Affienia – Donated to Equality now with thanks from all the awesome women Joss has written over the years.

akarateka – donated to The International Wolf Center in Ely, MN for all he wolfy character.

Amycat – With a hat in Buffy’s signature style to keep his head warm ^_^

ChickaDKnittr – A serene hat from Saffron to complement his red locks

jennai1 – Ice cream inspired yarn from Dr Horrible’s Penny. Though we all know she prefers fro-yo

kandbpurple – A beautiful doily to symbolise how in touch with his feminine side Joss is.

m0mmacat – A coffee cozy from Xander and Giles so his brew does not go cold while he’s writing.

odettenz – Crochet boots from Harmony to honour the quote “Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.”

PhoenixJanine – Socks from Kaylee to say thank you for her amazing Shindig dress.

The first one was barely noticed.

But then there was a second on.

Something was definitely afoot.  Something very small and terribly cute…

CUTE CRITTER WARS!

The only way to survive it is to KNIT MOAR!

FOR THE HEDGEHOG H.O.A.R.D.E.!!!

(No really, that’s our team name in Cute Critter Wars 2.  Hedgehog H.O.A.R.D.E. Come join us!  You don’t even have to knit hedgies!  But gosh, they’re cute…)

In the end, we had 14 Encyclopedia entries, 16 Discovery, 17 Giving Geeks, 16 Nerdology and 15 Flexible Schedules, for a total of 78 completed projects for the round.  That makes 266 total completed projects for the whole Tourney.  Not too shabby!

Our Team Unity challenge this round was Holmesian fanon, all those little things that fandom as a whole(ish) believe are true but that don’t really come from canon.  Unsurprisingly, the hands down winner was the John Watson/Martin Freeman looks like a Hedgehog meme.

We had 8 hedgehog projects submitted out of the 16 completed Unity projects, which doesn’t even begin to give you the scope of the hedgehog invasion in 221b.  Remember how I said one of our warriors might have bitten off more than they could chew?  Yeah, well, she rocked it.  Aislnn jokingly said she might do all five of the Round 3 challenges with hedgehogs.  Me being the responsible adult I am, I triple dog dared her.  AND SHE DID IT!  Not only did she finish it, she did it in STYLE.

Discovery: a stuffed hedgie made from leftover yarn
Encyclopedia: a brightly colored spring hedgie
Giving Geeks: a donation to Loads of Hope in honor of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle from Team 1 More Page
Nerdology: Hedgehog nunchucks
Flexible Schedule: a whole rainbow of little hedgies!

In recognition of this ridiculous impressive achievement, she received a special honor!

And we weren’t the only ones to notice!  Her rainbow hedges were selected for Best of Round voting for Round 3!  Great work, Aislnn, you crazy thing!

In addition, we completed 11 of the 13 proposed dissertations for the Tourney!  Some beautiful sweaters, some exceptionally fine (literally!) yarn and a couple of really lovely shawls were all created in the name of 221b.  It was wonderful to see all the support and advice shared by everyone to the dissertation candidates this round.  Congratulations to the finishers, and thanks again to the rest of the team for being awesome!

We’re now in the lull time between Tourneys.  We’ll have some administrative changes this time out.  Lunastrixae has stepped up into the role of Team Captain and will be training up Threadbndr as her co-captain.  I’ll still be here as the team’s official blogger, the role I had planned to volunteer for before I got drafted into Leadership!  So expect more interviews, more oddball posts, and plenty more reports from the front!

And almost certainly another hedgehog or twelve…

We’ve also got finished dissertations coming in at a good clip.  Of the fifteen proposals submitted, only one is confirmed not to be completed, so we’re looking for fourteen finished projects this week.  Seven of them have already been submitted, so we are halfway there!  If you’re curious, check out the proposals and finished projects at our thread!

And finally, and perhaps most excitingly, we’re getting more pictures from the shooting of Series 3 of Sherlock!  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

You’re all invited!

Well it is Earth Day, and this was likely my first introduction to the power of environmentalism. I had a very Earth friendly weekend, working to clean up a park on Saturday and now it’s Earth day.

The other reason I bring up Captain Planet is

The catalyst for the entire show. Gaia, spirit of the Earth, who provides the planeteers with power rings. Gaia (Roman: Terra)  is one of the original gods in the Greek Pantheon. The mother of the Titans, and grandmother to the better known Greek gods.  She is one of the first entities in existence. She had children with both the sea (Pontus) and the Sky (Uranus). Gaia is not alone in being an Earth goddess.

Joro is the Norse personification of the Earth. She is also the mother of Thor, resident thunder god.  Danu was considered as the mythic mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann, translated to the children of Danu in Celtic mythology.

