Weekly Geeks: Other Passions

During the first fortnight of the Blog Improvement Project I made a resolution to do more participatory stuff. I’d long known of the existence of Weekly Geeks, and after seeing that last week’s topic was my beloved classics I decided it was high time I got involved.

This week’s topic:

This week's Weekly Geek is inspired by Dewey's Knit-a-Long, a mini challenge of Dewey’s Reading Challenge. Dewey had other passions besides reading and blogging. Knitting was one of them. This made me think, what are the Weekly Geek's other passions?

#1. What are you passionate about besides reading and blogging? For example, are you crafty (knitting, woodworking, scrapbooking, model building)? Do you cook? Into gaming (computer or board)? Sports (player or spectator)? Photography? Maybe you like geocaching, rock climbing? Or love attending events like renaissance fairs, concerts? Music? Dancing? You get the idea. Tell us why you're passionate about it. Post photos of what you've made or of yourself doing whatever it is you love doing.

#2. Get us involved. Link to tutorials, recipes, Youtube videos, websites, fan sites, etc, anything that will help us learn more about your interest or how to do your hobby. Maybe you'd like to link to another hobbyist whose work you admire or tell us about a book or magazine related to your interest.

#3. Visit other Weekly Geeks. Link in your post to other Geeks who've piqued your interest in their passion. Or maybe you might find a fellow aficionado among us, link to them.

1.
I’ve seen the term “magpie” in a few responses and that fits me, too - I dabble in lots of things but often not for long at a time. Crochet, embroidery, bead jewellery-making, sewing, painting ... I can turn my hand to just about anything creative. But since it was Dewey who started Weekly Geeks I can’t not showcase my knitting. I have two works in (very slow) progress; it’s been a lamentably long time since I’ve applied fingers to needles. One is a sock to match one that’s been lying in my knitting basket since October, and the other is a black sweater that I must get going on soon if I want to have it ready for winter.

The first knitting project I ever finished was a big blue scarf on huge needles. When wrapped around my neck, the ends reach almost to my knees! The one of which I’m most proud are these ankle socks, done on skinny metal double-points when I’d never previously knitted anything more complicated than, well, a scarf.



Only for my fellow bloggers would I don winter woollies in February!

Another artistic thing I do is create fractals. I can’t even remember how I got started - I think I stumbled upon a fractal creation program on the internet on night and thought it sounded fun. Which it is. I’m considering maybe starting a new site to display them once I’ve accumulated some more images.







And I’m addicted to the puzzles page of the newspaper, especially the cryptic crossword. I rarely manage actually to finish a cryptic, but I still love them.

2.
Knitty.com. I love browsing the patterns here and wishing I had the time and patience to knit a lot more. My sweater-in-progress is a Knitty pattern, and I highly recommend their Universal Toe-up Sock Formula. With a few simple calculations you can make socks with any weight wool, on any size needles, for any size feet.

The Infinite Fractal Loop at Fractalus has a huge list of links to galleries of fractals. They also have a list of programs to download. The one I use is Tierazon, which I think is still floating around the web somewhere, though its homepage has disappeared.

3.
Julie P at Booking Mama is another knitter - one who also does felting. I’ve read articles about felting but never tried it - it’s on my vague mental list of things I must try one day.

Alessandra and Gautami are fellow puzzle addicts.

And Lynda is learning Italian, which I dream of doing even though I’m a dunce at foreign languages!