2016

New Needles, New Project

stargrace January 8, 2016 0Comment

You may have noticed that I’ve redesigned the site slightly. After much debate, I decided to open an Etsy store and brand my knitting as “OK.Knits” (Okanagan Knits). I’m excited about this prospect even if I haven’t sold anything yet, it gives me some direction with my knitting. Items will be added slowly over time, with a few in stock of each. I don’t expect it will ever be an enormous money maker, but I am excited about the prospect none the less. I also have a facebook page dedicated to it, and a twitter account. Exciting times, no?

On the knitting front, today I received my 9″ hiyahiya circular sharp needles and I cast on almost right away. The beginner knit-along group that I belong to had a pair of vanilla socks up for a KAL this month, and hey who doesn’t need a third part of hand knit socks, especially since I have some very lovely yarn to go along with them. These socks are being knit with KnitPicks Stroll Glimmer (black), and KnitPicks Felici (Rainbow). I’m doing the cuff, heel, and toe, in the black, and the rest of the sock in rainbow. Unfortunately I’ve already noticed an issue with the felici, there’s some weird red bleeding of dye in the lime green portion (so far) but since it’s spread throughout the yarn it’s not something I’m going to worry about quite yet.

Knitting with the hiyahiya needles is an absolute dream. They’re incredibly light, and the cord bends very easily. It doesn’t catch on anything and I haven’t had any issues with my hands cramping up or anything like that. I’m very glad I got them, and along with them I got a pair of free stitch markers, thank you ACME Fibres! I’m very glad to have found a store that prices things in Canadian dollars and since she ships in envelops the cost isn’t a huge amount. I haven’t purchased any yarn from them yet since I have quite a bit of my own to work through, but I’m looking forward to it in the future. I did also check out the sales at WEBS (yarn.com) but their shipping costs to Canada are through the roof. I loaded up my cart with some of their yarn that was on sale only to discover that shipping costs would be equal to the cost of the yarn itself – plus it’s in USD, and with our Canadian dollar sitting at lower than .71 cents to the USD, it’s just better if I shop local, and shop within Canada.

So, with that being said, if you have suggestions for knitting / yarn related pretties, especially in Canada, either in the BC area or online, don’t hesitate to let me know in comments! Remember I’m still new so I’m always looking for my new favourite yarn to play with and promote while I narrow down my likes / dislikes.

Gaming

LFGuild (again)

I like to consider myself a pretty open minded person. Only a few things will ever really tick me off, but one of those things happens to be intolerance from other people, or people who purposely hurt others. Last week the guild I was in decided to make some pretty off the cuff remarks about cultures other than their own, and they were making racist comments and making fun of these people. Joke or not, I don’t have tolerance for that sort of stuff and so I decided not to waste my time any more and I left the guild.

I joined another one just after, a very large casual guild. One of the first conversations that took place involved a lot of bodily fluids and more less-than-nice remarks. Again, I value my free time quite a bit and I really don’t feel like listening / reading that sort of stuff while playing a video game, so I left the guild. I haven’t found a replacement yet, but World of Warcraft has a LOT of guilds. I’m thinking in the end what I’ll do is what I always end up doing, which is just creating my own guild. I’d love to just join up with the handful of friends I still have playing, but like all games with servers, none of us actually play on the same ones. I know not everyone has an issue with these types of comments, and I understand that ‘hey it’s just a game’ but overlooking these types of incidents just doesn’t sit well in my stomach.

It has been many years since I have been able to find a ‘home’ in a game. It doesn’t bug me as much now as it used to, I’m quite comfortable doing my own thing – but still, I have to wonder at the state things are in.

The cost of WoW tokens dropped by a fair amount over the Christmas holidays and I saved up enough to purchase my second one even though I slacked throughout the month. I really enjoy being able to buy game time this way. As long as I’m actively playing the game, the funds come pretty easily. Of course if I dither off or take a break it will make earning the coin a bit difficult….

The next Timewalking event started today – I haven’t looked at it yet, but I’m excited. I had fun with the last one. In the meantime, I’ll just keep looking for a guild I can call home on Area 52.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming

It’s a New Year, Lets Game!

stargrace January 4, 2016 3Comments

It’s 2016. Another year has gone by, and while I didn’t write quite as much as previous years, I’m still ever so happy with my little corner of the internet. This will be the 10th year that I’ve had MmoQuests up and it has been a real pleasure getting to know everyone in the community over the years. I’m looking forward to a fantastic 2016, and I’ve set out a schedule that should help with my reluctance to blog every day. I’ll be posting three times a week here, and then dedicating two other days to other blogs (I have a book review blog and a knitting blog for those who didn’t know and were interested).

I’ve been working on my shipyard in World of Warcraft, and while it is yet another garrison grind it can also be quite profitable. I have been risking my ships a bit more here and there and while I haven’t lost one yet I know it’s bound to happen eventually. I continue to complete my daily faction quests so I can get closer to flying in draenor which also gives me a lot of loot to sort through. Weekly raids round out part of the days, along with working on achievements. I’m currently trying for the T3 fishing shack which requires me to spend a lot of time fishing. Thankfully there’s no end to Netflix shows to watch, so it’s not quite as bad as it could be if I were just standing around fishing with nothing extra to do.

When garrisons had first been announced I really wanted it to be actual housing. I think that WoW has a perfect platform for allowing characters to design their own home plots, and their denial of adding this to the game has been stubbornness. People enjoy player housing, and I just feel that garrisons could have been so much more (and I know I’m not alone in this feeling).

I joined a new casual guild yesterday. The guild I was in was being incredibly rude and racist. I know, it’s world of warcraft and sometimes it’s hard to see beyond that sort of community, but I don’t think that’s an excuse for treating other human beings like crap. It wasn’t long before I found myself in a new guild. This one has almost 1,000 members and typically has 50 on at any one time. A lot of the general comments are still rude but I always have such a hard time in WoW finding a guild that suits me that I’m willing to overlook it for now. I play on Area 52 as Horde if anyone has any suggestions.

I haven’t made any big resolutions for this year, especially not in gaming. I typically fall through on them so I just want to take it easy and see where my gaming goes naturally. I do have plans of a ‘special’ post on Wednesdays, maybe one that explores one of my unplayed steam games, but again I’ve tried to direct my posts this way in the past and I always end up failing. All I can do is dust myself off and try, try again!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

New Needles, New Project

LFGuild (again)

It’s a New Year, Lets Game!

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