......©Jm3...... And certainly no one crochets an Atari in a day, either. Fiber arts of any variety are a fairly time consuming pastime. There are rare exceptions, of course, but for the most part the time it takes to complete a project is measured in hours at least, but marking time in weeks, months, or in some cases even years isn't uncommon. Even the swiftest stitchers can't whip out enormous shawls or afghans in a day.
So you may wonder why on Earth we'd use some of our precious crafting time to do anything else? The answer is simple; the internet is an evil place.
Maybe "evil" is too harsh, but certainly it's a temptation. Because I'm the consummate enabler, I'll show you just how tempting it can be. At the end of the blog, those wishing to tar and feather me for sucking up your entire afternoon may form a line to the right.
So you may wonder why on Earth we'd use some of our precious crafting time to do anything else? The answer is simple; the internet is an evil place.
Maybe "evil" is too harsh, but certainly it's a temptation. Because I'm the consummate enabler, I'll show you just how tempting it can be. At the end of the blog, those wishing to tar and feather me for sucking up your entire afternoon may form a line to the right.
©Jazbeck Late last week the new edition of Knitty went live. I love Knitty. It has hits and misses (and oh, dear deities are some of the misses so fabulously odd), but as a reliable source of mostly quality free online knit and crochet patterns, it's always a winner in my book. This particular edition has quite a few truly lovely offerings, including a sweater I plan on making ASAP: Krydda. Now, as Murphy's Law's slightly lesser known cousin, Crafter's Law, states: No matter how many supplies you have, the ones you need will never be in your stash, I of course didn't have a long enough size 9 circular to cast on immediately with, despite having the perfect yarn.
To assuage my disappointment, I clicked around Knitty some more, finally landing on their blog. This would later be known as The Day I Forgot The World Existed. Reading through some past entries, I found a link to this game: 2048: Sheep to Sweater Edition. It's a version of 2048, which for those of you who haven't seen it before is a fairly straightforward matching game, within a grid, with a slide-puzzle twist. You use your arrow keys to move the blocks around the grid, matching pairs of numbers, which then combine into one tile with the newly doubled number on it. When you reach 2048 on one tile, you win.
Now, that sounds dauntingly like math, but as the newer versions prove, the numbers are fairly irrelevant. In the edition Knitty linked to, instead of numbers the tiles are fiber-related images, beginning with a sheep and, presumably, ending with a sweater.
I say "presumably", because DAYS of time wasting later, and I still haven't advanced past yarn. On the bright side, my frustration over having to wait to cast on that sweater seems pretty paltry in comparison.
Having no desire to stop trying, I did start to wonder what other craft-themed games might be out there. I haven't given many of these more than just a cursory trial, so I in no way guarantee that they are as addictive as 2048: Sheep to Sweater Edition. Maybe, though, that's a good thing?
I hope someday to have a part two to this entry, but I hope even more that you all will leave your thoughts in the comments below! Did you try one of the games? Was it fun, or so awful it was good, or just awful? Do you have another game you like to waste your day with? Share it with us! Just beware; we may not thank you for your contributions. But sometimes it's fun to sit back and cackle while friends are sucked into the black hole that is an addictive online game.
Remember, the tar and feathering line forms to the right.
To assuage my disappointment, I clicked around Knitty some more, finally landing on their blog. This would later be known as The Day I Forgot The World Existed. Reading through some past entries, I found a link to this game: 2048: Sheep to Sweater Edition. It's a version of 2048, which for those of you who haven't seen it before is a fairly straightforward matching game, within a grid, with a slide-puzzle twist. You use your arrow keys to move the blocks around the grid, matching pairs of numbers, which then combine into one tile with the newly doubled number on it. When you reach 2048 on one tile, you win.
Now, that sounds dauntingly like math, but as the newer versions prove, the numbers are fairly irrelevant. In the edition Knitty linked to, instead of numbers the tiles are fiber-related images, beginning with a sheep and, presumably, ending with a sweater.
I say "presumably", because DAYS of time wasting later, and I still haven't advanced past yarn. On the bright side, my frustration over having to wait to cast on that sweater seems pretty paltry in comparison.
Having no desire to stop trying, I did start to wonder what other craft-themed games might be out there. I haven't given many of these more than just a cursory trial, so I in no way guarantee that they are as addictive as 2048: Sheep to Sweater Edition. Maybe, though, that's a good thing?
- Shaun the Sheep has a section of their website dedicated to sheepy-game goodness. They do cost money and must be downloaded, rather than played online, and of the four main games they are available on various platforms. The new version of Home Sheep Home 2 is adorable, though costly at $10.00 to download for PC. A free-to-play online version of the first edition can be played here.
- Woolski, sadly only available for iOS, is available free via iTunes, and looks gorgeous.
- There are always the ubiquitous online jigsaw puzzles, which invariably have tons of beautiful images to choose from. Many of these are craft related, and most sites even offer a customize option that allows you to make a puzzle out of any digital image. My favorites are this squid tree yarn bombing, and this crocheted crochet hook. You can search most jigsaw sites for tags such as knitting and crochet, or even yarn or sheep, and get a pretty diverse selection of images to work from!
- Finally, there's this deceptively difficult gem: Sue Knitting Game. It's not in English, and years of high school Japanese are only helping me insofar as I can fairly confidently say it's not Japanese. After much trial and error, what I CAN tell you is that you use your left and right arrow keys to move the knitting along and space bar to swap between colors to recreate the colorwork pattern in the background. But I wish I knew more! It's got that wacky old-school video game vibe, and isn't little Sue the cutest widdle knitter you ever did see? Plus, it's way harder than it appears. Who would have thought, especially since you don't even have to weave in ends?
I hope someday to have a part two to this entry, but I hope even more that you all will leave your thoughts in the comments below! Did you try one of the games? Was it fun, or so awful it was good, or just awful? Do you have another game you like to waste your day with? Share it with us! Just beware; we may not thank you for your contributions. But sometimes it's fun to sit back and cackle while friends are sucked into the black hole that is an addictive online game.
Remember, the tar and feathering line forms to the right.
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