More Assorted Minecraft Stuff

I've been very single minded lately.  Minecraft is very absorbing.

1.6 came out recently, bringing with it horses and blocks and scary mob changes.  Horses are fun, but they aren't the thing I was looking forward to.  No, I absolutely love getting new blocks to play with.  After all, the game is half building stuff.

Dyed hardened clay is the prettiest block yet.  I think it's my favorite in terms of appearance, although I do admit that I'm not quite sure what to do with it yet.  Carpet is exciting in terms of usefulness.  Currently, you can place it on just about anything. And it can support you even if you've placed it on something that won't.  Like... signs:

The new hay blocks are texturally interesting and easily renewable.  And I don't consider coal to be a high enough priority to mine a ton of it, but the new coal block ought to be fun.

I did find my first survival horses (as opposed to the ones I spawned in on a creative world) yesterday.  They're actually not an unreasonable distance away from my main area, which is nice.  While I have doubts they'll become my main method of transportation (considering my main house and storage and farms are all really close to default spawn), they have inspired an urge to build a "horse path" between home and my "ranch".  And when I say ranch, I really mean a fenced in area with my horses and a tiny hut to live in.

I've already got the path marked out:

 I apologize if the picture is a bit dark.  I marked the path with little torch towers, and then took a screenshot from a night rendered Overviewer map.

Speaking of which, I've been playing with making Overviewer maps.

It's been fascinating seeing where I've already explored, how insignificant my builds look compared to the landscape, etc.  I think the night renders are the most interesting, though.  I'm not the sort to just fill the landscape with torches to make it perfectly safe.  As much as I hate fighting monsters, I find it more visually appealing to only light up the important stuff.  Seeing that from above is really cool.

 Which is what gave me the idea of checking out my horse trail from above like this.  I knew the path would be windy, because I was avoiding water and tough hills, but it's impossible to tell just how much it winds while standing on it.

Actually building the path is going to be time consuming.  I really want it to be aesthetically pleasing.  Will probably end up making several passes on it - clearing the trees, laying the actual path, decorating, etc.  Make it pretty as well as functional.

The Minecraft Downgrade Project - Indev (Part 1)

It's been quite a while since I've last posted.  I've been utterly and completely sucked in by watching Minecraft LPs.  I have barely even knit or crochet anything in the last several months, though that is because of lack of inspiration and not the LPs.

Anyway, I've been thinking lately about old versions of Minecraft.  I started playing the game in Beta 1.7.3.  Recently I downgraded a copy of my Minecraft back to that version and took a walk around my very first world.  It brought back memories of many things, the most vivid of all being building a walled garden around my house and standing out in it for the first time at night.  It was that special kind of scary that's so awesome.

Doing this has made me terribly curious about old versions of Minecraft.  So.  Downgrading.  I have decided to check out assorted versions of Minecraft that I was never able to experience when new.  And I have decided to start with the very oldest version that MCNostagia supports: a version of Indev from 2-23-2010.  This is my journey, written mostly as I play:

"You spawn in a house?" I thought.  I honestly had no idea that in this version of Minecraft you are provided with a little hut.  That's handy, because I have a feeling that there is so much different that I'm going to be pretty lost.  For the record, I left the default world generation settings.

Crafting.  I find it funny that my character doesn't show up in the window.  This is probably pre skins.  It's very weird using the 'I' key to open my inventory, because I've never changed that setting from 'E' in all the time I've played.

 

This is just a shot of me testing out far render distance.  I can't really use it in the current version of the game, but it doesn't seem to lag too much with this version.  Of course, my Minecraft has always been laggy so my lag threshold is pretty high.

 

This is the first major difference I have found so far. I knew beds didn't exist yet, but doors not existing is interesting.

 

Chests exist though! And I wasn't expecting the placement weirdness. Ah, whatever. :P

 

Now that's a lighting glitch.

 

I don't actually know if monsters exist in this version of the game. Sans door, I'm sealing the entrance with a block of dirt.

 

I don't know if you can see it back there, but there's a zombie. I'm glad that this won't be a strictly peaceful endeavor like Classic is. I'm tempted to run out there and smack the zombie with my sword.

 

Oh look, a skeleton! Let's go smack him, shall we? Woah, he makes Steve sounds! Ow, I can't hit him.

 

Um... Let's hide until morning. Damn I hope they burn in the sunlight...

 

Well, that explains all the footsteps I hear outside. At least I can kill them like this.

 

What do you mean spiders can hit me through that hole?! Ah well, live and learn. Or die and learn in this case. Also teaches me to save frequently because auto-save does not exist yet. Fortunately I have a save from before the first skeleton encounter.

