HPKCHC : February Classes (W16)

Another fabulous month full of much crafting!  I submitted all eight classes once more:

Ancient Runes

From the 'Marmalade Ombre' yarn last month!

Architecture

For my coworker and her tiny little newborn.

Arithmancy

For my brother and sister-in-law for their expected first daughter.

Astronomy

For a commission, to decorate a baby's nursery.

A fellow 'Cupper messaged to see if I would take a commission from her friend;

it was a delightful experience and I was so excited to have been asked!

Charms

The other half of the baby's nursery commission: mandrakes!

I've already made two others for new commissions!

Divination

I decided to try making my first cotton washcloth; I love it!

Muggle Studies

A commission for my cousin, who was in the Air Force.

My first time using anything with alpaca in it!

Transfiguration

Again, my personal favorite from this month!

Obviously, for Deevius since the other one was for DSCA.

Elladan's twin brother, Elrohir; their story of reunification was adorbz.

For reference, here's the picture from the game of where the twins are actually standing, and where I took my screenshots:

  

April was kind enough to recreate it for me with the plushie guys!

I actually made up a puzzle for DSCA and Deevius to solve in the game, using names of the NPCs such as Radagast the Brown to fill in missing letters of the clue at the end.  Deevius logged in and did all the driving, while DSCA decoded the message.  Their journey took them from the Shire, all the way to Thorenhad (where the sons of Elrond are pictured above) and used Elladan and Elrohir's names for the last few letters.  

And then I whipped out two plushie elf-sized packages from behind my back and tried to hold in my squees of delight!  Best Christmas gift ever!

But back to the HPKCHC...

In addition, I also was asked to help out as a volunteer for Hogsmeade Weekend!  I was a hostess over in Bons Temps, the speakeasy.  I even helped out and made out special robes for the occasion:

We had a fun weekend!  And of course I was busy crafting and planning for the final month of the term...

But until March is over, I'll be furiously making all the things!  Be back with you all in a little while!

Craft on!

Dalek Hanging Towel

I'd had this pattern in my Ravelry library for awhile, and finally had reason to purchase it (and no, not just in response to one of the Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup prompts).  Both Deevius and DSCA have moved into new houses this past year (their own bought-and-paid-for-not-renting-like-me houses).

Well, nerdy home decor is usually a must!  Plus, I've had some of that Sugar'n'Cream cotton yarn sitting in my stash for awhile now; this was the perfect opportunity to use it up by testing this pattern out!

Thus, for my Flying homework:

VelvetKey presents her project to the grading professors with a tired, yet happy smile.

Professors, sometimes the simplest maneuvers can be the most successful when attempting something as difficult as recovering a small object (such as a snitch, or dragon’s egg). Some broomwork utilizes cover--flying among trees, bridge struts, or other forms of shielding in order to disguise one’s movements.

In my project, I attempted to use the main color of my work to conceal the complimentary color until I was ready to use it, much like a surprise attack. I am pleased with the result, and hope you like it, too!

And the badge featured for this challenge:

Not too shabby for a Monday!

Laterz, craft fiends...I mean, friends!

Expecto Patronum!

There were several different locations to visit and challenges to tackle during Hogsmeade Weekend.  As I mentioned yesterday, my friend Piglottie (who had graciously volunteered her time at the Hogsmeade Owl Post Office) had summoned me to see the challenges in one of the Slytherin locations.

The challenge was to take a Patronus test and craft your patronus.  (Yes, this is Harry Potter lore.)

I chose to ignore the test results, as the pattern I needed to test was for a different animal.  I bought the pattern on Etsy several months ago and had never had the chance to try it out.

Finished project:

This is the precursor to the "Wolfie" I will be making

for an art trade with Axl_Rosie, a popular Mindcrack artist.

Still, I felt something was missing...and I had a small bit of red yarn left from some other project, so:

Now he reminds me of Hobbes on a winter excursion with Calvin.

This is Deevius's Facebook Art Trade this year!  I'm so happy he turned out all right!

Despite a few kerfoffles with my understanding the pattern, I love this designer quite a bit.  My favorite feature of this plushie was that instead of having to sew each individual limb on, you crocheted through the tops of the limbs (pinching them together flat) as you made the body parts.

