HPKCHC : June Classes (S16) - Throwback

The second month of the Spring 2016 term was even busier than the first!  I realized that I was going to fall behind in HuffleTourist if I didn't submit either more classes, or higher yardage projects.  I opted to submit a seventh class this time, as I was working feverishly on my OWL and Mission.

Astronomy

It's funny how I love to torture my roommate's cat,

all in the name of crafting.  Free Ravelry pattern here!

Charms

One of four themed kitties!

So the real life story behind this is that my Firstie Friends over in the MJJ Stash Club decided to organize a Happy Harry Birthday Swap, slated for Harry Potter's birthday.  I was given Ahanson08 to spoil, and she's been ever so generous to me (sent me yarn she SPUN HERSELF, as well as fiber to help me try more spinning on my own) so I knew I had to make her package extra-special!

Well, Angela (Ahanson08) has been in Gryffindor the past three terms, and was hoping to move to Ravenclaw but couldn't get in this term.  Since I didn't know which house she favors in Harry Potter, I decided a complete set of kitties was in order!  Stay tuned for the others!

Defense Against the Dark Arts

Commission for the lady I gave the purple jellyfish to last month!

Free pattern found here!

Herbology

Oh so studious!

Part of the Happee Harry swap.

History of Magic

Pattern available for purchase on Ravelry.

Also available for order from my store.

Magical Literature

Pattern available for free here.

Also available for order from my store.

Potions

Spun on my drop spindle, while I was at Shadowmoor!

and of course,

Detention

Pattern can be purchased on Ravelry here.

Made for Guardian's Hatting Ceremony, in Shadowmoor:

So, if I didn't tell you the story of Guardian...let me do a synopsis now (yes this is Shadowmoor LARP stuff).

(For reference: LARP = Live Action Roleplay.  Translation?  An interactive game where you assume a persona (or many personas) in order to fight monsters, complete quests, occasionally save the world, and have fun.  More information about Shadowmoor here.)

I came to Shadowmoor (started playing) in May 612 (2012), and I was completely new to everything.  I arrived in town by the worst possible method: resurrecting.  What I remembered was very little; but I had Midori with me.  We had been journeying together, and at least she knew her way around, as she had been a trader among the nearby towns and villages most of her life.

She had a special relationship with the guildmaster from the Mages' Guild, Rax.  Although he didn't know me, he accepted me as Midori's friend and allowed us to stay in the guild building.  My first night on land was difficult; as a Sampan, I had been born, raised, and lived my entire life aboard my father's ship in the Shengdong fleet.  I'd been on land a few times, but never very long.

I missed the rocking of the waves; the lull of the water's embrace and the quiet noise of the wavelets against the hull.  I sat up the first night, swaying to and fro in my bed as if to persuade myself to sleep.  Guardian was the one who sat up with me.

He is the mithral golem that guards the Mages' Guild.  He loves hats, and he is considered a full guild member, as he is fully sentient.  Though he rarely speaks, he watches over all of us as a silent sentinel...and I considered him the very first friend I made in Shadowmoor.  I went on to crochet him a very large and oversized Thor-like hat that he has worn ever since.

So, when I heard that this past November (615, or 2015) that Guardian had been killed defending the Mages' Guild when the harbingers hit Shadowmoor, I was devastated.  I hadn't been at the November event (too cold with no cuddle buddy), so I discovered his absence in March of the following year, when the game resumed.  So, I made it my personal mission to see if there was any way Guardian could be repaired.

My mission led me all over; I went to Higara, the island of the Gray Elves to speak with Janus and Titanus about him.  I had heard that Guardian's soul might have once belonged to a Gray Elf, so perhaps his soul might have journeyed back to his homeland.  Janus assured me that the Gray Elves were not Guardian's creators, but they would reserve a place of honor for him in a peaceful garden dedicated to Shadowmoor allies.

While touched by his sentiment, I was resolute that this was not the end of things.  I had to seek out Guardian's original creator: Caillie.  

What happened then was a golden golem showing up at the Mages' Guild one afternoon, with all sorts of passwords and instructions.  What came of that little adventure (Rax, Tao, Lucky, Audrick, and Fizz all went, too) was that Caillie's golem workshop could restore Guardian to us, but it wouldn't be until the following gather (in May).

I stepped forward and volunteered to remain with Guardian; to sit with him and to be there when he awoke, just as he had been there my very first night when I was afraid of everyone and everything and world was new to me.  And while in the workshop, the little golem army kept me supplied with everything...including yarn!  I decided to crochet Guardian a brand new hat while I waited.

Thus, at the May 616 (2016) event with Fizz as the Official Hat Master (she is a gnome; hats are a thing they do), we held the Grand Hatting of Guardian and celebrated his return!  We had cookies and punch and it was a great time of relaxation and fellowship.  Fizz had made hats mandatory, so many had brought hats with them, and Fizz, Lucky, and Scylla had folded hats from tissue paper for those that didn't have them.  I was nominated at the last second (as in, during the ceremony) as the Official Hat Master's Hat-Passer, and presented Fizz with Guardian's new fedora, which he now wears instead!  (We might need to get him a little hat rack...)

