Zombies, zombies and pirates.

I've mentioned before about our year long game of Pandemic: Legacy. We started in April and finally finished it in mid December.

This is us before our first game.

And this is our board.

It didn't take me long to make us our own meeple.

And here they are in action. Good old Fimo! 

But we didn't win all our games.

However we DID win enough to have an overall success. 

Here's our finishing board. We actually scored pretty highly in the end game round up. About three quarters of the way up the score board. 

Now Pandemic season two isn't out yet so we needed something to fill the gap. We've had a few months of Dead of Winter (fighting Zombies!)  but recently started Seafall which is exploring and pirating!

 Of course, the wee plastic ships needed a coat of paint. *g*

There's only 8 of them, it still took 8 hours though!

Here's how I did it. Lots of fun!

So we'll see how it goes. It's not a co-operative game like Pandemic is - every Captain for herself!

Birthday girl

I'm kinda (very!) late in sharing my latest birthday! I was 42 last Monday - or, as I chose to celebrate it, 21 for the second time. *g* As per tradition of the last few years I received a card with money from Chookie (her own hard earned pocket money) but she had no notes of her chosen denomination. So I got coins. Heh heh. They bought the latest Harry Potter book!

My main gifts from Spouse were a beautiful silver Phoenix and the limited edition Deep Ocean Trollbeads. Those fishes are hard to find! Coz they're gorgeous. A pearl from my parents-in-law and a Positive Change silver from one of my friends completed my Trolly haul - apart from my lovely grey pearl ring, also from Spouse. The floral Pandora ring was from my own parents, don't they all play well together?

Another friend gave me lovely smellies for my bathroom which prompted a mini makeover in the wee loo. Oh, and the badger plaque! 

My other friend gave me (amongst other things) this fab hand felted pin. Isn't it perfect with my Pebble Beach Shawl? 

And Wee Bro and Wife spoilt me with a huge voucher to the local cinema. It'll see us there twice - Suicide Squad this weekend! It's not so bad this getting older lark.

P.S. No birthday portrait but I do have me-photos taken the day after. Close enough and I'll share tomorrow!

Don't panic!

This is my gaming group. 

These girls are my school friends, were drinking buddies in my youth and we all still live in the same town with our significant others and children. You know how it goes when you get older, though; getting together gets harder and harder and before you know it 6 months has gone past and you haven't seen each other. When Chook was 6 months old I instigated the "first Wednesday dinner club" and on the first Wednesday of every month we'd go out and eat together. But some of us have eating issues and it gets surprisingly boring to always be going out for dinner. The last few years we have done "Ice cream Sundays" where we literally go out and eat sundaes. On Sunday. Which was awesome but a little erratic. So. At the start of the year I was determined to rectify our sporadic socialising. I played, amongst other things, Hero Quest with certain parties when I was 15, Magic: the Gathering with others when I was in my late teens and Dungeons and Dragons with them all in our early twenties. But nothing in almost 20 years.

Enter Pandemic:Legacy.

Pandemic is a co-operative boardgame where you all work together to save the world from diseases playing against the board and the card decks. We've been playing the vanilla version for a few months getting a feel for it and trying to figure out the rules. The Legacy version? Well. It's the original game on steroids.

It is played over 12 months in game time with only 2 tries to win a month before you move on to the next one. So your maximum number of games in a campaign is 24 (you obviously don't have to play one game per calendar month! We are on a fortnightly schedule.) But where it gets interesting is these chaps

The Legacy deck is read at certain times in a certain order and irrevocably alters the game. Little doors on the advent calendar style files are opened to reveal more stickers and cards. We haven't a clue what is in those black boxes but they rattle.  Stickers are placed on cards and the board, cards are torn up, the board is written on. Cities are destroyed, diseases mutate, characters suffer PTSD and generally it is a massively stressful ball of hilarity and fun. No, really! And what happens in one game directly affects what happens in subsequent games. Well we opened our Legacy game last night. Here we are at set up. 

 I'm going to take a starting photo at the beginning of every game to see how we progress. There's already half a dozen new stickers on the board - and one torn up card. I, of course, gave the honour to our player with the greatest OCD tendencies just to laugh at her and take a photo. #sorry #notsorry

And we only went and won! We did miss one (well, two really) wee detail(s) but those stickers will be stuck on before the start of the next game (new rules to remember!) I can promise you, you'll never have so much fun losing a game...

