Oblivion By The Numbers

I realized I enjoyed Skyrim earlier this year and then spent a lot of time really enjoying it (see some of my stats here and here). After clocking more than 300 hours in the game, I think I have reached a plateau of what I want to do in it. Are there still places to find and quests to do? Of course, but I'm not as eager to go roaming around as I once was.

Skyrim is part five in the Elder Scrolls series of games, and on a recent treasure hunting trip with Dad (to second hand stores), I found Oblivion (Elder Scrolls part four), for $5. I couldn't get into it at first, but once it got me, it got me.

Playing Oblivion after all that time spent in Skyrim is great, as I already know what I'm doing so I can just run around and do my thing. The game mechanics are slightly different, with my favourite change being that merchants have a limited amount of gold they can spend per item, BUT NOT a limited amount of gold they can spend. THIS IS AMAZING, as probably fifty hours of my Skyrim playing was running from merchant to merchant trying to sell stuff (they each had only between 500 and 2000 gold - #skyrimproblems). It's one stop shopping/selling in Oblivion, and obviously my mercantile skill is already at 100.

Oblivion By The Numbers

Current level (at time of this posting): 20

Game days passed: 79

Completed quests: 36

Place found: 62

Houses owned: 4

Skill increases: 366

Training sessions: 97 (I was education poor for a while; all the money I earned went to training)

Number of skills at 100: 2 (Mercantile and Alchemy)

Potions made: 2331

Fame level: 45

Infamy level: 22

Items stolen: 2292

Unicorn friends: 1

Number of Nirnroots found: 73

Number of Xbox Achievements earned: 20 (out of 50)

Skyrim Stats...Four Months Later

I started playing Skyrim in early March, and four months later, it still has a hold on me. A major credit to this game is that there is so much to do in it. Every now and again I think maybe I've done everything I want (or need) to do, but I keep going back and find more things to accomplish. Video games really have a lot of value for money spent. Sure it's $60+ on the front end for a game, but with a game like Skyrim you can literally play for hundreds of hours. The more I play the better the deal!

Current level at the time of this posting: 118

Number of in game days played: 517

Number of in game hours spent sleeping: 1718

Number of in game hours spent waiting: 309

Number of ingredients harvested: 2595

Number of dragon souls collected: 56

Books read: 356

Number of skills at 100: 13 (out of 18)

Number of skills in the 90s: 5 (the rest)

Number of barters (I'm a helluva merchant): 11,830

Stores invested in: 27

Amount of gold found (all time): 3,821,797

Most gold carried: 943,863

Number of locations found: 243

Number of quest lines completed: 3 (Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, and Civil War)

Number of houses owned: 5 (all that are available)

Number of hours spent playing in Skyrim: 300 (and counting)

Number of times I was going to quit for the evening after just doing "one more thing" and then played for another hour or so: daily

Beholder Cake #FoodPicFriday

My favourite thing about gaming with my D&D group is making and sharing treats. In the past I've made some themed D20 dice cookies, along with an variety of other baking experiments that were thoroughly enjoyed while we battled monsters and solved mysteries during various campaigns. 

I am not the only baker in our group, and recently our friend Colleen made a Beholder monster cake for her husband's birthday. Nothing says happy birthday quite like a D&D monster.

Skyrim By The Numbers

Since I realized I love playing Skyrim I have played a lot of Skyrim. I have had a lot going on in the past few weeks, so it has been nice to focus on something fun that makes me feel very accomplished. If you haven't played before, these tallies won't mean much to you, but just interpret them as all adding up to a really good time.

