Episode 6: First Cons

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Part I: Geeky Stuff

Administrative Stuff:

• Thanks to the podcasts CraftLife & KnitKnit Cafe for running our promo recently
• Thanks to everyone who left a review on iTunes. It really made our day.

Events:

•  LosCon - Thanksgiving weekend at the LAX Marriot Hotel (http://www.loscon.org)
•  Bal de Vampyre - November 12th. (www.peers.org)
• SFinSF with Kim Stanley Robinson and Cecelia Holland  Nov 12 (http://www.sfinsf.org)
• They Might Be Giants (Jonathan Coulton opening) Nov 12-13 Fillmore (http://www.theymightbegiants.com/news/jonathan-coulton-boldly-opens-for-tmbg-on-join-us-tour/)
• Bay Area Bead Extravaganza (BABE)  Nov. 12-13 (http://www.beadextravaganza.com)

Con Reports

The girls went off to first-time conventions, and had a blast at both. They'll be returning to those cons again in the future.

• Geek Girl Con Report ---España went up to Seattle to attend this convention. Here are some of the links from that discussion
• http://www.geekgirlcon.com
• http://www.empmuseum.org
• http://www.borderhouseblog.com/
• Espana mentions geeky ceramic pendants, http://surlyramics.com/ during the con report
  
• Big Bad Con Report: Sandy ---- Sandy also talks about Big Bad Con -- the gaming convention in Oakland 
• Big Bad Con main site 

I played/checked out these games:

1. Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple
2. Faery's Tale Deluxe
3. Mouse Guard RPG
4. State of Flux LARP by Ace of Geeks

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Part II: Crafty Section

Pointy Sticks & Crooked Hooks

Sweaters for Penguins! http://www.grist.org/list/2011-10-18-you-know-you-want-to-knit-a-sweater-for-a-penguin  (note: this organization already has enough sweaters due to the generous nature of knitters)

• Sandy:
  
  • Apres Surf hoodie. Just finished the decreases for the armholes on the back. 5 inches of knitting plain in pattern coming up, whoop-de-doo. ;)
  • I am designing a sweater for afghans 4 Afghans: the current drive got me started on a youth sweater that I designed from the bottom up. I am drafting up the pattern for this piece and will publish it to the Afghans 4 Afghans Ravelry group and the GGC podcast blog.
  • afghans For Afghans main site. The current drive is asking for mainly sweaters, also vests, mittens, socks, hats, and blankets, in wool or animal fibers ONLY, due date January 2012.
  • Fans of afghans for Afghans Ravelry group (requires Ravelry login) 
  
  
• Jade:
  
  • Everybody knows, from Knitty 2008 -- using Frank handspun from TDF 2011. She might need to spin up more of Frank.

Spinning:

Jade is still working on Gretta. She’s so soft. Like kitten or puppy down.

Make it Sew

The girls talk about some of their Galifrey One costuming from thrift stores.

Episode 5: Lady Bronies

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PART I: Geek Out

Events:

• World Fantasy San Diego, Oct 27-30: Jo Fletcher, Neil Gaiman, Parke Godwin, Ruth Sanderson, Shawna McCarthy, Connie Willis. peers.orgSaturday, November 12, 2011
• Le Bal de Vampires, Nov 7, 2010 http://www.peers.org/vamp09.html

Reading Stack

• Sandy is reading:
• Mortal Engines (The Hungry City Chronicles), but stopped because it was too gloomy. However, Espana had read it, liked it, although agreed it was a bit bleak.
• the graphic novel series The Losers, by Andy Diggle and Jock, (recommended to folks who like spy stories and government intrigue.)

• Jade -- finished Bordertown: A Chronicle of the Borderlands & Borderland: Where Magic Meets Rock & Roll (Borderlands Series) and is halfway through Welcome to Bordertown. (Note: The older books are Out-of-print, and it is suggested that you hunt used bookstores or the library for them.)
• Espana: Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons.
• http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/
• http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/
• www.strangehorizons.com

Gaming: 
 Sandy talks about her proposed LARP for Dundracon (Pres Day Weekend 2012). It's a an Arabian Nights style one-shot game, “The Thousandth Night”. Sandy's troupe, December Star, has a community on Facebook: December Star RPG. 

