Dice Bags for Days

You already know that I have a thing for yarn, but you know what else is super fun and alluring to collect massive piles of?

That would be dice, my friends.

D&D entered my life 4 or 5 years ago and I fell absolutely in love. And like everything I get into, I fell in hard. 

Minis, maps, rulebooks, supplemental guides... I started hoarding it all. But of all the accessories that go along with D&D, dice quickly became my newest addiction.

The beautiful little bastards are little candy colored gems of temptation. You start with just one of two sets and next thing you know you basically need a small suitcase to hold them all.

Unless, of course, you are a knitter. Then you get to make your own dice bags. 

Almost a year ago, John, Vi, Bethany and I started playing our own D&D game. And like a good DM, I provide for my players. So I dutifully made everyone their own dice bag. 

I think I may have even posted about them here before. 

I assumed that one bag each would be enough to tide everyone over for awhile, even though I myself already needed multiple.

I had what I referred to as my DM Dice Bag that held all of the sets I use when I run the game. (Those are the ones pictured above) But I am also playing as a character in our campaign, so I HAD to have a bag to hold all of my sets specifically for my character.

Oh, you wanted to see the dice, too?

My character has a fire and water thing going on, so all of her sets reflect that.

Aren't they gorgeous?

Anyway, as I was dealing with my own minor dice addiction, I didn't realize just how far down the polyhedral hole Bethany had fallen down. She commissioned me for two more bags, one of which was delivered last year. But the other I had to postpone until after Christmas, which she kindly was okay with.

So, I'm counting fulfilling that promise as my Knit or Get Off the Pot project for February.

..................

Oh, you want pictures of the bag?

Well...

...That's about the best I can do.

I kinda maybe sort-of perhaps... forgot...to...take...pictures.

But I can assure you that Bethany is quite happy with it!

And I may or may not have immediately cast on, knit, bound-off, washed, and blocked another one for myself in the 6 hours that followed finishing hers. 

Okay, I know! But listen! I have SPECIAL DICE that needed their own bag!

And I had some VERY SPECIAL pom-poms that needed something amazing to use them on!

So I made myself this.

And now it's hanging out all happy and content with my other bags.

What's that? The lil bag there in the front? Well, that's the dice bag that I made to hold the dice I use for my character's crow companion.

Heck, I think I even shared it here before. But what I didn't share before were the INCREDIBLY ADORABLE AND TINY DICE I HAVE FOR HIM!

To give you an idea of size, a normal d20 is about the width of a quarter.

These...

...Are just a wee bit smaller.

I have discovered a bit of a problem with these bags, though.

They're just too damn fun and easy to make.

Because I have ANOTHER one to show you, this time one I made for Emmy. That I knit right after finishing mine. 

And I *may or may not* have another one on the needles...

For me...

Just to put all my green dice in...

IT'S NOT AN ADDICTION, I SWEAR!

In other knitting news, I had the absolute pleasure of blocking this FUCKING MAGNIFICENT BEADED PIECE OF WITCHCRAFT for Mikayla.

It's so pretty and wonderful and I am just agog at how many beads went into it.

As for myself, I have been working on the ceremony shawl over the last few days. My beads finally came in, so I felt like I should actually get going on it.

I bought two different types of beads, assuming that I'd just decide which one to actually use when they got here.

You know what happened. 

I love both of them so much that I am using both.

The shawl itself is not even a fifth of the way through and it's already over a foot in diameter. 

This thing is going to be a damn cape by the end of this.

Guess I should get back to it.

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The Best Laid Plans of Lions and Bags

Well, we're on the second month of my monthly goal of getting my WIP basket down to zilch...

And I've already failed.

Yep.

I'm here to tell you that February's project is just not getting done.

I had intended to finish my Gryffindor bag that I had started clear back in 2017. I just needed to make the liner for it and figure out what the hell I wanted to do for a strap.

Originally I had planned on trying to weave it, but I am not any good at weaving. Crocheting or knitting it would result in a ridiculously stretched out thing that wouldn't hold up at all.

So my only alternative to get the look I wanted was to find something premade. And I did. Clear in Australia.

I ordered it at the beginning of the month. It got here towards the end. And, well, it wasn't going to work.

See in my head, I had convinced myself that the bag was a brighter red than it actually is. In reality, it's much darker.

But hey, no problem, right? I could totally just dye it since it was made of silk.

*sigh*

That also spectacularly failed.

So...

My project just isn't getting done.

Unless you'll let me count a dice bag that I promised Bethany last year?

A win by technicality is still a win, right?

Especially if I made three of those bags in the course of a week?

Yep, that's what I'm doing, then.

Besides, I write the rules. And I can bend them to my damn will.

So stay tuned for those.