Current level at time of this posting: 48

Number of horses I've owned: 2 (both tragically killed by bears)

Number of in game days played (at time of this posting): 210

Number of in game hours spent sleeping: 917

Average amount of sleep per day: 4.36

Number of skills that are at 100: 2 (Smithing and Alchemy...I love crafting)

Skill training sessions purchased: 170

Number of potions brewed: 678

Number of poisons mixed: 349

Number of ingredients harvested: 1607

Number of Stones of Barenziah found: 24 (all of them)

Number of houses owned: 2

Number of dragons killed: 30

Number of people I've said "Hey, have you played Skyrim?" to in the past three weeks: 6

Number of people who said "Yes" and then let me talk about it for quite some time: 3

Expanding My Gaming Playlist

I recently began playing Skyrim on the Xbox 360, and I'm really, really, enjoying it. It's only been a few days, but I'm already at level eight, I've collected enough gold to buy a house (5000), and I've picked all the mountain thistle I could find. So far it's been a lot of fun.

I didn't know I was going to like Skyrim, as I've watched John play it before, and I didn't think it was the kind of game I'd be interested in. My tastes are more tuned towards cartoony action/adventure games (mainly the Lego series of games), and I was sure the detailed fantasy world just wasn't my style.

But I've been looking for a new game to play and I described what I was looking for to John:

Me: "Basically I like to run around an open world and find stuff. Collect studs (gold). Unlock cool things by collecting other cool things. Not a lot of enemies. When you die you don't have to go back to the beginning."

John: "You're basically describing Skyrim."

Me: "Am I?"

It turns out I was. There are enemies, but they aren't hard to kill (I learned to use my sword and shield no problem). And sometimes the Non-Player-Characters (NPCs) kill the enemies for you. This happened most famously for me when I was supposed to kill a dragon on the main quest. I hid in a watchtower and was going to hit it with my bow, but it never flew past the window I was aiming from. I went up to the roof to get a better shot and "Completed: Kill the dragon" came across my screen. It made me laugh and I didn't mind at all because I still got to search it's body for supplies and I got all the glory.

I am really glad I gave Skyrim a try, as I like it way more than I thought I would. Plus it's been fun to have John help me with things I cannot do very well on my own (yet). The controller is most often handed over for lock picking, swimming, and for quickly finding specific buildings while I'm running through town (I always seem to be going in the opposite direction of where I want to be).

100% in Fun, If Not in Score

My favourite video games are the Lego series of video games, as I'm the type of gamer who loves smashing stuff, collecting stuff, and playing through an action/adventure. I also love cute characters. Over the past few weeks I played Lego Marvel Superheroes, which was a lot of fun and reminded me that I really enjoy superheroes. I never read comics as a kid, but I have seen a lot of superhero movies and this game introduced me to a lot of characters I had never heard of before. So if they ever do make the Deadpool movie, I have a better idea of who he is now. Playing through these Marvel characters also encouraged me to get caught up with the X-Men movies, which were pretty good.

My only complaint with Lego Marvel Superheroes, was the controls for flying characters (and some of the driving controls, also). In non-timed events I could fly well enough to do what needed to be done, but there were a number of flying races that I just could not complete. The last day I played this game, I spent over an hour racing Silver Surfer, re-trying over and over, and I showed absolutely no signs of improvement. As I didn't want to spend countless hours attempting (and failing) the remaining flying races (there were seven races left to complete) I decided to call it a day on the game. I had a lot of fun with the 99.2% of the game I did complete, and didn't want to ruin my experience with hours of feeling frustrated just to get the other 0.08%.

So I didn't quite get 100%, but I did pretty damn good and had a fun filled time along the way.

Character tokens: 114/115. Missing: Silver Surfer (unlocked after beating him in a flying race and completing two additional missions at his command)

Gold Bricks: 241/250. Missing: Nine bricks.

• Two of the bricks are earned with Silver Surfer (beating him in a flying race and completing a mission for him)
• Six of the bricks are earned by completing timed flying races throughout New York:
• Race on top of X Mansion
• Race on top of a gas station
• Race at the Dockyards
• Race in the sky above the water by the Dockyards
• Race between and around two buildings
• Race just off the helicarrier
• One brick earned from a long and tedious remote control car timed race (I spent way too long trying to get this one. I had real difficulty with the driving controls in some places.) 

This was my first time playing a Lego game on the Xbox 360, so I also unlocked most of the Xbox achievements too (44/45). The missing achievement was get 100% in the game.