Wee makes

More little makes from me today. You know when your list (mental or otherwise) becomes clogged up with lots of wee things that won't take long but that just add to the length of the to-dos? That's where I've been at. So.

I made a drawstring sock knitting pouch from zombie hunter fabric from Dolores about a year ago and a recent(ish) parcel from her had the Valentine's Day version. Well I need another wee bag for my knitting. I like the pattern here at In Color Order. Sorted! As ever, thank you for my stash, Dee!

My mum asked for a bracelet for a birthday gift for a friend. I'm pretty sure most of these beads came from Archie - they were perfect, thanks buddy!

And I put the bottom on my kitchen curtain yesterday.  It was a boring, thankless task but it looks so much better now the curtain touches the floor again! And I do rather like the contrast piece. 

It's also a finish on my finish-along list! (proposal is here) That's my third finish - it feels so good to get stuff moving!

A doggy wooly hat

So my mate, Sue, gifted me the Animal Hats book that my mum, brother and sis-in-law all got Christmas presents from. So, being a January birthday and it still being the depths of winter - we had snow last night, I thought Sue herself might like one. I let her choose what she would like before Christmas and she went for the dog. Awesome!

Here he is with his ears down. They are double layered garter stitch and thick and squishy and cosy. 

But he's a clever design and has buttons that you can hook his ears onto so he has a Deputy Dawg look, too. Cuteness!

He is fleecy lined and I changed the pattern slightly to give him different nose (this is the panda's pattern) as I didn't like the one I was supposed to do. And I added the little whisker pad buttons as well to make him more......well, more like a dog. So I'm a bit happier with him; he is my least favourite pattern in the book but do love how this turned out. And he's my first finish-along finish! (my first quarter proposal is here) so I'm off to a great start!

Yarny deets:

Yarn: Wendy Serenity Chunky in cream and limestone

Needles: 7mm straight

Pattern: from the book "Animal Hats" by Vanessa Mooncie

Journal Your Christmas day 22 - warming the cockles

The socks are done!!!! All the yays and whoops and happy dances are being done by me right now. So I think I've just got Chook's to wrap and I am finished. Marvellous.

Chook and I got an amazing parcel from our friend (and American Mama) Dolores today.

I got mental amounts of fabric and it has fired my enthusiasm to get a new quilt going. More on that on the new year.

Jones approves,  too. *tuts*

And amongst other things (the coolest phone pouch and baritone Christmas music!) Chook got this tree skirt. Isn't it perfect? It's hand quilted and everything. I must make one for my own tree, I love how it looks.

Thank you dear heart and the lovely Maria, too. It fair made my wee heart swell with Christmas spirit.

I even had a lovely, lovely lady at a perfume counter today help me pick out aftershave for Spouse. She was great and what might have taken me alone aaaaages took about 5 minutes. It's all coming together beautifully and I've only a day and a half still to work. Awesome! 

Birthday jewellery

My mate Biff had a birthday yesterday so a few weeks ago I decided to make her some jewellery. I really wanted to do something using her kids' birth stones so had picked up some amethyst and emerald nuggets from JewelleryMaker.  There were a few false starts until I remembered the Irish waxed linen I had bought. Knotting it is then!

And a wee pair of earrings, too? Why not.

That'll do nicely.

They were well received, I think, and I was pleased enough with them that I have another couple planned for Christmassy things. Result!

all bad things must come to an end

Oops, I've not been so good with the blogging this week! I blame having a surprisingly busy week, starting off with a whirlwind road trip with friends to a concert. 

Here's me and Spouse in Newcastle. We had journeyed down with friends (travelling with two and meeting another two there) after work at lunchtime on Monday to see Motley Crue in their farewell tour. They weren't coming to Scotland so three hours was the closest gig to us. And the four of us driving were all working the next morning but you do what you gotta do, eh?