I think I'm going to end this post here. I'm going to keep playing with this version, because this is weirdly interesting, and try to remember to get screengrabs when interesting things happen. I wonder what the first version with "F2" support is?

Oh gosh the increases...

Yep, I took it off to try on.  And by try on, I mean "prove the pattern isn't wrong".  It feels like so many stitches when it's on the needles and looks like it ought to be big enough.  Ah well, at least I can now rest assured the neck hole is the right size.  The pattern says to "measure snugly around your neck", and I'm sorry but I just don't do tight neck holes.  So I measured where I wanted the neck line to be, and I'm glad to see it's working out.

Did I ever mention the pattern I'm using?  It's the Incredible Custom-Fit Raglan, (rav link here) which has been done successfully loads of times, so I really shouldn't be doubting it.  But I'm impatient and every round just keeps getting bigger!

I will say that I'm very happy with my increase lines.  I'm doing mirrored "lifted increases", though to be fair I don't bother with the lift part and just shove my needle into the middle of the stitch, and I love how when you look at it the other way it looks like decreases.  Actually, it kinda looks like a triple decrease, which is awesome because I almost never have use for those.

Of course, after taking all the stitches off onto waste yarn I now have to feed them all back onto the needle...

And the games begin!

We are now officially (about) 2 days into the event (and by two days I mean this is the second time I'm contemplating going to bed since starting this project) and I am officially 3 stripes done with my sweater.

I can't wait to get past the raglan increases...

The 2012 Ravellenic Games

So, after a bit of hubbub all over the internet for a while there, Ravelry's Olympics-timed event is now rechristened and about to start.  Honestly, if it wasn't for the crazy I wouldn't even care about the event.  As it is, USOC and their ill-worded letter have made me actually want to participate this year.  Not sure if that counts as a fail on their part...lol

Anyway, my head first leap into the crazy is a sweater.  Ok ok, don't send the mental health police 'round this way just yet.  Are you really crazy if you are aware you are crazy?  Besides, I've been wanting to knit another sweater for a while.

Totally crap-tastic photo of the stripes I'm doing!  That's brick red, a color called "melon" which is an orangey-pink, and yellow.  It'll be a top down raglan.

The event starts July 27 at 4pm EST.  That's not even two days from now.  Oh crap.

1846 Driving Mitts - Final Update and Pattern Notes

I have finally finished the second mitt!  The first one took four days, the second took two weeks.  Darn second mitt syndrome...lol



So on to the Pattern Notes:

 Needles and Yarn: Fingering weight yarn and 2.25mm (US size 1) DPNs
The patterns calls for "4 pins No. 15 and 4-thread fleecy".  It didn't occur to me until later, but "4-thread" obviously means "4 ply" which is still a term for "fingering weight" in many places.  I mean, it was obvious anyway, but I'm surprised I didn't put that together.

Thumb Gusset: The shaping is very straightforward.  I would say the only potentially confusing part is were it says to "work the pattern on the thumb".  I say potentially confusing only because the stitch count on the thumb changes and you have to pay attention to where you're putting your purl bumps.  I ended up charting it out to where you put the thumb stitches on a holder.

Changes I Made (and assorted "could go either way" decisions):
- After placing thumb stitches on holder, I cast on 8 instead of 7.  This was to keep the stitch count a multiple of 4.
- I counted the cast on stitches as the start of the next round instead of the end of the previous
- After picking up the 8 stitches and 14 held stitches for the thumb, I needed to either add or lose 2 stitches to keep a multiple of 4.  I chose to decrease where the held stitches met the picked up stitches, thereby decreasing 2 and preventing gaps in one shot.

First mitt - complete!

Well, ok...I still have to weave in ends.  But the knitting is done!

I opted to do less stitches on the thumb rather than more.  I figured the decreases would do well to hide and wonkiness from where the knitting met the picked up stitches, and it seems to have worked

I followed the instructions for the ribbing length exactly, even though I was a little worried about the length of the thumb - I've had to shorten thumbs in the past.  But my fears were ungrounded and it's just about perfect.

I still have to knit a second one, but here's my thoughts about this pattern at the moment:
- What are the odds that I'd find an ancient pattern, sub in yarn and needles I happened to have handy, and end up with something that fits perfectly?
- This is the sort of thing that if I'd seen a picture I probably would have passed on as uninteresting.  I'm actually glad this pattern had no picture.
- The stitch pattern seems so bland on paper, but when knit up like this is actually really nice.  I'm adding it to my "simple but so awesome" mental file, along with ribbing, seed stitch, and garter stitch.  Sometimes simple can also be perfect.
- I confirmed my dislike of singles yarn while knitting this, but I love the result.  It's warm and soft...and will probably pill like crazy.  Oh well, I knew that going in. :P