That removes so much guesswork for me!  I am terrible at sewing things on symmetrically.

Oh, and of course the badge I earned was:

That pretty much wraps up my Hogsmeade weekend activities and badges!

Oh!  With the exception of solving Arthur Weasley's treasure hunt:

Phew!  Keeping up with all these projects is getting crazy!

Now, I wasn't able to find a place to submit this for the House Cup challenge, but as it turns out, the Starfleet Fiber Arts Corps had the perfect prompt:

Medical Mission:  Craft something comforting.

It worked out well, and I received full credit!  I was able to complete all of my Starfleet missions in February, but March is gonna be even nuttier!

If I don't see you, have a great weekend and craft on!

Blast from the Past: You Might Be A Redneck Elf If...

Courtesy of an email printout I found from 2003 (when the original The Lord of the Rings trilogy came out), I present:

You Might Be A Redneck Elf If...

• Elrond throws you out of Rivendell for ruining his garden with your 3-wheel ATV.

• You deep fry your lembas cakes and eat 'em with fatback.

• You ask Cirdan the Shipwright what the limit is on bass fishing at the Grey Havens.

• You get the Dixie Chicks to record your lament for Gandalf entitled: "Take This Wizard and Shove Him".

• You leave your gaudy Yuletide decorations on your flet all year round.

• You own a velvet painting of Gil-galad.

• When drunk, you taunt mortals at the Prancing Pony with, "Well, at least I ain't gonna die like the rest of you suckers!"

• Your elven steed has a bumper sticker that reads: 'I don't brake for dwarves.'

• You were expelled from Lothlorien for cutting down the mallorn trees for firewood.

• You have a still that puts out hooch made from elanor flowers.

• You and your buddies regularly sneak up to the Black Gate and egg it, then ride off really fast.

• You go skinny dipping in the Dead Marshes.

...I'll leave it up to you to decide which of these DSCA, Deevius, and I are actually guilty of.  We are redneck elves (and hobbit), and proud.

Minecraft Builds: Aedui Bakery

Immediate disclaimer:  I don't build.

If I've said it once, I've said it at least a dozen times...my strengths do not lie in building design.  They lie in copying other people's designs.

That said, I'm pretty good at listening to and/or watching Minecraft tutorials and taking their design principles and at least expanding  them a little bit.

So, if you've never heard of Lynchyinc, here's his Youtube channel.  I was introduced to his tutorials via BdoubleO, one of the Mindcrack server players, and I thoroughly enjoyed his medieval steampunk style.

Last week, when April and I had our normal Minecraft building meet-up (working on her village of Aedui, which when I first saw it, was just a storage room, mine, and an island she'd begun to level) I spoke to DSCA and Deevius and had them show up to help.  We decided that instead of going off on a crazy adventure (because April's connection was far too laggy), we would build something new.

Thus started the construction of the Aedui (eye-doo-ee) Bakery, which I finally completed last night, with the help and assistance of April and DSCA.

Ta da!  I designed a cupcake banner to put on the front, too.

From the back, you can see the twin brick

baking ovens, and their adorable chimneys.

Interior, bottom floor.

We had a time of it, trying to get those ovens lit without setting the ceiling on fire.  In the end, we tore out the wooden planks and put in stone slabs, instead.  I also added wooden beams to support the stone floor, and so far, no more fires.  

Bonus picture: in the distance, you can see the first building April and I did for Aedui.  We even have a villager that lives in the bottom floor!

Far left: DSCA.  Using the furnace: April.

You can sort of see the similar roofing styles between the two buildings at this angle.

I've left April to do the interior of the bakery, and hope to be pleasantly surprised the next time we're able to play again.  The only other buildings we've done for Aedui are the lighthouse/watchtower, and the half-finished home for the lighthouse keeper.  

But we had fun together, and I think that the bakery turned out decent, my lack of building skills considered!

Video Game Reflection: Relationships

True story: I am not used to video games having relationship angles in them.

Except for the Sims.  But that's all the game is about without extra expansions, so I disqualify it.

No, I'm talking about typical hero/quest/adventure video games.  Action and adventure; swords, battle axes, shapeshifting, using the Force, whatever.

Let me back up and explain that my first ever "true" video game was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.  Everything before that (other than Mixed-Up Fairy Tales) was educational.