PART II: Crafty Geekiness

Artwork: 

• Sandy is still working on the DoD illustrations.
• The girls talk about Fanart and what Espana has been working on for various fanzines & projects (
  www.espanasheriff.com)
• The conversation segueways into TAFF (Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund)
  
  • www.taff.org.uk
  • http://www.facebook.com/TAFFnews
  • Twitter: @TAFFNews

Knitting/Crochet: Pointy Sticks & Crooked Hooks

• Jade: 
• Finished the Mondo Cable cardigan yesterday, but is on a button search.
• Working on a somewhat secret gift for a friend.

• Sandy: 
• About 12 inches into the back of her Apres Surf hoodie. Waist increases done, bust increases halfway done. 
• 10 squares done on the shelter afghan. The website for its progress, and how you can help a shelter: http://santaclaracharitycraft.blogspot.com/

• Lady Bronies: Sandy talks about a certain cartoon for knitting inspiration while Jade is horrified. Sandy has already kool-aid dyed yarn and is working on an intarsia chart.

• Sandy & Jade talk about what they like to knit / crochet and their respective styles.

Spinning

• Jade is working on Gretta, a fleece from Nebo Rock Ranch

Make it Sew

• Short segment as none of the girls are working on anything, but Espana *should* be starting on her projects

DIY & Other Craft Projects

• Espana talks about the Dr. Who beaded necklace, and Jade talks about the knitting machine
• The two bead places in San Francisco are:
• www.genbead.com/
• www.beyondbeads.com/

SF/SF Calendar of Events from SF to LA

Episode 4: For the Want of a Scarf...

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In this week's episode....

• Part I: Geek Topics
• Part II: Geek Crafts
• Part III: España's WorldCon Report Part II.

 --------------------------------

Part I: Geek Topics

Administrative Stuff

• Our Facebook Fan page: Geek Girl Crafts Podcast
• Special thanks to the Knitmore Girls who ran our promo on their episode.
• Check out the Ravelry Group: Geek Girl Crafts Podcast
• (Also, we hope we've worked out some of the sound quality for the Skype recording. Please let us know!)

Events
This week we talk a little bit more detail about:

• Oct 7-9, Big Bad Con, Sandy pimps her friend's new Zombie survival RPG during the convention, which will run on October 7th 2-6 PM http://www.bigbadcon.com/
• NorCal Ren Faire: Where it used to be, and where it is now. www.norcalrenfaire.com/
• Geek Girl Con: Espana will be attending. She talks about some of the Guests and panels. www.geekgirlcon.com/

Book Club!
Jade just started re-reading the Borderland anthologies from 10 years ago in order to refresh her memory of the new Bordertown anthology, edited by Ellen Kushner,Welcome to Bordertown
Read more about the anthology at the Bordertown website. If anyone wants to join in reading, you can begin with the new book or look for the older anthologies at your local library or 2nd hand bookstore.We can talk about it on the Ravelry forums

Sandy has finished, Bright's Passage: A Novel, and is currently in the middle of Mortal Engines (The Hungry City Chronicles) by Phillip Reeve.

Part II: Geeky Craft

Pointy Sticks & Crooked Hooks
Jade: Working on her Mondo cable cardigan. Finished both sleeves, and working on the Body
Sandy:

• The afghan project for the Santa Clara County homeless shelter has its own page. Follow Sandy's progress and join the project by donating 7” squares by going to http://santaclaracharitycraft.blogspot.com/ She is about 8 squares in on a 104 square blanket.
• The Apres Surf Hoodie is also going OK. Decreasing the waist as I knit lace is pretty challenging! She is about 8 inches along on the front (after a bit of frogging on the lace)

Make it Sew
Jade is renaming this section, courtesy of Chris Hardwick -- the Nerdist  podcast, who recently had on Patric Stewart

Jade finished hemming her ren faire skirt, and helped her DH dye up silk ribbon to match wool fabric he is planning on making a Victorian outer coat.

Dr. Who Crafting
This unexpectedly turned into a Dr. Who crafting section. It turns out that both España & Jade are working on Dr. Who scarves.

Espana: is working on a Doctor Who beaded scarf. http://crafty-tardis.livejournal.com/407311.html

Jade is going to start experimenting on Sandy's knitting machine in order to make the Doctor Who Scarf from Season 18. for her DH.

Part III: España's 2nd half of the WorldCon Report
We wrap up the 2nd half of España's WorldCon Report in this segment.

SF/SF Calendar of Events from SF to LA

Speak Out with your Geek Out!