I visit Guardian every gather (the first gather he was back I think I even ended up sleeping in the circle beside him while waiting for the rest of the guild to come back; we had all scattered into the woods at one point, and it took us a couple of hours to regroup) now that I stay in the Infirmary and it's such a reassurance to have him back!  

And that concludes the story...

Craft on!

Tropical Delight Wrap

Backtracking a bit here...

It's totally because I was waiting for pretty pictures.

I've written previously about playing the Shadowmoor LARP, and between the months of April and May, I began to do some online role-play with another Sampan.

(The leader of the Sampan storyline had made a Facebook group to keep all the Sampan in Shadowmoor 'in the loop' about shared visions. I have been trying to spread the word around to all of the other Sampan, to make sure that they know what's going on.)

Long story short: Calla (Jamie) and Feather (me) decided to take a short sea voyage out to see said leader (the Dragon Prince) using Honu's (my husband's) boat.

Anybody confused yet?

We have had some great written roleplay interactions on our journey out to the Dragon Prince (in fact, we're still RP-ing now!) and when we were originally starting out, Calla expressed concern about being recognized and drawing unwanted trouble to ourselves.  (Feather is very much acquainted with this feeling.)

"Perhaps you would consider a disguise? I mean, you didn't think my real name was Feather, did you?" Feather summons an almost conspiratorial smile. "I used to be a weaver by trade; I'm sure I have something that would keep your identity a secret."

Calla smiles, leaning forward slightly. "I... hadn't thought about your name before, but that does make sense."

She thinks for a moment. "I've made a hood that would disguise you, or a long wrap that can be worn any number of ways. Or of course I could craft something new in a color you prefer." Clearly a little delighted with the idea of disguise hijinks, Feather rummages through one of her trunks.

"And of course, a nickname would help mask your identity, too," she continues. "Even Midori went by Jade before coming back to TaiZi Rax."

Calla smiles. "I'll leave the nickname to you. It takes me ages to name kittens, and they don't even care what they're called. I would be very grateful to borrow something. They're used to seeing me in colors analogous to blue. Anything outside that color family would throw them a bit..."

"Hmm," Feather says after a long moment of consideration. She pulls a small bag out of her trunk; the contents clack softly as she opens it and pours a handful of seashells into her palm. After a thoughtful moment, she stirs the shells with a finger before selecting four and putting the rest away. Then she pulls an open-worked wrap with tones of beige and purple, accented and bordered in seafoam green.

"Periwinkle," Feather says, holding out the shells and wrap to Calla.

Calla had laughed and nodded her agreement at Feather's assessment of Town on a ship, and watched with intrest as she sorted through the crocheted goods and shells. She now looks surprised, then smiles.

"Really? I mean- Thank you!" She bows and carefully accepts the gifts with both hands. "They are beautiful."

"You're more than welcome," Feather replies with a grin. "The adventures of Periwinkle and Feather...I think we could sell a few books with a title like that."

At the time, I sent Jamie a picture of the shells Feather had given her above:

 My mother brings me shells when she goes on vacation;

these are actually periwinkle seashells, hence Calla's nickname.

If you read the description above of the 'open-worked wrap'...it does seem oddly specific.  

I'm trying to contain my crafting glee...it's not working.

Maybe it's because I had already selected a lovely pattern that I wanted to make: 

Tropical Delight Shawl by Elk Studio

Purchase available through Ravelry.

And I had wandered out to my nearest lovely yarn store and bought the colors I wanted to use.  

Jamie/Calla/Periwinkle didn't know I was doing any of this!

So I spent the first couple weeks of May crafting like a madwoman.  I ran into a couple of pattern snags, but they were entirely my fault for not reading everything correctly.  I absolutely love the result, and staged some Hawaiian-themed pictures:

Doesn't everybody have a ukulele at home?

At the last minute, however, I wasn't able to attend the May gather for Shadowmoor (too many other crochet commissions; sometimes being a responsible adult has to come first).  So I sent the wrap up to site with Mike the Coworker (with the periwinkle shells wrapped inside).

Jamie loved it!

And what was even better, I asked if I could take pictures of Calla (meaning, in costume) to show you all, and I was finally able to do it at the June gather!

The sunlight and setting were perfect; this location is just outside the larger cabin we use for the Mages' Guild.

Isn't Calla (and the wrap of course) just lovely?

Thank you to Jamie for being so gracious!

Such a pretty color combination!

Apologies for the silence in June; I've had a lot of commissions going on and will hopefully share one or two (plus another free pattern!) soon.

Craft on!

Shadowmoor LARP: April 2015 (Feastival!)