Anybody remember any of these games?

My brothers and I still have the abandonware today.

Featuring the Shady Glen television station.

Starring paint-slinging robots and math puzzles galore.

Then for Christmas, we got a new computer to replace the brick of an IBM (which only took 3.5" floppy disks (which really weren't floppy compared to the larger 5" disks the old school computers ran on)) that was my first home computer.  That shiny new machine had a CD-ROM drive and Windows 95--it was a thing of beauty!

It also game with a small binder of game discs, which included Myst by Broderbund.

The first realistic 3D game environment I'd ever encountered.

And that was how I got my love of puzzle games, and a glimpse into how games could look (as long as the game didn't have people in it--the first Myst game only had one actual person, and because of the mechanics, you couldn't move in all directions around him).

This was followed by some early internet chatrooms, which introduced me to the wider concept of MMORPGs.  The first one I ever tried was Runescape, and I made it my mission to be the best miner, smelter, and blacksmith ever without raising my combat level (as much as possible; you had to be certain levels to mine in special locations).  

I was the great ore stealer; people would assume that li'l old level 22 me would lose at the ore deposits (because the game awarded the ores to the highest mining level, which was also affected by equipment) when they were level 80+.  Mwahaha!  

Apparently, I'm an early internet troll.

But imagine what it was like for me when in college, somebody gave me an N64 emulator and a bunch of different game images to play on them.  (College was in 2002, in case  you're wondering.)

I went from thinking that 3D characters looked like this:

To this:

And then of course, to this:

This is probably how I got my thing for blond elves.

Around that time, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring came out in theaters.  Besides being the deciding factor in my choice of college major, the trilogy was accompanied by the Gamecube RPG game The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age.

Do you see where this is going?

Couple that with what I was learning about tabletop games, and then the release of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the brand-new Wii system...well.

Now we get the gist of where my desire to play hack'n'slash characters comes from.

However, though the relationship between Link and Princess Zelda is always heavily implied (discounting all of the other ladies in the games such as Midna and Ilia), there's no real "romance" opportunities.  I thought games were supposed to be linear, for the most part, with tons of tiny side quests for bonuses and loot.

Then I entered my Dungeons and Dragons Online phase in grad school.  (There may have been some Serious Sam mixed in--I warned you about me and hack'n'slash!)  This opened my eyes to cool customizable characters.  My friends and I spent real money buying the pretty armor from the store, in whatever colors we wanted.  To me, that was the most advanced character creation I'd ever seen.

(Here I'm discounting the creation of Minecraft skins in Paint, which I've also done.)

This is Deevius and I posing in a clothing/armor shop.

But it didn't stay that way...

Another friend, who is a fellow Lord of the Rings geek, had heard that the online MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online was going free-to-play (this was a couple years ago) and we should check it out.

...yeah...

I never go into these things alone; I of course told my other geek friends what I was doing (the same ones that used to Serious Sam with me, and DDO with me) and lo and behold...we now have our own kinship and game together once a week.  (I in fact bought us all each two expansions during the Black Friday sale this year at the Turbine store.)

Now, I'd heard of other MMORPGs that have relationship options with NPCs, I think from Mike the coworker.  While LotRO does not have that mechanic in place, Deevius, DSCA and I have already divvied up the elf lords we're going to snuggle if that should ever be a possibility.

I mean, DSCA already has Elladan's pants...

Ahem.  I digress.

Around the time I began to play LotRO, I also started dating the Panda.  He was impressed that I had my own Wii.  I was impressed that a boy wanted to talk to me.  (At our small college, geek and/or nerd girls are a minority, and were somewhat frowned upon in my day.  This resulted in me bringing my Wii and television to all the on-campus parties I could.  I educated even the most sheltered of people with Mario Party 8 and Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix.)

A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

We married the summer of the year I began playing LotRO and he moved all of his gaming equipment into our house.  Now, the Panda is an only child, and he would save his money to buy each of the Nintendo gaming systems as it came out.

So, my sparse video game life suddenly exploded.

I didn't know what to do first!  (I still don't know!)

The Panda favors games such as Halo, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect, and Destiny (to name a few of the lasting ones).

