AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

Fun times (super tired edition)

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!

shopping

Tonight I'm heading out to Intercon for the weekend, and because I'm a champion procrastinator I don't have all of my costumes done.

However, the silvery dress that was going to be hand sewn at the last minute?

It's booted to the curb. While I have the fabric, thread and needles with me, I also had the emergency run to the Marshalls in Downtown Crossing over lunch where I got a grey simple dress and a pair of scary leggings for not much money. The dress is even appropriate for work with either an undershirt or a cardigan.

I feel weird saying this, but I love Marshalls (at least the one in DTX). I first discovered its usefulness when I went to the gym before work like normal only to discover that I had not packed any work clothes. I panicked and went up to the local Marshalls. While there are a number of different clothing shops in DTX, the Marshalls is really close by. I got in there and out in under 20 minutes with a pair of work appropriate pants and a top for under $30. I was thrilled.

Today's "I don't want to spend all night sewing this dress" spree came to under 30 as well. Not bad and it allows me to work on the other parts of my costume that aren't done instead.

Treats?

This weekend was a cooking, crafting dog-topia kind of weekend. I made Swiss Chard Gratin, which I found very tasty and very green (so green), mashed potatoes and home fries (trying to make sure things don't go bad), and oreo-stuffed cookies. I completely misread the recipe for the cookies, and used just over half the quantity of butter and it still came out just fine. 

I have started my dress. The outer pieces are all cut and have been shaped to my body to make sure that it will fit when I get around to sewing. Tonight I will probably cut out the lining pieces and sew those first. The silvery knit filmy fabric is definitely sheer enough that I could read my tshirt yesterday when checking the fit.

My method for this was to fold the fabric roughly doubled, so I had four layers and then fold my tshirt in half and cut around the tshirt. This is similar to the method my friends and I used on my houppelande in college. In college, we folded the fabric and I lay on the fold line. We then placed a piece of fuzz, a penny and another piece of college room detritus at strategic points. And then we realized that none of this accounted for my body's depth and thanked our lucky stars that we had a stretchy knit fabric (velveteen) for the base.

I wanted more ease, so I have cut a gusset-like creature that is roughly 2 inches at the top and wider at the bottom that can roughly stretch from my bra line to the bottom hem. 

I wanted this to look professional, but done and lasting for a weekend is more important than looking factory made.

I started the second of my arm warmers for this costume. I'm using Vanna's Glamour in platinum and size 0 and 1 needles. I'd take a model shot of the first one, but I'm lazy. Maybe tomorrow if my husband has time to use the camera. Photographing my own arms seems a little complicated!

Victor got a lot of loving this weekend. It was snowing (again), so I let him out the back door and watched him play in the snow. Snowy days often mean extra treats, because he is a sniffy dog and to encourage extra play time I throw a handful of either the bacon or charlie bear treats. He then spends some good time sniffing and finding the treats in the snow. Otherwise he would pee and then sit at the door to come back in.

I have thanked my lucky stars this winter that we have a huge back yard that he can run around in. I walked him all of last winter and drove myself mental. This way I don't have to walk him every day, though as soon as the weather is better it will be back to the streets for us!

Until then, Victor wants a treat!

We love his face when he hears us say treats (or most other words in the same vague intonation). His ears rise up and he looks so focused! Our food-motivated dog. 

Poor puppy. I think we need to give him another treat!

Doesn't he look like the most food-deprived pup in existence?

No actual dogs were starved in the making of this photo. A treat was proffered and accepted for sitting long enough for us to get a cute picture! More treats were thrown out the door later for running around in the snow like a fool dog.

folded fabric

I was planning on making this knee-length dress today out of this very shiny silver fabric. The fabric is probably the hardest fabric I've ever tried to fold. Yup, just to fold. Right now the fabric is in a mostly folded state and the pattern is carefully folded and replaced in its envelope.

I was so excited about finding a pattern that looked like pretty much what I envisioned in my head that I bought it without carefully reading the description.

And the pattern is too small. Apparently in 1973, it was not common to have multiple sizes of pattern in the same envelope, so I have a dress pattern for someone with a bust almost 4 inches smaller than my own. I might be able to resize everything, but I'm not really inclined. I'm a little disappointed with myself. 

On the other hand, I went up to the costume boxes and found a white blouse and a vest that would work (along with a pair of work pants) for my steampunk character. There is something to be said for a complete box of costume stuff.

Intercon

Intercon K is at the beginning of March. I have my first character and I know what I want to make/wear:

grey or silver tights
a knee length silver dress with either a mock turtleneck or mandarin style neck and either flutter or cap sleeves
arm warmers
wig

I might be able to justify wearing the sparkly platforms I bought umpteen years ago, because they were too scary fabulous to leave behind.

And makeup. I normally use makeup as an affordable way to transform myself into many different characters.

Yesterday morning I unearthed my fabric stash. I have this filmy silver swirled fabric. My rough yardage estimate (fingers to nose, fingers to nose) was about 4 yards. That should be enough to make something knee length, but I don't have a pattern. I have cobbled together patterns before for some really simple things, so I should be able to make something that works even if it is not attractive outside of the costuming sense.

There is knitting to be done, tights to buy, and insanity to commence. 

And I haven't even found out about my other two characters yet!

nano day 3: still not king

Today's Writing Prompt:
Night after night, you have these strange dreams and most of the time you forget them. Then one day they start coming true!

NaNoWriMo, like always, is teaching me truths about life that I shouldn't have forgotten. Things like:

• It is hard to do anything while the television is on (less than 100 words in an hour).  
• Writing by hand then typing almost always equals editing, and doing almost twice the work.
• Writing by hand makes your hands tired.
• Writing by hand feels more like a creative process than writing a story on the computer.
• If you are going to read a series of books, finish them before NaNoWriMo.

I should be done rereading all of the books of this series before this weekend, and our television watching tends to be a little top loaded, so hopefully I will be able to make better progress this weekend when I put food in a crockpot and alternate knitting (for fun and profit) and writing all afternoon. I hope to make it past the 1667 a day mark with extra effort on the weekends, because I don't want to do what I did the only year I won.

Let's just say that Thanksgiving should be a relaxing (mashed potatoes!) experience and not a hair pulling writing fueled craze of a holiday.

In other news: signups for games for Intercon K start today. I will need to take a break from cooking and cleaning and writing (ha!) to sign up for Interesting Times, the sequel to the singing game Tis No Deceit that I enjoyed umpety years ago!