myself addicted to Soulcalibur 4 and Borderlands, taking up most [er, all] of my time. Again.)


Want to see the (more successful) creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

Happy 5th!

Barely have we recovered from Christmas and the New Year, when the wedding anniversary sneaks up on us! Eek! It's really been 5 years since our wedding. Where did the time go?


Well, in any case this calls for celebration! And celebrate we shall, by making a delicious dinner together (including the white chocolate panna cottas with layers of coffee pictured above, and fried goat cheese with pear slices and roasted pine nuts) plus having nice drinks and fun co-op gaming with our anniversary present to ourselves, Borderlands. Perfect!

Need a fun, silly game? Also, an announcement!

First, a little announcement. Morrgan's Creatures will be closed for the holidays from Dec 20th 2008 and will fully reopen on Jan 7th 2009. This means my Etsy, Art Fire and DaWanda shops. Patterns will be available from Jan 2nd, the rest from Jan 7th. So, if you want to order something before next year, December 19th is the last day to place it. Just So You Know.

(Hopefully I'll get the chance to visit my blog and yours occasionally during this time. We'll see.)

Now for the fun fun stuff. Are you bored at work sometimes? In need of break?


Let me introduce you to QWOP. This silly little game made both Mr Morrgan and I actually Laugh Out Loud, many many times. How far can you get? (I made it to a whole 53 meters, such a proud moment.)

Tuesday Finds: BioShock

This week's theme might be a more obscure one for many of you. BioShock is a video game that includes some of my favourite concepts: a crumbling underwater utopia, a visual style combining Art Deco and futuristic elements, plus a wonderful soundscape - all mixed together with genetic engineering gone wrong to create a survival horror game. All in all, it's very enjoyable. The screenshots on the right and below will hopefully give you an idea of the atmosphere.













Now, on to this week's finds. The item that started my reminiscing about BioShock is this steampunk wire ring by Catherinette Rings. (The screenshot above will give a clue as to why.) While this ring is the most appropriate for this week's theme, there are so many fantastic rings in a similar style to choose from in the shop that I just can't pick a favourite.
($40, CatherinetteRings.etsy.com)

Next up is a glass pendant featuring a 1933 Chicago World's Fair poster by ArtsNcharms. The pendant is two-sided, with sheet music on the back. In BioShock, you come across lovely Art Deco-style posters like this one, yet another thing I enjoy about the game.
($10, ArtsNcharms.etsy.com)

The third and last find for the week is another beautiful ring, made from an antique silver spoon with an Art Deco design. Revisions Design Studio has many more to choose from as well.
($18.50, Revisions.etsy.com)

Oh my, I've been tagged!

I've been tagged by Heli and need to list 7 random facts about myself. It's my first time, so be gentle. ;)


1. My first ever flight abroad was going to New Zealand for 3 months, travelling alone for 40 hours or so and changing flights 3 times along the way. That's what love does to you. ;) During this trip most people spoke German at me for some inexplicable reason (I'm Finnish), even on the Finnish plane.

2. I have an aquatic strain of bacteria named after me. (No, I didn't name it.)

3. I'm a total fish fanatic. At this moment I have 6 aquariums, two of which are still at my parents' place because they won't fit into our (hubby and I) apartment. At best (or worst, depending on who you ask) I had 8 of them.

4. I've been knitting since I was, well, tiny. I don't even remember when I started, but I know I was too young to read patterns so I just made up my own creatures. There's a huge collection of them now.

5. I'm 168 cm tall (that's about 5'6''), which is pretty much average for a woman around here, I believe. However, I grew up in a family where even my little brother is 30 cm (1 foot) taller than me, so I think of myself as really tiny.

6. One of my mother's nicknames for me is Garfield, because growing up I was always in a horribly grumpy mood in the mornings before my huge cup of morning coffee and I loved lasagna. This behaviour hasn't changed over the years.

7. I love to relax by playing a good computer or video game. I once made a list of completed games, in a sad attempt to find out just how nerdy I am, and the number was 47, with another 50 or so I had played but not yet finished. Our bookshelf has almost as many games as it has books.


So there you have it. I thought it appropriate to post a picture of me (sans head, though, cause I'm shy), although it was mostly to show a purple sweater I found while tidying my clothes closet. I made it a couple of years ago from a wool blend, making it up as I went along, then forgot I had it during the summer. One good thing about having a useless memory (there's fact 8 for you) is that you find fun surprises like these!

Aaaaaaanyway, while you ponder all these deep, dark secrets of mine, go and browse through Heli's shop, because it's awesome!

Lastly, here's the rules of the game for those I tagged in turn:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

And here's the people I have tagged in turn, I hope you want to play!

1. Prairie Daisy Handspun
2. dalinda
3. Mrs. Kwitty
4. Star of the East
5. Pamela Angus
6. La Pomme
7. Paper Flower Girl