The three Ws
Feb. 26th, 2024 05:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spacealien_vampI've been devoting early 2024 mainly to two things—World of Warcraft and weaving.
My first weaving project turned out relatively well, considering I'm brand new at the craft. I learned quite a bit about things such as making sure warp yarn is tight before starting, for example. I also had to come up with a way to measure length, since the project gets wrapped around a dowel as you go, making it impossible to know when to stop if you don't mark progress somehow. It's also tricky to make a narrow hem in relatively thick cloth that tends to unravel if you're not careful.
I'm working on my second project now, a pastel scarf using wool yarn that I originally bought for making socks. It took days to get the warp on the loom, because it's dyed in a palindrome sequence of colors that I had to try to line up by stretching it 10 feet across my living room. Then I began weaving using a pattern from a book that turned out to have some kind of misprint. I got about a dozen rows in and noticed that my result didn't look anything like the picture. Comparing the pattern on that page with other patterns in the book, it was clear that the printed instructions didn't make sense. I had to pull out all my progress and start over from scratch, this time using a pattern from a different book.
It's coming along nicely now, thank goodness. I'm hoping to get done in time for Easter, but since I'll be taking a two week vacation in March, that might not happen.
The third "W" this month stands for Wyrmspan, a new board game that I acquired. It's a spin-off of the wildly successful game Wingspan, a game that put women game designers on the map and started a global trend for nature-themed games. Wyrmspan is all about creating a dragon sanctuary, finding homes for a variety of painstakingly illustrated dragons in a series of caves on the player board. I went all-in on buying the deluxe extra bits, like shaped wooden tokens and rubber playmats instead of cardboard. Dragons are a particular favorite of mine.
I am trying to hold off on buying too many more games, though, as I don't have space to store them. I'm making some progress by organizing the garage, but there are only so many things I can shove out there without worrying that they will be damaged by the elements.
My first weaving project turned out relatively well, considering I'm brand new at the craft. I learned quite a bit about things such as making sure warp yarn is tight before starting, for example. I also had to come up with a way to measure length, since the project gets wrapped around a dowel as you go, making it impossible to know when to stop if you don't mark progress somehow. It's also tricky to make a narrow hem in relatively thick cloth that tends to unravel if you're not careful.I'm working on my second project now, a pastel scarf using wool yarn that I originally bought for making socks. It took days to get the warp on the loom, because it's dyed in a palindrome sequence of colors that I had to try to line up by stretching it 10 feet across my living room. Then I began weaving using a pattern from a book that turned out to have some kind of misprint. I got about a dozen rows in and noticed that my result didn't look anything like the picture. Comparing the pattern on that page with other patterns in the book, it was clear that the printed instructions didn't make sense. I had to pull out all my progress and start over from scratch, this time using a pattern from a different book.
It's coming along nicely now, thank goodness. I'm hoping to get done in time for Easter, but since I'll be taking a two week vacation in March, that might not happen.
The third "W" this month stands for Wyrmspan, a new board game that I acquired. It's a spin-off of the wildly successful game Wingspan, a game that put women game designers on the map and started a global trend for nature-themed games. Wyrmspan is all about creating a dragon sanctuary, finding homes for a variety of painstakingly illustrated dragons in a series of caves on the player board. I went all-in on buying the deluxe extra bits, like shaped wooden tokens and rubber playmats instead of cardboard. Dragons are a particular favorite of mine.
I am trying to hold off on buying too many more games, though, as I don't have space to store them. I'm making some progress by organizing the garage, but there are only so many things I can shove out there without worrying that they will be damaged by the elements.