He brought with him a PlayStation 3--to me, a mythical device that replaced my DVD player and could also use Netflix and Amazon Video.  At first, I had no use for it; I couldn't even figure out how to play movies.

But then the Panda started playing through the Mass Effect trilogy...and suddenly I didn't care that I didn't know how to use a PS3.  I watched him interact with the characters and make decisions.

And then I watched him romance Miranda.

Well.  Two can play that game.

Yes, I do mean literally.

I would spend the nights he was at work playing the Mass Effect games as (of course) FemShep.  The first time Kaidan made a move on her, I didn't see it coming and I turned him down flat.  (The only options in ME1 are Kaidan and Liara.)  I was too busy mastering the mechanics of a type of game I'd never played before to complicate FemShep's life with another person.

Also, thanks in part to my roleplaying game background, I had already begun to put together a probably backstory for my FemShep (other than her Spacer, Hero chosen requirement).  Her inspiration came a tiny bit from Honor Harrington, David Weber's character and the subject of over a dozen space navy books (toward the end they get a little ridiculous).

Anyway, Velvet Shepard's backstory included at least one failed shipboard romance, likely early in her Alliance career.  It was likely very hurtful, and possibly detrimental to her career, and it could have taken some interference from higher-ups for her to get out of that situation.  (Details unclear--read my fanfic.)  Needless to say, she resolved never to date within the Alliance chain of command ever again.

So my Shepard went on her way, trying and failing to be a good Infiltrator (I do not have the steady hands to use a sniper rifle at all).  My go-to team for ME1 was Wrex and Garrus.  I loved their interplay, and BioWare did a fantastic job creating a well-rounded, interesting universe.

When I find a new fandom/universe and it really, really grabs my attention I go all-out.  That means reading wikis, articles, walkthroughs, and anything else I can get my hands on.  The Lord of the Rings was the last fandom I got really entangled in.

I knew that ME2 was going to be very different from ME1, and not just because of the expanded party options (ten people?  Seriously??).  My FemShep was waking up in a changed universe, presumed dead and brought back to life by the enemy.  The first familiar face she ever saw was Garrus'.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

I had already decided (based on the Panda's playthrough) that if I was going to get sidetracked by a romance, I wanted it to be with Garrus.  This didn't stop me, however, from nearly running right into Jacob's arms accidentally.  I didn't just turn him down flat, I dropped him like a hot potato (because I wasn't aware that I had picked him up--oops).

When asked why I chose Garrus, I wasn't sure why (the character is an alien) at first.  But as I did more and more of his conversation interactions, I noticed how charming and awkward he was.

Just like the Panda.

Hm.  Could be a fluke.

Well, last night I spent some time playing Dragon Age: Origin with the Panda's shared Steam library.

(Side note: this is the one time I have ever been ahead of him in a game!  I know what's coming!  My glee cannot be contained!)

Another BioWare game, Dragon Age is a medieval RPG game, but the plot is so fascinating, it's almost like a disaster you can't look away from.

Anyway, there's another awkward character, and as a female gray warden with any shred of sympathy, you could also find him charming and bashful.  Yeah, I'm talking about Alistair.

What's not to love about a man that says things like that?

The Panda finds it amusing that all my romance choices are essentially him in the games.  I think he's proud.  (I hope he's proud, at least...)

What can I say?  Bumbling charm is what does it for me.  And I don't mind the corniness because of the sincerity.

In one of the cut scenes, Alistair says something like: "Have I told you that I love you today?  Well, it doesn't matter, because it bears repeating: I love you."

My warden answered: "I love you, too."

Alistair:  "See, was that so hard?"

I had to play this part twice, and both times I yelled at Alistair for quoting the Panda.

But enough of me and my video game history.  I didn't have a craft project to share, so I thought I'd talk a little about what I did in game yesterday night, and early this morning.

Later!

Aviator Goggles

When I started GM'ing for my husband and our friends, it was discovered that nobody had rolled a medic/healer.  Not. One. Person.

*sigh*

As it happened, the Panda (who likes to play with the D&D character creator) likes to make random characters just because.  He had found the "artificer" class and made me a character.  He adjusted her slightly to be a medic type, and then it was decided that I could play her.

Yes, I am GM'ing and playing a character.  I take lots of chances to make my character as non-threatening and semi-useless as possible.  She's a very heavy sleeper, klutzy, and hates my husband's character (for plot and historical reasons).