Previous Lego Video Game Posts
On A Lego Kick
Lego Batman 100%
Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 100%
Lego Indiana Jones 100% and Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7 100%
Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes 100%
Lego Pirates of the Caribbean 100% and Lego Lord of the Rings 100%
Lego Video Gaming 

Lego Video Gaming

I've been sick with a Christmas cold and it's been a great excuse to sit on the couch and play Lego Marvel Superheroes non-stop.

We recently borrowed a friend's Xbox 360, and I went out and bought this game for that system (it was only $20). They stopped making Lego games for the Wii (which is the console I have) so it's been two long years since I last played a new Lego game.

We'll have to give the Xbox back at some point, but I'm sure it will be long after I've completed this game 100% (I'm already at 46.6%).

These Lego games are my absolute favourite, and this one in particular is reminding me of my forgotten love of X-Men. I've only seen the first three movies, but apparently there are four more, so I'm going to catch up with the X-Men over the next little while too.

Let's Go Blue Jays!

I got pretty interested in Major League Baseball this year. My hometown team is The Toronto Blue Jays and I had a lot of fun watching them this season. Even though they didn't make the playoffs, they had a lot of great games and moments and I was happy to be watching. I also got into live-tweeting games (which I'm still doing for the postseason), as it adds an extra element of fun and community to the game.

My awesome friend Bryan is also really into baseball and he recently found some Blue Jays items in his closet that he thought would fit me. It was such a wonderful surprise and I absolutely love them.

Bryan awesomely gave me two jerseys:

And two t-shirts:

Even though the Jays season is over, I'm going to be wearing these all winter long. I already had some Jays talk with a nice old man in a waiting room last week, who looked at my jersey and said "I like your shirt - but what happened?" Our conversation ended with hopes that 2015 will be a postseason year.

A million thanks to Bryan for these awesome additions to my wardrobe!

Long Weekend Photo Round Up

It's a holiday Monday here in Ontario and I've been having a great weekend! Lots of friends, food, fun, and activities - it is what summer is made for.

The weather has been fabulous - really hot and sunny. I started the weekend catching up with my favourite Wizard Detective, Harry Dresden. I'm about half way through and enjoying it so far.

On breaks from reading on Saturday I baked some gingerbread cookies. Always nice to have treats around on a long weekend.

Yesterday my parents came up and we went on a short visit to the beach and walked around the Elmvale Sales Barn looking for deals.

We picked up lunch at Perky's Fish and Fries, which never disappoints. I got the haddock and chips, Mom got a burger and onion rings. MMMMmmmmm....

After Mom and Dad left, my sisters in law came over on their way to the beach, dropping off garden beans and romaine. The. Best.

Adding to our fun filled day, we hosted gaming night and played a little HarnMaster style RPG and enjoyed some treats.

I made caramel corn which was a big hit.

Our friend Bryan brought some treats to share that he brought back from a trip to Ohio. I don't think you can get this stuff here, so it was neat to try.

The remainder of the weekend will be spent reading and relaxing and probably eating a lot of garden beans. Perfect!

Tweeting with Kelly Gruber

A few weeks ago I had a fun experience on Twitter with 1992 World Series Champion and Blue Jays alumnus Kelly Gruber.

The Official Blue Jays Twitter feed participated in something they called #ChirpChairs. Basically, selected people (some former players and broadcasters) took over the Blue Jays twitter feed for about 20 minutes each, answering fans tweeted questions. I didn't pay too much attention to the other guest tweeters, as all my excitement was focused on tweeting with Kelly Gruber.

Kelly Gruber was my favourite Blue Jay as a kid. I had two different Kelly Gruber posters (not including the 1992 World Series team poster). He was on a t-shirt I wore frequently, and he was my favourite player to watch when I watched Blue Jays baseball with my Dad. He was so much my favourite, that when I played little league, my Dad always announced my trips to the plate with an enthusiastic: "Kelly....Gruuuuuber!" So I was super excited to send him a tweet to say hello and I really hoped he would see it.

