Plushie Pusheen!

Aside from the Facebook Art Trade, I needed an awesome gift to give Midori for Christmas this year!  I tossed around the idea of a cat scoodie, but my final choice was influenced by one of her pins, located conveniently on her "Wants" Pinterest board:

20" Pusheen Plushie, $23.99

I am nothing if not offended by the idea of not attempting to make something like this myself, especially when I found the perfect free pattern through Ravelry.  (The link goes to a blog this time!)

I sat down with some light gray yarn, and went to work.

With the exception of the first stripe turning out wonky, I was pleased with the results:

Excuse me, sir...do you have any Grey Poupon?

To get the second stripe perfect, I tried to center the beginning row with the original beginning row of the first stripe.  From there, I kept the stripe centered on that initial row, ignoring all of the counting that took place.

I also did the invisible decrease technique I picked up from the blood cell plushie project.

The only thing I would change about this (other than getting the first stripe even) is to try PlanetJune's invisible color change technique on the tail.  I didn't take the time to learn it; I was in a rush to make sure I had enough time to assemble the piece and get the fabric paint smile done and dry before having to wrap it.

All that to say...Midori loved it!   (I think she was surprised I looked at her Pinterest board in the first place.)

Win!

Later this week, I'll share the most awesome of the Christmas gifts from my husband.  I need decent lighting to do the photos justice!

Later!

Facebook Art Trade 2014 - #5

For those of you following along with my crochet adventures, you know that I signed up for five separate art trades via Facebook in January 2014.

It's been on my crochet to-do list, and I knew that I had to get all of my projects done within the calendar year.

Well, I'm famous for procrastination.  And 2014 was no exception.

But.

I finished all five before December 31st, so it's a win!

The final project was for Midori (Mike the coworker's wife) and she and I had already discussed what she wanted.  After seeing the VintageBeef pillow, she requested a pillow for her Minecraft skin.

And voila:

Her skin is a redheaded ninja.

So now the crochet queue looks like:

- Guude plushie

- VintageBeef plushie

- Enderman

- Purple and black scarf

- Plushie D20

I may have gotten sidetracked by some other projects, which I will share with you in the future.  I also made some other gifts, but can't post any information about them until they've been opened.  

Hope you all had a great Christmas, and I wish you an adventurous new year!

An Introduction to LARP

I'm preparing to go away this weekend to King's Mountain, North Carolina.  I'll be spending the weekend sharing a cabin with 3-6 other people, mostly men, with no privacy.  Additionally, I'm lugging containers full of Asian-themed decorations and clothing with me.

Yes, it's my clothing.

And then I will spend a weekend dressed in said Asian clothing, toting around a PVC pipe with lengths of foam taped to each end to fashion what is known as a 'boffer-style' staff.

Have I lost any of you yet?

That's a basic, outsider description of LARP, which stands for Live Action Role Play.  LARP isn't just restricted to nerds who like to wear funky costuming and pretend to be elves and fairies.  Other, more historic forms of LARP include reenactments such as Civil War battles.

The LARP I attend is:

Shadowmoor

Owned and operated by Kevin and Casey Hardy.

Running since 1996.

Mike the coworker introduced me to the concept of LARP when I first became a full-time employee in his department.  When he would go away for an entire weekend and come back with what (to me) sounded like live-action D&D dungeon runs, I couldn't help but be intrigued.

He kept insisting that the first even was free.  So Midori and I decided to attend our first event at the same time in May of 2012.  I did attempt to skim the player's handbook; I picked a race and a class for my character build, and ordered authentic clothing from Thailand.  

But I was convinced I had no idea what to expect.

And I was right.

People that have never tried LARP look at it and think it's an uber-nerd activity, like I did.

But you know what separates tabletop D&D from LARP?

The theatricality.

Sure, you can sit at the table, consult your character sheet for your healer, and then roll to see if you can cast a area burst of healing for your party.  If you're in a role-play only campaign, your character might even be concern, and your voice reflects that.

However, knowing that your party is lying bloody and dying on a porch and only your life spells can pick them back up is something else entirely.  Because you can see their bodies.  

Sure, they're pretending to be dead.  But they're on a timer.  And you left your magic stick with life spells in your cabin down the hill.

It takes some imagination, but it's not such a far leap.  And it's far more enriching and real to me than numbers on a paper.  I mean, one of those people was my character's sister-in-law.  She was visiting Shadowmoor for the first time and my character was supposed to be watching her.

Yeah, imagine having to explain that to my character's husband (which is actually my husband's character).  (See what I did there?)

I have watched some amazing acting in my time there.  I've cried when fellow Sampan (my race) did not listen to me and endangered their lives.  I've fought in a six-hour long field battle to save the world from an enemy they had been trying to defeat for over two years.

And I have had so much fun.

Okay, most of the time I sit in the cabin and crochet.  Or make tea to serve to guests that come by.  Or basically just guard Midori while she sleeps.  (I have one job in this lousy guild...it's stupid, but I'm gonna do it!  Okay?!?!)

But then when I do go out, I am seldom disappointed by the different mods the plot members have for us.

Midori scouts our surroundings to make sure it's safe.

If I'm lucky, perhaps I'll get some photos this weekend to share with you.  I hear that Tao and Rax (my character's guild mates) intend for us to actually go out and slay monsters for fun.

Should be wild!

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.  ^_~

SC Comicon 2014 - Part 1

Because there's just too many pictures and information for one post!

This past weekend in South Carolina (Greenville, to be precise) I attended my first ever convention!

My friend Deevius and I had been modifying her previously-gray mask into something a little more Silence-y, and I had intended on going as a 'victim' of the Silence so that people would have a better idea of what she was.