Anyway...since I LARP, I have a thing about costuming.  I decided that all good artificers have goggles, so I found a pattern by Yarn Twins for an aviator hat set (Ravelry link; pattern purchase necessary) that includes hats, goggles, and scarves for humanoids of all ages and sizes!

I went ahead and made myself a trial pair:

It was so hard to get my hook 

through the plastic lenses!

You can actually see through the plastic, but it can scratch easily, so I primarily wear them as decoration.

Well, my friends saw them and at the time said they wanted their own pairs.

This Christmas season, I remembered this.

Hence, I took the plastic cover from our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie and with the help of the Panda, made:

I made a few mistakes, but I don't think Deevius or DSCA will notice.  We've pushed our 'holiday' visit in Virginia back to January or February, though, so I can lay off the gas a little bit and go back to working on Guude and VintageBeef for the time being.

Talk to you later!

Dwarf Lass's Beard! - Cosplay Commission

For LARP last month, I was told that the plot team needed a dwarf beard to match the one I had made in 2013:

That's Mike the coworker.

We had been asked to help run a special All Hallow's (Halloween) haunted house.  Deevius was also with me, for her first (and so far, only) LARP event.  Mike was playing a barbarian.  I was an islander (think Polynesian--I wore a lei and a sarong with hibiscus flowers).

So, in reusing the beard, Mike and Sheryl were going to be playing a pair of dwarf siblings, so she wanted a "girly" beard.  

o_O

How you make an epic beard girly is a little beyond me, but she asked for green bows, so I thought, "Okay, I can figure something out."

Using the same pattern as before, courtesy of Melissa Campbell (Ravelry login required) I started the beard base.

And then I realized that in my 2013 notes about the first beard, all I had said was "pattern was followed 85%; I made some strands shorter due to wearer’s request."

...um, whut?

Commence the educated guessing!  Finished product:

Pattern is supposed to be accompanied by a

crocheted helmet, hence the buttonholes.

I threaded some rare sparkly green yarn I found

in a clearance bin in a tiny yarn shop in New York

through the "metal clasps" of the beard, and 

embellished with plastic gems for extra girlyness.

I found a YouTube tutorial on how to tie perfect bows,

and made teeny, tiny ones.  I then secured the center

knot with superglue and a gem.  I also knotted and 

glued all of the ends, just to be safe.

After all of my rushing around to get this and Nautica's scarf done in time for the event, the gal playing the sister dwarf did not come to the event, or I would have tried to get a picture of her for you.

Instead, Mike the coworker wore his beard, and some professional photographers were out and caught these candids:

Left to Right:  Eolian (Dave) and Moriarty (Todd).

The girl with her back to the camera

is Onesti (Ashe), who plays a Sarr (cat person).

The crochet quest continues!  Today's list:

1)  Two (2) pairs of aviator goggles.

2)  A D-20 plush dice.

3)  Five (5) pairs of slippers.

4)  Guude plushie (the first one!)

5)  VintageBeef VII

6)  Enderman (still...)

7)  Baby Groot II  (I'll do a different post on Baby Groot I.)

We'll keep plugging away!

GennyB, Hermit of Rabbits

That was the title I gave my DeviantArt photoshoot result:

Original idea credited to TerasHD on Reddit.

Apparently in one of his videos, GenerikB built a rabbit sanctuary/shrine on the new MindCrack server.  And then proceeded to call himself the 'Mother of Rabbits' much in the style and fashion of Game of Thrones.

Little did Generik know that there is one animal I have been collecting in stuffed format since I was a wee young thing...

What you see pictured here is approximately one-third of my entire rabbit collection.

Of course, once I had my photo modified to hide the Wii remotes in one corner, and already posted to DeviantArt, I sent that extra step and put it up on the MindCrack subreddit.

And, of course, I made a Tweet:

@generikb The Mother of Rabbits should be careful what he brings upon himself! (You, sir, have been plushie-fied.) pic.twitter.com/4jq0PT12Ri
— Katie (@Velvet_Key) July 28, 2014

Now, it was late, and I knew that most of the sensible people in Europe would already be asleep.