As for you, Gryffindor Bag...

Well, it's back in time out for you.

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I Dropped a Bomb on Me, Baby

After finishing Renee's sweater last month, I found myself with a little time to play around with whatever my little heart desired. My yarn for my ceremony shawl hadn't come in yet, and an idea pop into my head that needed addressing.

Unsurprisingly, I have a LOT of scrap yarn, leftovers from all the shawls I've made over the years. And I've never really done anything with them.

Sure, there's always the usual scrap blankets that folks make, but that didn't appeal much to me. And just doing a shawl where I just with one color of scrap until it ran out, then moving on to the next color sounded like torture.

My original idea was to do two different scrap colors at once, alternating every two rows, to give it a more cohesive look.

So, I happily trotted up to my giant scrap basket and started pulling things out.

And, like pretty much everything ever, plans got tossed out the window.

I came back with 2 balls of Knit Pick's Bare that I had originally bought for a different pattern that never came to fruition and an entire rainbow's worth of fingering weight scraps.

And with only a vague idea of what I thought it might look like when it was done, I just started knitting.

A month and over 1200 yards of yarn later, this was what I had in my hands.

I gave it the affectionate name of Rainbomb because of how absolutely absurdly big it came out.

I didn't even realize until after I had bound off and really took a look at it.

120 inches, in case you were wondering.

Ten. Bloody. Feet.

HOW DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF?!

Anyway, this shawl wasn't made so much as evolved. I had originally started out with wanting to do 5 rows of each color, but after the first set of red, I didn't think I'd have enough yarn. I was *slightly* worried that it wouldn't be a very big shawl... I know, I know. But I really did worry!

I also ended up changing a lot of the colors I had originally picked out as I spent more time with this shawl.

This was my original lineup of 14 colors.

At the end, I ended up with 17 colors.

Which meant I had 38 ends to weave in.

Yeah, it sucked hard.

But I can't argue with the results.

As for the edging, this is where that gorgeous grey from Knitcraft and Knittery came into play.

I wanted the edging to look like lightning and rain drops. I'm pretty dang happy with how it came out, especially for just kind of throwing some shit into Stitch Fiddle and hoping it came out okay.

Yep, no test knitting for this thing. It was slapped into a project with nearly 500 stitches a row and praying to Henry that it worked because ripping out and redoing all those stitches would have put this project in the burn pile.

The edge pattern was actually supposed to be double this length, but I was just done with this damn thing. As much as I love and adore it, it was definitely getting to the point of being a drag. ESPECIALLY because I just HAD to go and add beads to the bloody thing.

But all that said and done...

...I'm thrilled with the new addition to my collection.

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Four Shawls, Five Days

I am SO behind on what I've been doing. I apologize for that, but you know how much life just loves to dump it on you, both the good and the bad.

First of all, Jass has been given the all clear! Thank you so much to everyone who donated money to help us out. It was so appreciated!

So, on to the knitting!

Last month, I participated in a super fun knitting exercise that was meant to help you learn fundamental shawl shapes and how to design with them. It was started and is run by Frenchie of Aroha Knits.

Each day for 5 days, you knit a miniature shawl of a specific shape. You ideally give yourself only 30 minutes to do the whole thing.

If you're new to shawl knitting, it really helps to show you how most shawls are constructed.

If you're someone like me, who is pretty comfortable with most shawl shapes, it's a fun way to test out different ideas or patterns.

AND let's not forget the BEST part: you get 5 mini shawls at the end to do with as you please!

I had fully intended to participate and finish the project, but unfortunately we got the bad news about Jass on the final day. So, I didn't actually get around to finishing mine.

But I can at least show you the ones I did get done!

Day one was triangles.

I chose to focus on texture, doing a seed stitch body and a cabled spine. Edge was just garter stitch with a picot bind off.

Day two was crescent.

I really was just looking for an excuse to use this yarn combo again. Carnival might be in my top 3 favorite color ways.

Day three (and my least favorite, if I'm honest) was asymmetrical triangle.

I chose to do an arrow shape, which is basically two asymmetrical shawls together. It was fine, but I'm just not an asymmetrical person.

The last one I got to do was the 3/4's shawl.

I flipped things around compared to the triangle shawl by doing a garter stitch body and a seed stitch border.

So, what exactly does one do with four mini shawls?

Well, I decided that they needed to be showcased properly. Afterall, I already have other art pieces hanging around. And isn't knitting just another form of art?

The best part is that the front of the shadowbox opens. So if I ever want to redo any of the shawls, it's easy AF to change them out!

Thank you, Frenchie, for putting on such a fun challenge. I'm looking forward to participating again soon!

To everyone else, there should be a new blog post this weekend because...

...I finished the rainbow monster.

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