Fandom minute: Hooray for the prequels, space crafts, and beards

Obi-wan KenobiI heart prequels: What makes the prequels so great? International House of Geek picks their top ten great things from the Star Wars prequels, from the Jedi Order to the score to battle scenes to Ewan McGregor. Not quite sharing the love (though sharing a few favorites), one of Tor’s bloggers picks five great things from the prequels, and five classic trilogy fizzles. Over at Big Shiny Robot, Bryan makes the case that Episodes I-III are more liked than is generally thought.

The soft side of the Force: Check out these plush Star Wars characters and these crochet granny square TIE Fighters.

This Artoo unit has a sweet motivator: Two times the R2-D2! Check out this remote controlled LEGO Artoo and place an order for a custom knitted R2-D2 sweater.

The planet that it’s farthest from: A war photojournalist visits some of the Star Wars filming sites in Tunisia this summer, and comes across the Mos Espa set, Owens farm, Jawa rock and more.

Making the lists: General Grievous pops up in io9’s list of computer generated characters that actually look cool, Darth Vader is on Total Film’s list of horrible movie bosses (Hey, if your boss chokes you on the job and you die, there’s no workman’s comp claim!). And of course, Jabba the Hutt makes Andrew Liptak’s list of sci-fi gangsters not to mess with.

Who’s scruffy looking? Ewan McGregor’s facial hair in Revenge of the Sith (along with the beards of Harrison Ford, Samuel L. Jackson and Ian McKellan) gets rated on The Men of Whisker Wars Rate Famous Screen Facial Hair.

Giants & Star WarsSpeaking of beards, Sunday is the Star Wars Day at the San Francisco Giants ballgame, where the cool giveaway is a three-sided statue of Brian “Fear the Beard” Wilson in carbonite, a more traditional Han Solo in carbonite and a Giants / Star Wars logo.

Etsy Scavenger: Star Wars wear & carry edition

This second set of Etsy finds this week highlights things you wear and carry. Corsets, hats, buttons… Anything you can imagine, someone has no doubt made it. (No jewelery, but everything I saw this time I’ve already blogged about.)

Come back Wednesday for the final installment!

Joss Whedon Was My Crocheter Once

Back in December, Joss Whedon was interviewed by Kim Werker of Crochet Me.  They discussed his thoughts on what he describes as the ‘desperate rivalry between knitters and crocheters’, why crafters should watch Firefly, his secret past as a crocheter and knitter, and of course the ever popular Jayne Hat.

How did Kim score the interview?  By getting the entire geekcraft community to shout for his attention, of course.

Who’s Crafty?

We’ve already pointed you to the crocheted Dalek.

But of course there’s more. You can knit a Dalek. Or a TARDIS; the picture of the finished TARDIS includes some Dalek cookies to boot. And there’s another TARDIS pattern as well.

Want more? There are good pattern roundups for knitters and for crafters.

Waaaay back in the distant past of geekdom, lots of people were knitting Dr. Who scarves, a tradition that has re-ignited. There are lots of patterns floating around on the web. Check out the pattern roundup if you need help figuring out how to knit a garter stitch scarf.

May the craft be with you

scrapyoda.jpg The Dubai Steamtroopers are not alone… In Bangkok, artist Yumi Modal and family are also crafting Star Wars figures from metal. Is this the start of a new trend? Graffiti is so last season. (via)

Before Kyle Katarn, there was
Gonk. Are you worthy of building an avatar of The One Droid? (via)

Someone made a tiny version of the Shadows of the Empire novel. But why SOTE? Is there a whole collection of these things out there somewhere? What a terrifying prospect!

So you already have a Princess Leia hat, crocheted Yoda ears, and an Artoo hat; Why not round out your collection with an R2-D2 Beanie?

Crafts for the Web Generation

Y’know, I’m starting to suspect that Dunc has a secret yearning to be crafty, in the Hobby Lobby kinda sense, at least. She keeps coming across this nifty stuff that really has to be shared. Since there are many crafty types on Club Jade (who are actually out of the closet, that is), we present them to you here:

Still reluctant to turn back into a Muggle after the hype of the past few weeks?
– An entire blog devoted to the knitty side of the Wizarding World, or
– Counterfeit some Wizard coinage for the next time you hit Diagon Alley.

Okay. You’d rather stick with the needle arts?
– Ease yourself out of Harry Potter and back into the Star Wars galaxy by knitting your favorite baby a felted Yoda hat
– Money woes preventing you from buying that new game system? Embroider your own!
– Don’t forget to crochet some games to go with it, while you’re at it
– Is sewing more your thing? How about hitchhiking across the galaxy with this really nifty Planetoid Purse?

Alright. Your skills lie elsewhere. Like food maybe?
– Make your favorite geek’s snacktime special with Circuitry Snacks
– Or ramp up the classiness of your wedding with this Mario cake or an entire XBox!

If you are geekily crafty, we’d love to share it. Just drop us a line!