Kelly Gruber doesn't actually have his own Twitter account, so this may have been his first time tweeting, which could explain how our interaction went.

Here is a picture of Kelly Gruber tweeting. Spoiler Alert: he is tweeting at me!

Thanks to @BlueJays alumnus Kelly Gruber for taking part in tonight's #ChirpChairs! pic.twitter.com/tsmlpzVm3u
— Blue Jays-Official (@BlueJays) June 25, 2014

When it was Gruber's turn to tweet, Blue Jays Official announced he was there and I sent him a welcome/you are the best tweet:

@BlueJays Welcome Kelly Gruber! You were my favourite player when I was a kid. Had two posters on my wall! All the best! #chirpchairs
— Jen B (@myadorableblog) June 25, 2014

To my complete joy and surprise he tweeted back to me. Ten year old me was over the moon that I got a response.

@myadorableblog thats cool, thank you
— Blue Jays-Official (@BlueJays) June 25, 2014

But then I got another tweet from him - and I knew instantly that it wasn't meant for me.

@myadorableblog he definantly is right now. too old right now. lol
— Blue Jays-Official (@BlueJays) June 25, 2014

And then another one came. Again, not for me. Twitter is tricky and it was his first time, so instead of replying to the fans who asked the questions, he kept replying to my twitter handle. I didn't mind.

@myadorableblog i have and made him admit it. hes a great sport
— Blue Jays-Official (@BlueJays) June 25, 2014

It was a lot of fun, actually, and a reminder of how magic Twitter can be. But I felt bad that the other fans weren't getting their responses so I tried to let him know what was up.

@BlueJays I love getting all these tweets from Kelly Gruber, but I think these replies are for other people. Just so you know. :)
— Jen B (@myadorableblog) June 25, 2014

But I got one more tweet, which is actually my favourite one from him, and it seems to go with my original tweet, so me (and ten year old me) think this was the tweet that was actually meant for me.

@myadorableblog thank you sweetie. im honored. go jays!
— Blue Jays-Official (@BlueJays) June 25, 2014

Isn't that the best?

I summed up my Kelly Gruber encounter that night with the following tweet, which is still how I feel about the whole experience:

Kelly Gruber tweeted me on purpose and then maybe by accident a few times and it was the BEST. THING. EVER! @BlueJays #LoveThisTeam
— Jen B (@myadorableblog) June 25, 2014

There is Just Something About Baseball

This spring/summer I've been pretty excited about baseball. I started following the Toronto Blue Jays at the start of the season and have had a fun time learning about all the players, MLB rules, and watching the team hit a tonne of home runs (see: Edwin Encarnacion in May).

I haven't been this into baseball since I was a kid and played Oro Minor Softball during the summers. My dad had two boys who weren't interested in baseball (they liked farming and computers respectively), but his baby daughter loved baseball. I can't say I was great at it, but I loved playing and there's a trophy on my shelf that says my team won First Place in 1991, so we must have been pretty good.

Thinking about my childhood baseball days always makes me think of Peter, Paul, and Mary singing "Right Field". Not only did Dad get me interested in baseball, but great music too. Adult me can't get to the end of this song without tearing up (just like I can't get to end of Field of Dreams without tears in my eyes...). There is just something about baseball.

Snickers Bar Squares

One of my favourite aspects of being part of a RPG group, is that I get to bake and share treats with my gaming friends. I love making sweet things for this particular group of people as they all genuinely enjoy yummy treats. My friends are also very open about how much they appreciate the goodies too - which always makes me feel great. I was raised to see food as love so I am happy to have so many wonderful people to share my baking experiments with. This is the good life! :)

Our most recent get together I made Snickers Bar Squares. This recipe is slighly adapted from the amazing yoyomax12. Definitely check out her YouTube Channel. Her videos are awesome.

This is a no bake recipe that has four layers, each of which has to set in the fridge before you can start the next layer. I was marathoning Breaking Bad when I made these, so each layer was made between an episode, or about every 45 minutes.

Line an 8x8 pan with parchment paper and set aside.