Apologies for the silence this month--it's been so busy around here!

I meant to share some of the photos that were taken at Shadowmoor LARP during the April gather.

April is the month in which we celebrate Feast (also known as Feastival!)...essentially Shadowmoor Christmas.  There are games, player tournaments, and other contests such as the dessert contest and table decorating.

(It is a feast, after all!)

So below I share with you the few photos I was able to take.  I hope you enjoy!

Taken on the Mages' Guild front porch.

Left to Right:  Connor, Uzou, Rengar.

Left to Right: Rengar, Fizz, Kijja.

Left to Right: Kijja, Audrick.

Connor is a Sampan elf, like my character.  He was actually race-changed to a Sampan in a mod I was on with him during his very first gather.  He chose to keep the race-change!  (I think that's pretty awesome.)  Feather (me) got to teach him and his other friends about what it meant to be a Sampan.  I'm very happy that he came back for a second event!

Uzou is a human templar, meaning he's part fighter and part caster.  He's focusing on celestial magic (which is what the Mages' Guild is all about), and has just started learning to cast formal magic (that is, "magic" cast from scrolls in order to do things like make items, store spells for later, and enchant weapons).  He's been running with the group for a little while, and this gather the 'core' members of the group were able to interview him and induct him into the guild.  We gave him a belt favor to wear, in order for him to be easily identified as one of us.

(Of course, that goes both ways.  It is also possible to bring shame to our guild, and if that happens...well, I'd hate to see Guildmaster Kaelys when he's sufficiently angry.)

Rengar is a reaver (a native version of a hobbling, which is a take on halflings/hobbits).  He's a rogue (in both class and manner) and sometimes spends time with our group.  He's actually quite good at accompanying us on trading missions...but as a reaver he is full of mischief and only semi-trustworthy.

Fizz is a gnome, and is nothing without her hat.  (Sometimes I'm convinced that the hat is actually Fizz and the body can't survive without the hat.)  We had a great gather getting to hang out; she's guild second this year and takes that very seriously.  She led us into the field battle on Sunday morning (after the feastival activities had concluded) and was great at keeping the guildees together (which makes healing them so much easier!).  She and I had great and glorious plans for decorating our table for the guild, which was a surprise for them.  It was really nice to spend more time with her; I only wish we lived geographically closer in real life!

Kijja is also a Sampan, of the long-eared variety.  He's also a templar focusing on celestial magic.  It's a shame his shield is wrong-side up; the design on it is pretty intricate.  He was originally brought to the guild by Syl, but has really fleshed out his character and I enjoy roleplaying with him.  My character sort of sees him as a younger brother, and chastises him for silly things as appropriate.

Finally, Audrick is a stone elf (which I'd never met before).  He was also inducted into the guild during the April gather, and as I hadn't spent as much time with him as with Uzou, I really wanted to make sure I understood his motivation.  Bonus: I got to learn a lot about the culture of the stone elves!  He participated in one of the PVP tourneys, and actually did really well!  (I was told; I wasn't there.)

Let me tell you: it is really inspiring as the healer who has to stand in the back behind the fighters and look forward to see all those shiny new belt favors on so many people's backsides.  Makes me feel a little bit safer.

Pidge Tenbeers converses with Burbank.

Trench and Orchid speak with a newer player.

In the top picture, the beard Pidge (Mike the coworker) is wearing was made by moi!  My very first beard, and I'm so very proud of it.

In the bottom picture, Trench is an ogre, Orchid is a Sampan.

Finally, I did manage to capture our table decorations!  Fizz and Rengar were awesome at setting everything up!

Yes, that's my Gaithersburg stole being used as a tablerunner.

Fizz and I chose to do little rubber ducks as our feast favors.

I bought the ducks, and Fizz made the tiny little personalized flags.

Huge success!  Everyone loved them.

One of these gathers, I'm going to be able to get lovely glamour shots of everybody in the guild and update our Facebook group with them.  (I don't photograph well, though, so it might take some doing.)

Until then, craft on!

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!

Etsy Spotlight: Tatoke

For those of you who don't shop on Etsy much (what's wrong with you?...just kidding), it has a suggested items function, just like most other online stores.

Only instead of generic suggested items, it suggests the Favorite boards of people who have liked similar things to you.

Well, today through some board-hopping, I came across Tatoke, which sells out of Dublin, Ireland.

What caught my eye?

Well, this fleece dress:

Listing here.

I could wear this to LARP, on those bitterly-cold night mods where you wear every layer of clothing you've brought, plus your most portable blanket.

It's a snuggie for LARP!  (Much more stylish, though.)

I can't say no!

And then poor Midori who has none of the body fat I do, loves purple, so:

Listing here.

I love to support other Etsy sellers, so perhaps in a few more commissions I'll be able to place an order for both tunics in a few months, before the weather up in the mountains turns too cold.

Woohoo!

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!