Coatlicue is the Aztec goddess, that is the mother goddess, that acknowledges the darker side of the Earth as well. The fact that she wears a skirt of snakes, and a necklace of human hearts, hands, and skulls. Even as she is mother of many Aztec gods, and gave birth to the moon  and stars for example. She is creation and destruction wrapped in one goddess.

Have you been thinking about Earth Day? Remember Nerd Warriors, the power is yours!

Marsha can usually be found, roaming twitter as @1geek2craftall or blogging at One Geek To Craft Them All. She would clearly have been a fire planeteer, she’s already from Brooklyn.

We have 3 TUPs submitted so far. Our theme this month is: “If I ever get back from space I’m going to join Team…” Lemonhalf created some great Orc Slippers, for Team 1Up and a commercial for the game World of Warcraft featuring Chuch Norris round house kicking some orcs. EatMyOxygen knitted a small alien, for Team Paranormal Investigations. And, CarolSch crocheted a gold star, for Team Robbin Good and, in particular for B.A. Baracus of the A-Team who loves to wear gold.

Most of our entries are in Discovery – since the theme for this month was reusing yarn or using left-over yarn. And, we all have a lot of that. (We have 6 entries in that category.) MsJudyMsJudy did what a lot of us probably thought about when reading the theme.  She related it to the Genesis project (Trek). We have 2 entries for each Encyclopedia and Flexible Schedule. The theme for Encyclopedia project is the equinox. EatMyOxygen knitted a really lovely cowl illustrating night and day. For Giving Geeks, EayMyOxygen donated to Habitat for Humanity (Abby of NCIS, Team Squints) and NatureGrl to Mid-Atlantic Horse Rescue (the race horse Barbaro, Team What Happened Was). Nerdology was about “facts” – originally just Chuck Norris factoids but then expanded to other people (that I hadn’t heard of before). I’ve already mentioned Lemonhalf’s Orc Slippers. MizMaggie made a jester cowl and cited “Mr. Norris can rhyme orange and purple, with each other.” EatMyOxygen knitted a ringed planet and cited ” Chuck Norris is the reason why planets explode”. CarolSch crocheted a star and cited “Chuck Norris’ badge in Walker Texas Ranger was an ACTUAL STAR “.

It’s hard to be the first one to post after such a national tragedy.  But as we always have, we go on.  We pick our lives up and move on.  And for a few days, the things we do seem meaningless.  Pointless.  Shallow.

We need to do them anyway.

And as we do them, we will begin to find meaning in them again, in work, in craft, in play.  And eventually, whether quickly or slowly, we will find joy in them again.  This is not in disrespect of those who suffered.  This is not forgetting.  This is life.  We love and care and mourn, but still our lives go on.  And we commit ourselves in those lives, not to forgetting, but to honoring.

Make your lives a memorial to those who have fallen, not just in Boston, but everywhere in the world.

Make something wonderful.

Pyra discussed tricksters among the gods, and there are an equal number of tricksters and clever heroes among folktales. Or maybe hero is the wrong word…  For instance, Gretel, in the story “Clever Gretel” is a cook who, after eating the dinner her master intended to serve a guest, manages to scare off the guest and make her master think that the guest has stolen the chickens. She succeeds because she is lazy, greedy, selfish… In short, all too human, and not so heroic! But her intelligence has given her a way to triumph over adversity, or at least get her out of a scolding. That goal is one she shares with the more godlike tricksters, such as Coyote.

The hero in “The Blue Light” is more of an anti-hero. He’s a soldier, back from the war, but because he has been so poorly treated by society, he decides to take advantage of a magic light he earns that summons a dwarf. This dwarf brings him the king’s daughter, and he doesn’t make her fall in love with him, oh, no. That wouldn’t be nearly enough humiliation. Instead, he makes the princess scrub his floor, clean his boots, in short, act like a servant, the entire time she is with him, and then he has her brought back to her home. He is obviously in the wrong, and has clearly chosen a poor way to rebel against his treatment, especially since the princess was never involved with his fate, but the reader can’t help but feel sympathetic toward his plight, and rejoice when he manages to finagle his way into a kingdom.

There are similar tales of people tricking their way into positions or goods that they haven’t necessarily earned all around the world. American folklore has several such stories. A particular favorite is a tale where Davy Crockett manages to pay for rounds of drinks ten times with the same coonskin. Somehow, he manages to be charming enough that the bartender he cheated is happy about the whole situation! “Puss in Boots” is another classic tale where the main character manages to acquire property and status through deceit. To be fair, however, it is the main character’s cat who is so very clever!

Brains manage to grant an advantage to the hero who has little access to brawn. Though female tricksters are uncommon among myths, they do show up in folktales fairly frequently. Women may not be able to defend themselves physically, but they can keep themselves and their families safe through trickery. “Molly Whuppie” is a great example of this. This young woman manages to trick a giant intent on killing her and her sisters into slaughtering his own daughters instead.  She also manages to steal several valuable items from the giant, and when she is caught, tricks the giant’s wife into taking her place in the sack so the giant will kill his wife instead of Molly. Her great skill and intelligence win her and her sisters royal husbands.