Layer One: Chocolate
Ingredients:
2/3 cup milk chocolate chips
3 tbs butterscotch chips
3 tbs peanut butter

Add ingredients to microwave safe bowl. Melt in microwave, stirring every 15 seconds, for 1 minute.

Pour into prepared pan and place in fridge to set.

 

Layer Two: Nougat
Ingredients:
3 tbs margarine
2/3 cup white granulated sugar
3 tbs cream
1 cup marshmallow fluff
3 tbs peanut butter
2/3 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped salted peanuts

Add the margarine, sugar, and cream to medium saucepan on medium heat. Stir and cook until it begins to boil. Continue to boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter, vanilla, and marshmallow fluff. Stir in chopped peanuts.

Spread nougat over the chocolate layer and place in the fridge to set.

Layer Three: Caramel
Ingredients:
200g caramels (about 28)
2 tbs cream

Unwrap the caramels (*note: unwrapping them is the worst*), and place in small saucepan with cream over low heat. Stir until completely melted and smooth.

Spread over nougat layer and place in the fridge to set.

Layer Four: More Chocolate
This layer is the exact same as layer one.

Ingredients:
2/3 cup milk chocolate chips
3 tbs butterscotch chips
3 tbs peanut butter

Add ingredients to microwave safe bowl. Melt in microwave, stirring every 15 seconds, for 1 minute. Spread over caramel layer and leave in the fridge to set.

Once hardened, cut into delicious squares.

Share with friends and enjoy!

I cut these a few hours before taking them to gaming night and found the caramel got a little unruly, and oozed a little out of the squares. Next time I might add a little less cream to the caramel layer to make it a little firmer.

D20 Dice Cookies

I have been playing RPGs pretty regularly this year. Or I should say, as regularly as six adult schedules will allow. We played a continuing story over most of the sessions, with our characters slowly advancing in level. We also did a one off game where I was already high level and got to use a bow that shot four arrows at once. That was pretty cool.

I generally like to bake something for our gaming nights, and this week I finally made D20 dice cookies. After watching the Nerdy Nummies tutorial earlier this summer, I knew they were something that would eventually happen in my kitchen.

The D20 dice cookie requires a hexagon cookie cutter, but I couldn't find that shape at our baking supply store. I found a home made cookie cutter tutorial online, that used folded aluminum foil to make the shapes. I gave it a try and many folds later, I had myself a 5 inch hexagon cookie cutter.

Using a sugar cookie mix, I made the dough and sectioned it into three so I could dye it multiple colours. D&D dice are usually multi-coloured, so I wanted my cookies to be that too.

I rolled the dough to 1/4 inch thickness and used my home made cookie cutter to make the cookies. It made giant cookies! I was happy, as I wanted them nice and big so I could easily decorate them.

Using prepared royal icing, I sectioned my cookie faces into triangles and filled the triangles with numbers. 20 was always in the center. I only had enough dough to make 7 cookies. But they were 7 giant cookies, so that was okay.

 

These cookies were super fun to make, but the best part was sharing them with my gaming buddies. My friend Bryan took this action shot of his cookie while we were rolling up our characters.

Video Game Post!

We borrowed our friend's XBOX 360 so John could try out a few games, namely Skyrim. I am usually a Wii gamer, but watching John play Skyrim has been fun, though I'm not sure it's for me (even though he says you get to tame and ride a dragon...I could be into that). So far I've only played Rayman Origins on the XBOX, which turns out is also a Wii title. What can I say, I know what I like.

If you've been following the blog for a while, you know my favourite video games are Lego centered. Along with Lego Batman 1 and 2, Lego Harry Potter 1 and 2, and Lego Indiana Jones, I have now completed a few more.

I finally finished Lego Pirates late last year. I found it to be one of the weaker Lego games, so I finished it long after I started it. I inherently love it because it's Lego but it didn't hold my interest like the other games. Not sure if I will replay it, but happy I was able to finish it.

