This weekend was Intercon K, and despite a few misgivings about some of my games I had a lot of fun. I got to be a computer, a crazy person who loved only the Cthululoid-style horrors, and a demon set on tempting the leading figures of the world to hell.
One of the best things for me about Intercon is costuming. It's playing dress up mostly for adults (there are some teens and pre-teens in the games especially as the con attendees have gotten older and have had children). Not everyone costumes, but for some of us it is almost half the fun. A lot of my costuming is makeup based, because it is relatively easy to find, doesn't take a lot of room to carry, and is very reusable. However, for one of my costumes I did some knitting (and a minor amount of sewing).
Sinner G was a computer I was playing in my first game. For that I made a pair of arm warmers and a yarn wig. I was going to make a dress as well, but as my yarn wig was taking me almost till the start of game, I was just as happy that I didn't bother.
The yarn wig was a short hat (I might have done better if I had followed my instincts with the decreases and made a slightly deeper hat), so it didn't cover my hair quite as well as I would have liked. I applied individual strands of yarn to the hat with a crochet hook. I was treating this like the instructions I had read for making a traditional wig with a cap and strands of hair.
I started the hair at the nape of the neck with a couple of rows of yarn crocheted in (like latch hook). I took the yarn and folded it in half, inserted my crochet hook through a full stitch, and then pulled the yarn through. Each strand of yarn equaled two pieces of "hair."
Near the end I followed some of the instruction on this tutorial. Then I cut the hair so it would be even and close to chin length and used the cut strands to fill out some of the areas close to the nape of the neck. Knitting the hat took only a day or two of commutes, but hooking in individual strands of hair took about 6 hours. If I hadn't done the clumps of hair at the end, I would have expected it to take about 2 more hours to ensure the coverage I was looking for.
I decided that I didn't completely like how I had hooked the hair in the bang area, and to shorten the amount of work I needed to do I sewed a small headband out of the dress material and then sewed it to the hat.
I used the black and silver scarf only to make it so I paid less attention to the wig and more attention to playing the game. It was like a security blanket. Not necessary and between the hat and the arm warmers I was probably the toastiest person in the room.
The arm warmers and hat were both made made of Vanna's Glamour. For costuming I don't really care nearly so much about the quality of all of my materials, especially for things like knitting. Even a lower quality yarn works surprisingly well. That said, the Vanna's Glamour was fairly low on the splittiness scale and worked up well in my favorite size 0 and 1 needles. I prefer working with sock weight yarns even if they take longer to knit.
This pair of arm warmers had a simple ruffle at the hand end and a bit of ribbing with a ribbon threaded through at the top. While it is hard to see in this picture, the arm warmers went to approximately my elbow.
Between the arm warmers and the wig I used 3 skeins of Vanna's Glamour plus about 4 or 5 grams of a skein of white that I used as highlights in the wig. All told, less than $13 for costuming (though I'm not counting the white for this, because I have enough yarn left to make a pair of fingerless gloves or a hat).
I was sparkly and the only thing that would have made this costume perfect is my very tall sparkly platforms. The platforms haven't seen much action since the last time I was in an all silver costume more than 8 years ago. That time I was a robot dog and was sporting silver liquid makeup, which was probably one of the worst costuming decisions I had ever made. Not because it didn't look good, but it was not meant to be worn for more than 4-5 hours at a time. I was wearing it for 12-14 hours for two days and my skin was a little unhappy at the end of it all. Also the makeup would rub off on things, which made eating anything and exercise in seeing how well I could not touch things, because my hands were completely covered in makeup.
But sparkly! I will probably bring the arm warmers to work, though they will look ridiculous with my short sleeved black shirts. I'll be warm at least!
