So sometimes when I’m designing new jewelry for Dragonrealms, I look at Ornament Magazine (among others) for ideas.
And I can’t believe I only now realized that the woman on the cover of the Winter 2003/2004 issue has a tree fungus for a hat.
What. The. Hell.
Hope she checked herself for termites after the shoot.
After much trial and error, I got the colors to pool in a knitted object juuuust right. I’ll post pics when it’s done and gone to its destination.
In thinking of more nifty things I can do for the fest, I remembered something from long ago that will help. I hope to work on it a little tonight.
Mailed off two Jayne kits and two hats, although there’s plenty more to go.
Unhappy with the quality of the color joins on the 6 foot Jayne scarf, I unravelled what I’d done re-knitted the first part using a different method. The color joins look noticeably better now.
All in all, I am overworked and very tired, but the results are showing. A good day.
This looked like a cute little poll. Then number seven came up. Suddenly it was just weird.
I got a nifty card from my Fiber Godmother yesterday. She made it herself, the crafty thing!
Lookit! she stitched the fabric to the card! Clever, eh?
Thanks, Fiber Godmother! I’m psyched!
Okay, my Dragonrealms Secret Santa never mentioned that she got her gift, but I’m going to assume that she got it and that it’s safe to post, since it was sent Priority Mail on Jan 3rd. The bulk of this post is copied from the knitting community, where I posted earlier.
I love festivals.
I love the way everybody backstage works steadily for months, but there’s always more to be done. Everybody gets into a controlled and focused frenzy near the end, being sure everything is ready, and there’s always something that’s not, and then something breaks, and everybody says “okay, what can I do? Who needs help?” and pitches in to get that baby back on the rails.
I love the way players get so excited by all the new stuff, to the point that I’m standing there as a merchant talking to them, and mention that something else has just opened, and they go “OMG WHERE!?” and then take off at a run to check out the new shop.
I love the way we all get so excited seeing players go “THIS ROCKS!” about our stuff, and there’s also the “THIS SUCKS!” about our stuff and even that’s exciting.
I love seeing, at this fest, an entire room full of players in hard hats, pounding girders and generally being giant Doozers, all working together.
I love all the planning and hard work that goes into the lead-up events, and the ways GMs are forced to improvise and change as the players shape the history of the virtual world around them.
I love the rush of altering and managing a list and a room full of people all whispering to you, “excuse me, but…” because they want to be polite, and they are, but they’re also so excited.
I love the sense of urgency, and I even love it when stuff screws up in amazing, unexpected ways and we have to adapt on the fly.
I love the adrenalin surge behind events like this. It reminds me of why I love GMing in the first place.
Dragonrealms, you’re the best, baby.
http://www.livejournal.com/community/bigdamnknitters/24730.html?style=mine#cutid1
I think someone else must have posted up info recently, because five orders for kits came in on the 11th, and I had to turn a sixth away because I’m so very low on cotton right now. I’m working on rectifying that. Two kits shipped out today, by the way, and three will ship out tomorrow.
Unless there’s a knitalong going on somewhere that I don’t know about, I figure someone must have let out an internet “SQUEEEEE!”
Because, c’mon. Jayne is very SQUEEEEE-worthy.
I don’t feel so great tonight. My head is pounding, I have some kind of stomach ick going on… but you know what? Who cares. Because of
Well, it’s official. Jayne hat orders are now coming in just a hair faster than I can fill them. I thought it would let up after Christmas, but it’s January and I’m still getting roughly an order a day for finished hats. About an order a day per kit, too. I can knit a wool hat a day and still have a little free time for myself, but the cotton ones take longer, so that slows me down. And of course, some orders are for other things which may take longer, like dice bags or friggin’ huge scarves, and believe me, that scarf is thick and big, it’s not a project I can jam into my bag and take with me wherever I go. Also, I’m screwed should I have to slow down due to illness or injury, something I thought about yesterday when my daughter accidentally caught my fingers in the door at Starbucks. Ouch!
Add to that that I’m so overwhelmed that I’m not able to help with the Merelew event in Dragonrealms as much as I’d like to, and you get back to the whole “free time” issue. I coordinated alterers for the first Merelew festival back in ’99, and wish I could have a bigger hand in this one, but there’s just not the time. (And people, this is gonna be cool. Really.)
I can’t hire someone on at any kind of living wage, so my options are either raise the price and see if that slows demand, or temporarily stop taking finished hat orders. I’m certainly open to suggestion.
As problems go, this is a good one to have, but it’s still a problem!
I’m making a show row rib scarf, as seen in MagKnits. There are issues therewith. Pics below.