Also completed Lego Lord of the Rings earlier this year. It was a great game with lots of exploring and I love LOTR so there were many familiar faces. My only complaint was there was a lot of crying by Lego characters. Lord of the Rings is pretty dark, so the game was pretty dark too. Even when people are being killed with broom, banana, or chicken arrows, it's still pretty sad. Lots of Lego tears in this one.

I have yet to complete Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, but I think I will be doing that incrementally over my whole life. I still have to find most of the blue canisters (essentially replay all the levels, but timed) as well as complete most of the Super Story missions (essentially replay all the levels, but timed). So I won't be posting about it's completion any time soon.

Deal Lego Games are Deal-lightful!

It's been crazy around here lately and to make sense of all the madness I have been playing Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes pretty much non stop.  There were some video game deals a few weeks ago and I was able to pick it up for only $19.  With unparalleled dedication, I played, explored, unlocked, and collected everything within the game, reaching 100% earlier this evening.

Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes 100% completion

I also recently purchased the newest game in the series: Lego The Lord of the Rings. I had a gift card when I bought it, making it only $20.  That is my Lego price!  I have only briefly explored the Lego The LOTR map so 100% won't be for a while yet.  Check out the trailer if interested; I know it is going to be a lot of fun!

Still Kicking It, Lego Styles!

So I am still super obsessed with Lego games or "silly games" as my mother calls them.  Do they take up a lot of my time? Yes. Am I getting repetitive eye strain from staring at the screen for hours on end? Probably. Are they part of my balanced lifestyle? Of course.

Back in February I completed Lego Indiana Jones.  I found it the hardest of the Lego games, with too many enemies constantly attacking and causing me to lose all my studs! Getting "True Adventurer" status was pretty much impossible and it took forever to earn enough studs to unlock things that could help.  So I wasn't a huge fan and kept it on the shelf with only 7% completion. At some point I remembered you could enter cheat codes and I decided to enter the cheat code for Invincibility.  And from then on the game was awesome and super fun! Which is great because I love Indiana Jones and I really wanted the game to be fun.

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures - 100%

Over the past few months I have been playing Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7.  I picked it up in May when I realized it had dropped in price to $19.99.  That is my preferred price for video games and it only took six months for HP 5-7 to get there.  It was worth the brief wait.  I completed it last night:

Lego HP: Years 5-7 - 100%

I still have yet to complete Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (91.3% complete) and Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (79.9% complete).  Lego Star Wars is all challenge now, as the 8.7% I have left to play is finding 10 hidden Blue Canisters, throughout the entirety of every single level, with only ten minutes per level to do it. So I basically have to play the whole game again and do it super fast.  I was attempting it the other night and the words "Out of Time" popped up on the screen so often that I had to turn it off for a while.  TCS might be incomplete for some time to come.  As for Lego Pirates, it is my least favourite of all the Lego games.  One reason is that I never really got into the Pirates movies (I've watched them all, but must not have paid attention because I don't know who anyone is!).  In order to complete Lego Pirates, I need to collect all the Ships in a Bottle and find all the Compass items.  I wasn't a big fan of the use of the Compass, so not sure when I am heading back to complete this one either!

But there are more games on the horizon!  Lego Batman 2: DC Superheros was just released, and it has gotten some pretty stellar reviews.  I am saving my pennies for that one.  And coming this fall will be Lego Lord of the Rings!  I am super excited about that one because I love the Lord of the Rings.  The trilogy is our go-to set of movies for when there is nothing on; it always satisfies.

In the mean time, I just realized there is another Lego Star Wars game about the Clone Wars.  I never watched that series, but it is only $19.99 so I'll probably get it to fill the void until Lego Batman 2 comes down in price.  Super Lego Fun!

Round Two

I woke up today with one goal: finish Lego Harry Potter.  Done and Done.

Today's Accomplishments

As mentioned earlier, I am pretty obsessed with the Lego series of games for the Wii.  Right now my focus is on Lego Harry Potter (I'm already about 60% done), but I had yet to complete Lego Batman (I was 99.4% finished when Harry Potter sucked me in).  This morning I successfully achieved the final 0.6% of the game, thus completing my Lego Batman mission.  100% feels nice and satisfying!!