For all geeks out there, I suggest taking a read of:

Speak Out with Your Geek Out

And if you have a blog, then speak up as a geek and let your voices be heard!

We are geeks. And we are proud.

Episode 3: CCOONN!!

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Administrative Stuff: This week, we're trying out recording on Skype. So, if the audio quality sounds a little different, it's because of this reason. Please let us know how it works out for you. We have several other sound options that we're going to explore.

Part I: Geek On

Events

•   NorCal Ren Faire: Weekends, September 17 thru October 16, 2011 10 am - 6 pm @ Casa de Fruta in Gilroy
• Oct 7-9, Big Bad Con, gaming convention in Hilton Oakland @ Oakland airport. Looking for volunteers for reg, open gaming, and soliciting for GMs to run games for the convention. http://www.bigbadcon.com/ 
• Killing My Lobster Conquers the Galaxy: Sep 22– Oct 09 Sketch comedy, TJT Theatre, 470 Florida between 17th & Mariposa, San Francisco, CA
• Litquake Oct 7-15 / Lit Crawl Oct 15 Various locations, genre and non, pure awesome http://www.litquake.org/festival Celebrating the final night of Litquake, San Francisco’s Literary festival, the Lit Crawl is the world’s largest free literary crawl, in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission district, where it all began. In 2011, we’ll feature 450 readers and 79 readings in ONE night. Yes, ONE single night. More writers and book lovers than you can shake a stick at. Crazy. Inspiring. Exhilarating. Impossible to categorize. You don’t want to miss it.
• Yaoi-Con Fri, October 21 – Sun, October 23

Topic Du Jour

What we talked about:

• Special PacifiCon Report from Sandy.
• Special WorldCon Report from España: Part 1
• Links:
• For Fanzines of all various types: http://efanzines.com/
• The Hugo Awards video: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/16783348 
• Chris Garcia at 1:29:50 coming slightly unglued.

Part II: Geeky Crafts


KNITTING & CROCHET
Jade:

• finished her Feb Lady’s Tunic Sweater and added grosgrain ribbon
• started the Mondo Cable cardigan out of Cascade 220 Heather (in red wine), of which she had to rip out 3 inches (2x over)

Sandy:

• Finished a baby blanket for a friend
• Charity blankets: Project page and participation info at Charity Knit/Crochet for Santa Clara County
• Apres Surf Hoodie from Interweave knits 2008 ( http://www.interweavestore.com/Knitting/Patterns/Apres-Surf-Hoodie.html)

SPINNING: Jade

• finished up Abstract Fibers, Malificent
• finished plying up Foxglove Spice = 881 yards 3ply
• started Chasing Rainbows Merino/bombyx silk

SEWING/COSTUMING

• Jade --Grommetted her bodice. Stuck herself with an awl and bled a little over the clothing

• España
• Worldcon went well, with a mostly assembled Watcherwoman costume. A lot of sewing of buttons and making button jewelry and obsessing over other ways to use buttons now.
• Starting her Gallifrey One projects now. Finding a good fabric for Aztec!Barbara, probably speaking with Mette about figuring out the headpiece, and then applying feathers!

Where you can find us

• Follow us on twitter at: 
• geekgirlcrafts,  
• España 
• Find us on Facebook as Geek Girl Crafts Podcast
• You can also find us on Ravelry: as jadecat9, nogitsunegirl

SF/SF Calendar of Events from SF to LA

Episode 2: While España's Away....

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Part I: LETS TALK GEEK:


Administrative:
España is at WorldCon this week in Reno, and we're expecting a full detailed report for the event. But however, before she left, we recorded a topic discussion before she left as part of the Topic du Jour.

Events (Check out more SF Events at the bottom of the page)

• NorCal Ren Faire: Weekends, September 17 thru October 16, 2011 10 am - 6 pm @ Casa de Fruta in Gilroy
• Ardenwood Faire: September 10-11, 2011 in Fremont: http://www.ardenwoodfaire.com/
• Evil Dead, the Musical August 27th (Campbell Theatre Martinez, CAmap)
• Sac-Anime Convention: Radisson Hotel Sacramento 500 Leisure Lane Sacramento, CA 95815 (http://www.sacconventions.com/)
• PacifiCon Santa Clara Marriott, 2700 Mission College Blvd., Santa Clara, CA 95054, Labor Day weekend. http://www.con-quest.com/
• Oct 7-9, Big Bad Con, gaming convention in Hilton Oakland @ Oakland airport. Looking for volunteers for reg, open gaming, and soliciting for GMs to run games for the convention. http://www.bigbadcon.com/