(I was also her handler, chief photographer, and Mouth of Silence (yes, it's a lame Mouth of Sauron reference)).

The con opened at 10:00 a.m., and we actually arrived around 11:00.  Since Deevius was our driver, we suited her up in the parking lot and then joined the long queue outside the door (it went down the hill from the doors, and wrapped halfway along the building on the sidewalk).

Thankfully, a helpful staff member came along the line and told those of us that had pre-ordered our tickets (Midori had one of those) or had Will Call reservations (that would be Deevius and I) we could step out of line and go up to the right.

Thus, instead of waiting out in the hot sun with our black-suited Silence in what I'm sure was a very warm mask, we were able to jump ahead and spend only ten minutes or so waiting to pick up our wristbands.

Disclaimer: yes, it was a "comic" con.  No, I don't know anything about comics.  I was there primarily to see how things work at one of these events.

No sooner had we gotten inside and plotted our route through the many aisles, then Deevius had her first request for a photo.  (And then I saw what Mike the Coworker meant about people stopping for photos.)

I was very glad that I hadn't worn a more obvious outfit for my first con.  Since I'm an introvert, that kind of attention from strangers would have severely unnerved me.  Deevius (although she had her mask on) played it all off as natural, and just rocked every photo request she had. (Even though a fair few asked if she was a Slenderman.)

Here are the ones I managed to catch:

Amy Pond cosplay; every time she saw Deevius after

that, she drew another tally mark on her arms.

The Riddler

The 11th Doctor and Sherlock

Miss Captain America

And then, every so often in her Silent, lurky way, Deevius would tap us on the shoulders, or gesture madly with her three fingers per hand and indicate that she wanted photos with some of the other cosplayers:

Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Random stranger with the name "Pond" on the back

of her sweatshirt; she wasn't cosplaying, but she

said her friends would refer to her as Amy Pond.

Wonder Woman

Stormtrooper

(We had to hunt for him.)

Grumpy R2-D2

(He kept chasing people.)

I think we spent more time messing around with photographs than actually stopping at all of the booths/stalls, but none of us knew that much about comics, so the majority of the stalls didn't have that much appeal to us.

However, the vendors with artsy stuff, toys, and other goods for sale warranted a lengthier look.  Tomorrow I'll share the lootz I got away with (and all for less than $20!) as well as the pictures from the 1960s Batmobile.

At about 1:00 we headed back to the car, where we had left our cooler with our packed lunches, and Deevius took off her mask and was able to see the con in it's beautiful entirety.  ^_^

Part 2 tomorrow!

Thursday Catch-Up

Wow, well there goes my goal to blog every day in May (but at least I made it further than my May goal from last year...).

So much happening this week!  Tuesday I was called in for jury duty (in traffic court, which is also considered a 'magistrate court')--all located in an old brick strip mall along with with a tailor alteration shop as well as a renal care facility.  (o.O)

My poor panda husband was trying to give me directions as I'm madly circling the parking lot looking for the appropriate entrance, and then my cell phone (which has been steadily holding less and less charge) decides it has been possessed by the beep demon, so I had to hang up on him.

Anyway...there is a trip to a Verizon store in my very near future...is it too much to hope that they still offer my model of phone as a free upgrade?  My hard plastic case has protected my little Samsung Gusto for the past few years and I don't even think I ever took the protective plastic off of the screen...it'd be a shame to lose it so soon!

Then the great and craftsy Deevius came by so that we could work on re-shaping the Halloween mask she bought into something more Silence-y (from Doctor Who).  (Note:  While I sometimes have great crafty plans, they often fall flat and do not achieve their true potential due to my own derpiness.)

Several hours of gluing, caulking, and painting later...well.  She's going to take it to a friend in the art department where she works and ask for shading help.  (Mostly to see if what we've done can be salvaged.)

In between all of that, I've been doing an emergency rush order of a 'cactuar' plushie (no, I do not play Final Fantasy) for a friend; he had an acquaintance fall from a ladder and fracture his clavicle, which required emergency surgery and a stay in the hospital.  Pics to come when it's completed!

I'm also in the process of designing business cards to hand out on Saturday.

Why, you ask?

Well...I'm attending my first con!  (It might be a small con, but a girl has to get started somewhere!)

The SC Comicon is being hosted by Borderlands (a local comic book/game/nerd store) and when I participated in the blood drive they held on Free Comic Book Day (May 3rd), I got a free one-day pass to the con!

Thus, the great and fabulous Deevius and I shall be attending, (possibly along with Mike the Coworker's fiancee Midori) and doing a group costume.

She's going as a Silence from Doctor Who.

I'm a cheapskate and I'm going as a Silence victim.  (What could be easier than wearing normal clothing and drawing tally marks all over my hands and face?)

I also plan to tote one of my Minecraft plushies around with me (and I will be wearing my Broken Buttons shirt), and handing out business cards to those that ask where I got him from.

I have a choice of taking Etho (who belongs to me) or VintageBeef (who's part of a triple order and the other 2 plushies are not yet finished).  Etho has 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube and Beef has 900k.  Beef is by far my most popular sale item, but I'd want to contact the buyer and ask if it was okay to take him to the con (in the case of severe handling).

Decisions, decisions!

But before all of that happens, I'm running another session for my D&D players on Friday night!  I'm so excited because I'll get to share this with them:

It's our entire party!

From left:  Xerxes, Saffron, Darius, Malaris, Kuri, and Ana.

A special thanks to Nbiester on Deviantart for taking my commission request and showing it who's boss.

We'll get back to crochet shenanigans another time...maybe tomorrow...maybe later!