100% - Batman approved!

   

On A Lego Kick

I just bought my fourth Lego based video game (thanks Amazon.ca!).  In 5-7 business days I will be the proud owner of Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4.  The second game in the series is being released in November, so I was able to score the old one for $19.99.  Seriously, I will buy almost any video game if it is under $20, but especially if it is Lego themed.   

I bought my Nintendo Wii in August and almost immediately got addicted to the Lego games.  It stated with Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (I'm about 25% finished), then I got thoroughly obsessed with Lego Batman (and still am - I'm over 90% finished and have over 3 billion studs!).  I haven't really gotten into Lego Indiana Jones yet (I need more vacation time!), and I just saw the deal Lego Harry Potter today, so I will be getting obsessed with that in the near future.  It is also already decided that whenever Lego Pirates of the Caribbean falls to the $19.99 mark, it will be added to the collection as well.

And because I am so into Lego right now, I google searched for this awesome website that lets you create your own Lego character.  So this is me if I was in a Lego game - my accessories are a lightsaber and a coffee!! Not sure what my ability would be, but I'm sure I'm super fun!

2d(pn)6

I’m just going to put it out there that I play Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).  I haven’t been playing very long (I am only on my second “campaign”) but I play enough that it was decided that I should have my own set of dice - preferably pink dice.  So we went on a trip to the game store in Barrie and I picked out some pretty cute dice that I can now infuse with my power so they can assist me on my campaigns.  I don’t actually believe that one can infuse dice with power, but my character does, so I’m doing it for her. ;)

I got my dice home and realized I needed a dice bag.  Thanks to my new addiction to Ravelry and all the geeky patterns within, I quickly found at least ten dice bag patterns to choose from.  Only problem - they all involved double pointed needles.

As with most new knitting techniques, I was intimidated to try using double pointed needles (dpn).  I’ve had a set of dpn’s for over a year, but five needles instead of two sounded a little to advanced for my abilities.  That is actually my line of thinking about all new techniques - they must be too advanced for me.  It is silly to think this way, as I have continually proved to myself that I am capable of learning new things, but I still have this hesitation to start projects that have new techniques.  It probably has something to do with my self-imposed perfectionism - that inner voice that is demanding me to “make sure you do it right.”  I just have to keep in mind that trying something new is amazing in itself and if at first I don’t succeed, I can try, try, again.

Thus was my experience in learning to use double pointed needles.  Even with the help of an internet teacher,  it took me three tries to get it right.  My first attempt, I had my stitches cast on evenly across four of the needles, but when I knit them “in the round” I did it in such a way that the needles didn’t come together in a square like they are supposed to.  Oops.  I pulled out the stitches and tried again.

This is wrong somehow...

My second attempt, I got the needles to form a square, but must have crossed my stitches, because it just didn’t look right. Plus one of the needles fell out of the stitches it was holding, which made me a little cranky, and without thinking on how to fix it, I just pulled the rest of the stitches out and prepared to try again.

Third time was the charm.  Something just clicked and I was knitting in the round as if I knew how.  Following my internet instructor's advice, I put a stitch marker on my first needle, so that I would know where the start of my “round” was.  I don’t actually own stitch markers but a twisted pink paperclip worked perfectly for my purposes.  This was incredibly helpful, as I can’t imagine having to remember where the round started - that sounds like far too much counting for me.

Much better...

I am really happy with how my dice bag turned out.  It is adorably pink for my adorably pink D&D dice.

The only problem I experienced with this project, is that by the time I finished, my left hand was cramped and achy from the hours of holding the square of needles.  Plus, the points on my needles are quite sharp, and the index fingertip of my left hand was actually red from repeatedly being stabbed with the right hand needle.  The next project I make with dpn’s, I am going to try and be more aware of how intensely/awkwardly I am holding the work in my left hand, so that I don’t end up with carpal tunnel syndrome.  As for the fingertip stabbing - I wonder if this is what people use thimbles for?  I just might have to get one.