One of my favorite tricksters is actually from Arabic folklore. Everyone has heard of the tale of Ali Baba, the man who follows robbers to their cave and figures out how to open the cave (hint: “Open, sesame!”) to take back great loot. His story is rather straightforward, but toward the end, we hear of his slave girl, Morgiana, who is, luckily for Ali Baba, intelligent and observant. When the band of robbers find out who has stolen their treasure, they go in search of him. Morgiana observes the mark they make to identify the door, and makes similar marks on the other doors in the neighborhood so they can’t find the house again. When the robbers finally hunt down the house, they hide in oil jars as the chief is dressed as an oil bandit. Morgiana discovers the hidden men, boils a large vat of oil, then pours the boiling oil into the jars, killing them all and preventing the ambush. Later, when the bandit leader returns to try and kill Ali Baba alone, it is Morgiana who discovers his task and she dances with a dagger in front of the bandit and Ali Baba, and kills the bandit while he is distracted.

The trickster tales have a wide range of tones. Ali Baba’s story is serious, dramatic up until the very end. Gretel is hilarious as we watch her dupe her unknowing boss. In each story, though, we cheer for the main character to triumph over those of lesser wit, regardless of how heroic, how kind, how good, how many other marvelous qualities they don’t have. It is the inherent power balance that is upset by a non-visible trait that makes these stories such fun. It’s not interesting to watch the big guy beat up on the small guy. It’s wonderful to watch the small guy use his brains to trick the big guy into turning himself into a mouse. Everyone has some aspect of their life where they feel less than, and intelligence is one area where it doesn’t matter how big or small, there’s still the chance that you can pull the wool over someone else’s eyes and triumph.

So, I am happy to say that the recipient of this cute little blueberry Pi is….

icanhasmohair (yay!!!)

Enjoy your little slice of Pi!

And thank you, once again, to millicurie for making this sweet little pi.

Guest: What should I bring?

Me: Whatever or  X is bringing A, Y is bringing B, so bring Z?

There are times when not making a list lead to four desserts, or three kinds of vodka, but all in all we seem to assume that it’s part of our invitation. Bring something big or small and it will be appreciated.  Last night I made the main course and two sides; our guests brought dessert and an appetizer. We all raided our well stocked liquor cabinet, stocked at least partially due to the bottles brought over for parties.

Well in mythology this has a name Xenia, and it was one of the major rules one did not break, the guest/host relationship. With good reason, you never know if that old man traveling is Zeus,  or some other god in the guise of a lowly traveler, or  a wandering stranger. That one eye guy going by the name “Guest”? Really that’s your super secret disguise name Odin? Guest? Fine. Guest it is.

We have the story of Tantalus forever in Tartarus in a pool of water under a tree full of fruit. Every time he reaches for a fruit, it is just out of reach and every he tries to get a drink, the water sinks lower.  What terrible thing did he do? When the gods were over for a feast, he decided, that he would boil his son and attempt to feed him to them. Not only is such a murder one of the worst you could commit, he then compounded it with a breaking of host etiquette. Strike 2 sir.  Why did he do this terrible thing? Because he didn’t think the gods would notice. And you’re out. It’s like he cast all three unforgivable curses in front Aurors and thought nothing would happen. Hubris, Xenia, and filicide, he knew the rules of his culture, and decided they did not apply to him.

On a more positive not Baucis and Philemon hosted  Zeus and Hermes in disguise, after everyone in their town turned away the two travelers. A clear breech of protocol, this older couple took the strangers in and despite not having much served them well. And when they revealed themselves, they took the couple out of town and then destroyed said village. Pays to be polite eh? When they die, they get their wish to die together and are turned into two trees whose branches are forever entwined.

This can also come back to haunt you on a different front. Because once you have a guest there are certain rules you must follow. In the Lokasenna, Loki uses his status as a guest at dinner party to insult most of the Norse gods who currently can’t beat him into a pulp because he is a guest.

Bellerophon another figure in Greek Mythology is inadvertently is saved twice by hospitality, once after his host’s wife accuses him of rape after he turned her down. Since he was already a guest, a ploy is devised, to send him with a message to another. The problem is he is treated as a guest first, so two days later when he opens the message, that says ‘kill the messenger’ its too late. He’s a guest. Also what have we said about killing the messenger? Good messengers are hard to find.

Marsha can usually be found, roaming twitter as @1geek2craftall or blogging at One Geek To Craft Them All. She would be suspicious of any old ladies with roses who made it up her third floor walk up.