Friday, May 23, 2014

Liebster Award

Britney of Bapsicrafts nominated me for a Liebster Award! Thank you so much!

Rules:

  1. Post 11 random facts about myself
  2. Answer 11 questions the awarding blogger has asked
  3. Nominate 11 blogs with less than 200 followers, add their links to this post, and let them know that they have been nominated
  4. Create 11 questions the nominated blogs have to answer

Unfortunately I'm going to have to break the rules somewhat - I'm going to be nominating fewer than 11 blogs because, well, I don't have a large blogroll and several of the blogs I read are rather too large to qualify. (This proves the point and the need of the award, I think - to get people to branch out and discover new blogs to read!) Participating is totally voluntary.

Eleven Things About Me

  1. I was born in Tianjin, China. My father came to the US on a student visa three months after I was born, and my mother and I followed him when I turned two. We all became naturalized ten years later.
  2. When I was little, every few years either we would go back to China to visit relatives for a few weeks in the summer, or we would get a visa for my grandparents to come visit us for a year. My maternal grandmother taught me how to knit during one of these visits, when I was about eight. She taught me the backwards loop cast-on and the knit stitch, and gave me a few balls of scrap yarn and some bamboo skewers to practice on.
  3. I attended Wellesley College, where I met Shoshana, my old Jedi knitting master. Shoshana introduced me to the yarnover, Ravelry and the LYS, in approximately that order.
  4. Monday was my fourth Ravelversary! On May 19th, 2010, Shoshana finally got me to sign up for Ravelry. It's been a wild and wonderful ride ever since.
  5. Judging from my projects page and my favorites, I've gone through a variety of phases in my knitting: a scarf/cowl phase, a fingerless gloves phase, a sock phase, a shawl phase, and most recently, a cardigan phase. I caught the lace bug really early on, however, and have never quite gotten cured.
  6. Blizzard Entertainment just might own my soul. World of Warcraft has been my electrocrack of choice for nearly nine years now, and Diablo 3 and Hearthstone are scarcely less addictive. I'm a semi-hardcore achievement hunter: 18150 achievement points in WoW and 5360 achievement points in D3.
  7. I met Bandit playing WoW - he was my raid leader! That's where his nickname comes from; almost all of his characters have "bandit" in their names.
  8. Bandit is, in all respects, the best enabler a knitter could wish for. (I do wish he had smaller feet though!)
  9. I'm an enthusiast of LARPing, or live-action roleplay - the theatrical variety, not the boffer swords variety. My most elaborate project, and the one I'm proudest of, was knitted for a LARP costume.
  10. I'm currently in the last semester of a master's program in linguistics, pending only the completion and defense of my thesis.
  11. Finally, today (Friday) is Bandit's and my third anniversary together! We had the most wonderful day, which I won't detail here because it would make everyone insanely jealous.

Britney's Questions

  1. Where has most of your yarn been purchased? I actually don't think I have a "majority" source! My first year of knitting, all of my yarn was purchased from Minds Eye Yarns, my first LYS. After that I bought a little from various LYSes, a little from Etsy sellers, a little from big Internet sellers like KnitPicks and Webs... and of course there was the great Jimmy Beans pilgrimage last year.
  2. Do you have a favorite knitting designer? Who are they? My longstanding love for lace shawls means that I keep a close watch on what Romi Hill and Boo Knits publish. I've also gotten onto a pretty serious Kessa Tay Anlin kick recently.
  3. Where do you like to knit the most? Oddly enough... airplanes. I'm on planes quite often, flying back and forth between my place and Bandit's, and there's something about transit that makes it feel like bonus time, like specially-set-aside knitting time. And there's definitely something about knitting that makes the transit feel productive and relaxing, not nerve-wracking and wasted.
  4. What is your current favorite song? This is tough! I think right now it may be "Will Do" by TV on the Radio. It's a song I was listening to quite a lot when I first started getting to know Bandit.
  5. What was the best adventure you've ever had? Probably the weekend road trip to Reno!
  6. What type of knitting/crochet project have you queued or faved the most on Ravelry? Shawls, definitely! I have 69 patterns for those in my faves, out of 158 patterns total. Fingerless gloves comes in second at 23.
  7. If you could only read one book or book series for the rest of your life, which would you choose? Oh no, this is too horrible to contemplate! Culling my beloved books! I do have lots of experience rereading one book over and over and over, so if the choice were made for me, I would probably be fine with whatever it turned out to be.
  8. What is the strangest place you've crafted? I finished knitting my first sweater at a Brahms choral performance at Carnegie Hall. (We were in a private-ish box high up, so only a few people were there to wonder at me.)
  9. Are you an early-bird or a night-owl? Something in between? Definitely a night owl. I've been trying to do better about bedtimes, but in my natural state I routinely go to bed between 2 and 5 AM.
  10. What is one post on your blog that you think everyone should read? Probably the making of Bandit's socks. It explains a lot.
  11. Recommend your favorite restaurant or cafe in your town! If any of you find yourselves in Boulder, treat yourself to dinner at the Dushanbe Tea House! Definitely my go-to place for special occasions.

My Nominations

My Questions

  1. When did you really start getting hooked on crafting? Was there a particular project or technique that sparked the hunger?
  2. What's the most challenging project you've faced down so far? Did you conquer it or did it vanquish you?
  3. Do you like to have something going on in the background while you craft, or do you need stillness and concentration?
  4. What is(/are) the dream tool(s) you would get if you had the money and opportunity?
  5. What's one skill or hobby you've always wanted to pick up?
  6. What are your favorite colors? Least favorite?
  7. What are your favorite foods?
  8. How has technology impacted your crafting?
  9. Is there anyone for whom you will Never Make Anything Again?
  10. What literary character would you most want to be like?
  11. Finally, do you have any exciting plans for the future of your blog?

Enjoy, and let me know if you decide to participate, so I can read your answers!

3 comments:

  1. (1) "some bamboo skewers" The imagery of knitting with bamboo skewers (while, of course, eating kabob-foods off the other end) is awesome.

    (2) Making people jealous by writing about cool things on your blog is basically the purpose of the internet!

    (3) Sure, I'll do it. :D Looks fun.

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  2. I loved reading this! You remind me of a lot of girls I knew who went to school with my husband at an engineering school. They made chainmail items to wear, which I thought was really cool!

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  3. Wow! This is one of the last posts I'm reading in my effort to get caught up with what everyone has been doing (going alphabetically through the list) and I find out that you nominated me for a Liebster Award! Oh my goodness - what a thrill! Thank you - I'll be sure to put your name in lights when I post mine!

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