June 8

Light Saber Knitting Needles

It’s like a Saturday Star Wars two for one today!Random Canadian has posted intructions on how to make light saber knitting needles, over at Instructables.

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The materials needed for this project include a 3/8″ Lucite rod, several key-chain LED flashlights, a red LED, a green LED, 2 X 10 Ohm resistor, heat shrink tubing,
120 sand paper, a Scotch-Brite pad, and a 10 Ohm resistor. It can’t be a terribly difficult project, as Random Canadian said another smaller set of needles were also made.

“The cyano glue makes the cut ends optically pure when the plastic bits are joined, as long as there are not big tool marks… I found this out on a previous project. saves quite a bit of time by not having to polish the ends.”

So the next time you find yourself battling the dark side of the yarn, or you just want to knit in the dark, whip up a set of these babies for all your nerd knitting needs!

April 16

You Can’t Take The Yarn From Us!!

Firefly_medium2

The evil shadow of Fox has fallen again upon the verse. First they took our show. Now they want our yarn.

In the spirit of things, I’ve decided to share one of my favorite ’Cunning Cap’ inspired crafts… the Cunning Cozy! This cunning little cozy is the perfect place to store (or hide) your lip balm no matter where in the verse you are.

“Not a fan of lip balm? The hat can also be used as a pencil topper or ornament.” ~ Kristin Stevenson

The creator  of the Jayne Hat Lip Balm Cozy is Kristin Stevenson of Tiny Purrs. You may recognize her as the creator of the Ewok scoodie shared on this site earlier in the year.

April 13

Fox Is Cracking Down On Anyone Making And Selling Homemade Firefly Jayne Hats

f108_jaynes_hatAccording to Geek Girl Diva over at Fashionably Geek, “Apparently, fans who have been making and selling their versions of the Jayne hat for roughly the last 10 years are being sent “cease and desist” notices from Fox. It seems Ripple Junction now has an official license to make the Jayne hat (shown at right, the one sold through ThinkGeek for $24.99) and that means independent Browncoats who might be making and selling them are now infringing on the license for a simple patterned hat.” BTW, as of 04/13/13, there were 60 handmade Jayne hats for sale.

The Browncoats of the world did not approve and ThinkGeek took action:

“Browncoats, we hear your concerns about the cease and desist on Etsy Jayne Hat sellers!

“We weren’t involved in that process, but we have reached out to FOX and we’ve heard what you’ve had to say. As a result, we’ve decided to donate the profits from all Jayne Hat sales on our site to Can’t Stop the Serenity, a Browncoat charity dear to ThinkGeek’s heart that raises funds and awareness in support of Equality Now. We’ll continue making that donation until we run out of stock.

“We hope the Hero of Canton himself would approve.”

janye-hatThis was Think Geek’s udpated on 04/11/13: “So, we got Fillioned. Nathan Fillion tweeted a link to our blog post about our Jayne Hat donation to Can’t Stop the Serenity (thank you, Nathan!) and our blog couldn’t handle the traffic, taking the whole site down with it (thank you, Nathan?).”

 

January 20

Harry Potter Crochet Sorting Hat

Harry Potter sorting hat

Back in the day, the Warner Brothers site had an interactive game where you could answer a series of questions, and it would sort you into the appropriate Hogwarts’ house. It only took me about four tries to finally get into Gryffindor. :)

Perhaps you will get sorted there more quickly with this crochet Harry Potter-inspired Sorting Hat from Allison Hoffman at CraftyIsCool. I love how she was able to “sort out” the face on the hat – she really is a genius when it comes to crochet!

Be sure to also check out her recently released pattern set for all the Dr. Who’s!

January 6

Who Wants to Knit-Along?

Doctor Who Scarf
Photo credit: Beetastic

Attention Who-vians (and friends and relatives of Who-vians)! As you probably know, a common geeky craft project is to knit the scarf that Tom Baker wore during his time as Dr. Who. We’ve featured several Dr. Who scarf projects here on GeekCrafts: the classic pattern, a beaded version, a minimalist painting, a Doctor Who Inspired Fibonacci Scarf, a pastel version, even a Jayne Cobb take on the Dr. Who colors.

I thought I’d let you know that the Facebook Group Geeks United in Crafts is doing a Dr. Who Scarf Knit-Along to kick off the new year. People are posting their yarn and needle choices, and sharing their progress on this iconic project. It’s been neat to see all the encouragement and support people are posting to the shared progress pics!

Have you attempted the Dr. Who scarf? Share links to your pattern of choice in the Comments!

 

December 9

Don’t Settle for a Plain Afghan

Settlers of Catan Afghan

Why settle for a plain crochet afghan when you have work up something bold like this beauty? Bonus points for the geek reference to the board game Settlers of Catan, of course! (which, I must admit, I’ve never played, but my son used to play it quite often with friends, so I would assume it’s rather geeky.)

I also love her little sheep pins roaming the green “pastures” of the blanket.

Any Settlers fans out there?

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