Hugo Awards:
Congratulations to our local Hugo award winners:

• the Drink Tank Fanzine
• Best Related Work: Chicks Dig Timelords. One of our SF/F locals, Johanna Mead, wrote one of the essays in the collection

Books: The girls are listening to podcasts as of late on the way to work and at the gym:

• Podcasts: Escape Artists Incorporated: PodCastle (fantasy), EscapePod (sci-fi), Psuedo-Pod (horro)
• Podcasts: free audiobooks at Librivox: http://librivox.org/podcast.xml

Movies:  Jade's seen some movies lately

• Cowboy&aliens movie:  Jade HIGHLY recommends this movie.
• An excellent Western that just happen to have aliens
• Good solid acting
• nice homages to old westerns and indiana jones

• Harry potter: A good entertaining movie, and a nice wrap up to the movie series. Jade enjoyed it, despite mixed reviews by others. She recommends it if you enjoy the whole movie series.

TV Shows: Fezzes are cool

By Jade: I finally caught up on the 11th  Season 6, and I am really enjoying the 11th doctor. The 10th Doctor is hard act to follow, as David Tennant, is well...David Tennant, but Matt Smith is doing an excellent job taking the Doctor down another path of his personality. The writers are definitely doing some interesting things with the storyline and I can't wait to see what happens.And River Song? LUV HER! She's ingenious, tough, brazen, puts the Doctor off-balanace. I love this character.

Sandy is on the first few episodes of 11th doctor.


Topic du Jour: How did you get into costuming?
(Jade made a mistake. The topic wasn’t Geeky Crafting)

=======================================
Part II: GEEK CRAFTS

Sandy's Artwork: Sandy is currently working on illustrations for a Live Action RPG (LARP) book, and will give publishing information closer to the due date. She's been working in traditional mediums then scanning in work into the computer. She's currently putting about 4 hours of work a night on this project.


Sharp Pointy Sticks & Crooked Hooks:


Jade:  still working on the February Lady's Sweater using Valley Sheffield (Worsted / 10 ply : 70% Merino, 15% Angora, 15% Silk)

Sandy:

• Finished the sweater from Baroque Jacket at StitchDiva Studios. It just need buttons.Yarn for it: Newton’s Yarn (warning: website very limited) http://www.newtons.com/
• Untangling an array of arcylic yarn for creating blankets for a homeless shelter.

Knitting tools:

• Knitting needles: Jade uses harmony needles
• Sandy uses aluminum hooks (Boye) almost exclusively -- Dumbo's magic feather
• Jade uses: wood/bamboo hooks. She used to use Boye alumnium, but they fatigue her hand.
• Beginners might be using the wrong tools, because of comfort & control

Sewing: (Jade)

• finished a 6-gore ren faire skirt out of red linen that took about 1.5 hours, but still needs hemming
• a friend's mother recently passed away, so Jade received all of her mom's sewing equipment & gear -- lots of quilting & embroidery accessories. Spent part of the weekend getting the sewing machine set up, tested, and whatnought
• Have a Stitch & Bitch next weekend where a bunch of friends get together and sew.

Spinning: (Jade)

• During the TDF 2011, Jade spun up a pound of merino/tussah silk blend (she had 18 ounces), that she completed. She finished 2 ounces of that batch, and ready to ply. And started plying. Her first batch was about 383 yards.
• Her Ashford Joy needed repair. She was trouble on the take-up when the bobbin was half-full. Her LYS diagnosed bad threads on the ball bearing that holds the flyer together. They replaced it for absolutely free, and let Ashford know of the problem. Now, the Joy spins like a dream, and 
• Jade is spinning Abstract Fibers Targhee in the colorway Maleficient, on her Joy, which is spinning up beautifully. She originally had tried some Targhee from another hand dyer, and it while it was okay to spin, parts of it were felted, so she wanted to give it another try with a good supplier
• Jade is using the The Fleece & Fiber book, by Deb Robson, Carol Ekarius (in Conjunction with: In Sheep's Clothing)

Follow us:

• on twitter at: geekgirlcrafts
• on Ravelry: jadecat9, nogitsunegirl

SF/SF Calendar of Events from SF to LA

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