Random thoughts and some project stuff

This week’s been a little tiring and overwhelming, so I don’t have a nice polished blog entry. I’m fine, everything’s fine, it’s just a combination of technical difficulties, slight arm pain caused by sleeping on the side I got the covid vaccine on, and a big deadline coming up fast and hitting hard.

Instead, I thought I’d follow in the fine tradition of the Yarn Harlot (she’s a great writer, but hasn’t blogged much lately) and present a random collection of images and projects that I’m working on that aren’t enough to get their own entry but do deserve at least a mention. About half of this is rpg related, about half is yarn related, and all of this is theoretically at least half-decent. 

1. I’m working on a second Papagena Shawl as a gift for my mother’s birthday (in May, for context). If I were a better child, I’d have finished it already. Instead, unless I suddenly develop super-crafting-speed, she’s getting a half finished shawl and my deepest apologies. 

What’s absolutely fascinating is that it’s the same yarn, the same colorway, but a different dye lot. And the different dye lot makes it look so different from the other one! It’s a much brighter pink and a much deeper blue (you can’t see it so well here, but trust me). 

2. I started a cardigan! It’s called the Gavotte Cardigan, after the swarm of bees in Skin Horse, a webcomic I like, and it’s supposed to be a filet crochet thing. I only have part of the back completed because I didn’t like the gauge I was getting with size 30 thread, so I ripped it out and tried size 10 thread, and that didn’t work either so I used yarn. You can see that the charts of bees are just graph paper and pencil, and also that I use the nearest piece of paper to scribble down notes, even when those are my chart. 

3. I finally finished spinning and plying those rovings I dyed way back when. Each was spun S and plyed Z with a white single spun the same way, to give a fascinating marled effect. One I used to make a scrunchie and the other, well, I don’t know what I’ll use it for. But they’re cool!

This shows them with some other spinning and crochet projects — the green and orange and yellow roving turned into the predominantly green yarn at top (shown with the three other miniskeins I spun around the same time and the project on my spindle), and the pink roving turned into the pink yarn at the bottom (with the scrunchie and Marina Marisól the mermaid). 

4. I’ve been working on my drawing skills, and drawing the same character multiple times. This is Papagena from the opera The Magic Flute, and I reimagined her as a teenager. There’s one picture with Pamina from the same opera as well, and she’s also drawn as a teenager. I was trying to get good at proportions and body language, so I tried to think about that as I drew. Papagena is flighty and never stops moving, and when she holds still it’s usually in an awkward position. Pamina slouches, but not very much. The scribbled notes are records of the pens and pencils I used to get the colors on the drawings. If it’s not clear, Papagena has wings instead of arms. 

5. I have to wrap up an rpg campaign soon (one of the players has to leave in mid August and we meet monthly), and it’s less far along than I want it to be. So I feel a tad worried about that, but I think if I condense the final battle into fewer sessions and cut the big plot twist which was obvious anyways, I might make it. Maybe. 

6. It’s national poetry month, and I’ve been reading some poetry — and writing some. I’m not a great poet, but I do find it fun. I might post some next week if I feel like it (or need another blog entry that’s not overly hard to write). 

7. I’m working on an RPG game with my sister! I wrote the basic framework, Ensign of the Week, about a year ago, but I’m expanding some lore, redoing some of the mechanics I don’t like, and getting it to look nice. If you check out that google docs link, you can find the current rules there; I’d love to hear from people who try it about what they like/dislike about it, and how it plays out! My sister is writing a story set in this world, which I’ll share when she’s done, and I’m going to turn it into the starting adventure. She’s also probably doing the art for the game as a whole — my art looks like the top picture, and hers looks like the bottom picture. I like hers a lot; she’s an amazing artist! 

That’s all for today, so I’ll have something better next week!