So I spent some time with my girlies April, Deevius, and DSCA on Wynncraft (I swear that I'm going to murderize Yahya the mushroom hippie) and then went to bed.

And I woke up this morning with a couple of alerts:

And then this:

@Velvet_Key that...is A-may-may :D
— Generikb (@generikb) July 29, 2014

Whaaaaaat?

FANGIRL FIESTA!

Of course I replied with something about them being cuddly and thank you very much for the compliment.

I also got a great comment from Axl_Rosie (she was the first!) and one of her followers that I also replied to.  "Puddles of cute" was definitely in the conversation.  ^_^

Ah, well.  Enough basking in the limelight (can I lobby to have it changed to a fruit I enjoy?)...I have Ethos to do!

Happy Birthday Deevius! - Part Two

So Deevius and I attended the SC Comicon together, along with Midori, and I knew she was looking at LEGO minifigs as well as vintage toys.  But I also caught her checking prices on sonic screwdriver replicas.

Well, caught off-guard as I was by her birthday, I went to my fall-back plan: the Panda's Amazon Prime membership, which promises free 2-day shipping on select merchandise from participating sellers.

I began my research!  I knew that I wanted a replica that not only lit up, but made the sonic noise, too.  I think I went through two or three listings before I came across the only one that made noise:

Courtesy of Barnes & Noble.com

I remembered seeing a Doctor Who display in the local Barnes & Noble, however, so I did a price comparison.  With tax, I would only be spending a dollar or so more at a brick-and-mortar location, and not have to worry about shipping mishaps.

And then!

And then...

I remembered that I had an old, ancient giftcard from some friends.  (Like, 2011, 2012 era.)

(Of course, there was a warning on the back of the card saying that after 12 months of inactivity, the company would deduct $1.50/month.  I sent the Panda to the store with it anyway.)

Success!  The full amount was there!  Boo-yah!

But it wasn't enough!  I am famous for handmade craftsies; Deevius is one of my main cohorts in crime!  I couldn't let her down...

So on Friday (we celebrated on the following Monday) I went through Ravelry in search of free Doctor Who related patterns.  

(I am fabulous at last-minute panics.)

I took the pattern I chose and appropriate yarn colors with me to Shadowmoor (since my character has a RP Skill - Weaving: Crochet tag, I can crochet while in play and have a good reason for doing so).

Yes, I did have to give Deevius a not-yet-finished project.

But the final result is totally worth the effort!

Pattern by Lucy Ravenscar here.

And of course I couldn't leave well enough alone:

Dalek:  EXTERMINATE!!

Etho:  ...?  Kurt...someone here to see you...

I tweeted a similar picture to Kurt and Etho, as well as put it up on Deviant Art.  If I'm lucky, I'll be able to get a picture of Deevius with the Dalek before she moves north.  ^_^

Happy Birthday Deevius! - Part One

Last week (June 5th, if you want to know) was Deevius' birthday!

(I was totally side-swiped; thank you Facebook for saving me.)

Lucky for me, she was booked up for the week of her birthday, and we weren't going to be able to celebrate until after Shadowmoor.

I planned a menu, courtesy of a suggestion by Midori for crockpot French dip sandwiches that went over fabulously well.  The Panda was kind enough to make dessert, which were chocolate cake batter muddy buddies.

And although it turned out nothing like the picture:

Recipe here.

Deevius took what remained of the large bowl home for future consumption before she moves out of state next week.

(Sadness!)

She has accepted a job in Michigan, from whence she hailed originally, and now is as good a time as any to get out of the rapidly-declining work environment she's been in for awhile.

So we celebrated like mad fiends, far later than we should have, in our glorious nerdy tradition of watching an episode of Rosemary and Thyme, followed by an extended stint of Lord of the Rings Online.

We were of course joined by DSCA, another friend of ours from college that now lives in Virginia.  She plays with us on our weekly runs through the various countrysides and dungeons of Middle-Earth.

Well, last week we had started a running joke due to the new character titles we had unlocked ([Character Name], Summoned by Lord Elrond).

(This is following all the salacious jokes about how embarrassed DSCA would feel if she truly were talking to Elrond while wearing his son's pants (they were a quest reward and she kept them to wear cosmetically)).  Many comments ensued about how her little hobbit lass obtained Elladan's pants.