Here we are just before heading out for some food - Spouse is obviously starving. *g*

Alice Cooper was the support and he was awesome! Got straight jacketed by the mad nurse, brought a Frankenstein's monster to life, had four costume changes and got his head cut off all in 50 minutes. Very entertaining! This below is waiting for the Crue to come on, the scaffolding is the drummer's rig. His kit rides that rollercoaster flipping him upside down while he plays - it is incredible!

I hadn't seen a light show like it, either. It was really effective and the pyros were fabulous, I reckon they might have blown the profits on explosions and fire!

And at the end two band members were whisked out over the audience on little cranes. It was rather spiffing, TBH.

We got home just before 3am and had a bleary start to the day at 8am but it was worth it. And a big special thank you goes out to our girl, Av, who expertly drove us there and back again like a total pro. Although I may still not have caught up on my sleep - I'm not doing so well at the early nights just now, too much stuff to do!!

Blogtober day 9 - flashback Friday.

I spent some time with friends today under really sad circumstances. Another of our number has lost a parent so at the ripe old age of 41 I am the only one of my four oldest friends to still have both a Mum and a Dad. *blinks* I'm pretty sure we are the unluckiest group of friends in Scotland. But it got me thinking and I fished this out a scrapbook. 

This is us in the Autumn of 1994 - I am bottom left with the Mary Stewart Masterson in "Some Kind of Wonderful" haircut. Or so I thought. Heh heh.  Two of us have just turned 20, two of us are still only 19. So very young and clueless!

I think this is the oldest photo I have of the four of us, someone is always missing in the others - usually behind the camera! A random man in the pub asked if we wanted a photo of us all, I can't thank him enough. And yes, that looks like a lot of vodka (maybe with a Southern Comfort thrown in) alongside that beer! 

Blogtober day 4 - bits and bobs

This doesn't happen often but that felt like a looong weekend! Friday night was spent playing the Star Wars: X-wing miniatures game at our friend's house. We hadn't played before but it was such fun! This is Vader about to vape Luke (me an' Chook were the Imperials so it's okay to applaud this *g*)

There was a fair amount of this going on, too, figuring out line of fire before our moves and stuff. There may have been laser sights and things - super duper nerfy (ha!! That's a typo but I'm leaving it in) but such a great night.

Yesterday after a lovely long lie I did a spot of shopping (we go abroad on holiday next Saturday and I'm barely prepared!) and had a visit with some friends. Where I was in receipt of a late birthday gift. Who cares how late, though, when it is this!!! And, yes, Chook has her order in already and Spouse is debating his.

Today was ponies. "What the heck is that over there?!"

And I lifted the last of my veg and planted some winter bedding plants.  Gotta love a pansy.

Temple was on trespasser cat duty.

And I've been doing a fair bit of this, too. It's supposed to be my holiday knitting but it's quite addictive and I think I might finish it before we leave! Oops.

 And tonight I have finished the muslin for my coat-along coat. I'll share tomorrow after I get photos. It's a public holiday here tomorrow but the schools are still on. Shame!! Not really. So Spouse and I have cinema/lunch/shopping plans. How nice!! I might buy yarn for a hat to take on holiday.  Wooly hat knitting by the pool - awesome!! 

A shawl in green

So I've had my little shawl-along with Archie running since the end of April. And I cast off yesterday to much excitement! Time for a soak, then.

And a nice block. Eagle eyed knitters will spot that it's not a triangle. In my usual gung-ho manner I used a new-to-me supposedly stretchy cast-off. I'm obviously a far too tight knitter to make it work (Archie herself had no trouble with it!) so my sides are too short to allow a true triangle. 

This cast-off here. But it's lovely and fine looking - my usual stretchy bindoff is a bit bulkier which is why I didn't use it but I'm not too bent out of shape about it. It's just a curvy triangle. *g*

See? Not too bad.

I am very pleased with my lace work. There's more than a few mistakes but I don't care!!

Here's some scale for you. It's a nice size, not too huge!

Yup, that's almost exactly how I imagined it!

Its's also a Quarter 3 finish along finish. That'll do pig! That'll do.

Yarny deets:

Yarn: Artesano alpaca silk 4 ply in Chartreuse, 3 x 50g skeins ( just under 600m)
Needles; 4.5mm magic loop circular

Pattern: Sakura shawl by Leila Raabe