(*innocent whistling*)

Anyway...when it was discussed last week that Deevius might accept the job, she quoted what has become our slogan:

The friends that slay together, stay together.

...which is exactly what we do every Monday night from 7:30-10:00 (or later).

Now it's just devolved into us saying that we're going to call ourselves Elrond's Angels and make t-shirts to wear in real life, even if we're not ever together physically ever again due to geographic constraints.

Of course, then we decided that in-game we should all have Elrond's Angels outfits.  My character, Keywen, is a tailor.  DSCA perused the LotRO wiki until she found something she liked; I went through my vault and found the proper supplies, and tailored us each a matching outfit.  

DSCA, as a scholar, makes many sundry dyes for said clothing, and fetched us black dye.  Then we passed around a raven mask and a raven cloak from the bygone Halloween festival (items remain equipped cosmetically even if you're not wearing them--the trick is to not ever replace them or the appearance will vanish).  

And then of course we posed outside in semi-dim lighting:

From left: Nevrian, Pipara, Keywen

(Deevius, DSCA, moi.)

Our awesome raven cloaks from the back:

Classes:  Guardian (moi), Minstrel (DSCA), Champion (Deevius)

And then of course us doing emotes:

Emotes:  /rich,  [DSCA's didn't trigger], and /cheer

In my next post, I hope to show you the lootz the Panda and I got for Deevius; but one wasn't quite finished so I'm working on it like crazy!

Gotta go!

SC Comicon 2014 - Part 2

So now we come to the brief, post-picnic-lunch section, where Deevius was able to see again, and we tried to get pictures of any amazing costumes we had missed.

Spiderman

Gambit & Rogue

The Tallest Jawa Ever

Lucy Heartfilia (Fairytail)

Fun story: I went up to this gal as she was turning

to walk away, and I tapped her shoulder and said,

"Lucy!  Can I get a picture of you?"

This girls's smile was the most brilliant thing I've

ever seen, which is what encourages me to try doing

a complete cosplay at a con in the future.

(She even let me pick which key she held in the picture--I picked Loke.)

The other two remote-controlled R2-D2s.

(This one snuck up behind me when I was photographing the Jawa.)

Also, a huge shout-out to Midori, who toted plushie Etho around with her for most of the day (barring the fifteen minutes where I was holding him and not taking photos).  She was amazing; every person that inquired about him, she pulled out the small stack of business cards I'd given her, and managed to give away all but four.

(It's my dream, maybe in a couple years, to be able to have a booth of my very own at a con like that.  Cuz that would be awesome!)

And it was pretty legit; one little girl came right up to Midori and said, "I like your Etho."  (Major WIN right there!)

Most other people recognized Etho as 'Kakashi' from Naruto, even if they didn't understand the reference to Minecraft via the redstone torch he had pinned to his left hand.

Here he is with me, posing in front of the "official" SC Comicon badge:

The one other thing we had to do was get Deevius in the Batmobile.  There was no way she was leaving without photographic proof:

Everything inside was labeled "Bat_____".

So, my goodies from the con included:

Tile coasters featuring the TARDIS in other fandoms.

This is Narnia and Middle Earth.

(The artist was out of his Shire coasters.)

Deevius got Middle Earth and the bridge of the Enterprise, c. 1969.

Amazing wooden charms for all fandoms.

Clearly, I went with Legend of Zelda.

Deevius went with Captain America, and chose the necklace option.

The artist also had everything from Marvel to DC, Naruto, and many more.

But there were all kinds of toys, models, shirts--and of course, boxes and boxes of comics.  I wish I had had the presence of mind to ask about some of my retired/vintage/internationally-published collections that I'm trying to finish (namely 'ElfQuest' and 'Asterix and Obelix').

There's always next year! 

So my next con...hmm...I've been invited to MineCon 2014, to speak as a member of the Broken Buttons if they are able to host a custom map-making panel.

But, as the Panda would say:  "There are 3,249 things that have to happen in order.  We are on 8.  You're talking about number 2,796."

Still, he was kind enough to photograph my arms before I became a normal person instead of a crazy fangirl:

Silence will fall.

(But only because I tripped Deevius.)

Until next time, where we'll get back to Minecraft crochet discussions.  ^_~