photo saturday: big sisters

And finally we come to the sisters of my first character. Well, the two oldest sisters anyway. I don't even really remember the original reason why I gave Belben five older sisters... it makes sense once the naming convention happened, but I honestly don't remember what came first. Maybe I just wanted to make him the literal baby of the family.

Also, the vast jump in quality between their first appearance and now... staggering.

The naming convention for the sisters is pretty simple. All the Doctor Who companions I like from 2005 to 2017. Guess who doesn't get a shout out. So we start with Rose, obviously, who works in the bakery and will eventually take it over from her parents. And the blonde hair obviously comes from the Longpond side of the family.

Weirdly, or not, I guess, she's my favourite of the sisters, Belben's favourite sister and the model that came out the best I think. But then Rose is my favourite of the companions for the most part (Donna being a close second).

For Marigold, we have Martha as the companion equivalent. And cleric vs doctor. I think I went cleric instead of just making her a healer in general, because this branch of the family isn't just going to have a single adventurer in this generation.

Anyway...

A very generic soup this week... kinda sorta minestrone with cabbage and sausage that didn't quite hold up the way it should have done. But tasty enough.

The Hexagon Cardigan is finally finished! There will probably be a full post about it this week, but it's pretty good. Not perfect, but good for my first "wearable". Because I refuse to count scarves as a "wearable". I did discover a couple of potential issues, both of which would have been obvious if I'd thought about it for 11 seconds. Firstly, acrylic yarn... this thing is going to be a bitch for static cling. And secondly, yeah, your sleeves have giant holes all through them, because it's granny stitch, and the wind is going to get in there. Dur. But at the same time, ventilation because I run hot generally, so, swings and roundabouts.

In other news, my body hates me... I tweaked my back bending over to tie my shoelaces... grrr. Granted, it didn't last more than a couple of days, but still.

Thursday Night DnD was a slightly circular in-character "discussion" about what our group intents were that lasted for about an hour and that we probably should have had, I don't know, six months ago, and then the start of the final combat. And can I just say, while I understand the compulsion to "video game"-ize DnD "boss fights", I also really don't care for the multiple health bar/stages trope. But, given this hardcover, I'm not at all surprised to encounter it.

Honestly, all of the components of this final fight track given this hardcover. And I'll be glad when it's over.

Friday Night DnD was one of those plotting and scheming and planning episodes more or less.

Anyway...

Today was basically just the supermarket. So, there's that.

photo saturday: the baker and the herbalist

Eventually all adventurers retire... well, the ones who live that long anyway. And sometimes they go on to have a family. Thus we have today's DnD Character Colouring Book.

Brandien turned his love of baking and his role as the keeper of the Beestinger Family Cookbook into a bakery in Silverymoon and Melody turned her knowledge of plants and herbs into a combination of herbal tea/folk remedies while also cultivating and collecting herbs, spices and other plants in order to flavour the baked goods.

Also, an off-white leather and yellow dress combination... love it.

Anyway...

This week was Pea and Ham Soup... but for whatever reason (mostly because it had been in the freezer for several months at this point, and also then I essentially boiled it in the soup) the ham wasn't... the best, texture wise. It tasted fine, it was just a funky texture. So after I struggled through the small bowl on Sunday, I just blended what was left. And, honestly, that improved it considerably.

Finally, after a break of 76 days (or two and a half months), I finally went back to tackle the cuffs on the Crochet Hexagon Cardigan. And I attempted to do the simpler ribbed cuffs but my brain just went "yeah, nah, we're not going to retain the information on how to do that", so I just... winged it. Which worked out so much more successfully, because, honestly I winged the whole cardigan, so it was honestly what's should have happened.

Then I started to connect the two panels together into the finished cardigan... And that should have been the easiest thing ever. I was doing the exact same thing that I did to connect 140-something squares for Fluffy's blanket. But, black yarn... it's an ongoing problem, especially when crocheting in the evening, because I generally don't use the overhead light. So I got most of the way done with attaching it and then realised that there were more purple clusters on one side than the other side, went back and looked and discovered I'd been... connecting it in random spots by accident. I honestly don't know how the hell I even managed it, because I didn't think I was doing anything different, but it was what it was.

I tried again the following day... in the daylight. And got most of the way done and realised... that I had more purple clusters on the OTHER side this time. And tracked it back to a single spot where I joined two clusters to the same spot.

Argh.

Third time was the charm though. And now I'm just about done with extending the bottom of the joined cardigan... and then I need to do the "ribbing" around the neck/collar/whatever that bit is called (I think it's technically a placket, but that implies buttons, which I'm not doing), and we're done.

It's not a LIGHT cardigan by any means... even though the yarn itself isn't that hefty, there's just A LOT of it.

Thursday Night DnD was... fine. Anti-climactic. Vaguely annoying. Proof that I'm very over it. But, mostly fine. We're maybe two games out from being done though. And at this point I'll just be glad to be done. And that's not all on the group, some of it is on the adventure. Very few things I've played seem to ever really stick the landing, so I don't know why I thought this one would be any different.

Friday Night DnD was good. Like, my character achieved his overarching campaign goal good. Which was honestly, kind of a lot to process. Weirdly, our problem in this campaign might actually be access to too many magic items. And too many ones that require attunement, since you can only have three of those.

And speaking of Friday DnD... 

After last week's additional image of the himbo barbarian we encountered, the fictitious TV show we invented and Fluffy's off-hand comment about "making a still for the TV show" from the Hero Forge model... yeah, it was one of those ideas that my brain just wouldn't let go of.

Because of course there had to be other people in the cast. Which led us here...

And then led my brain to end up writing a fictional "retrospective" on the fictional TV show... which I may or may not share at some point, because I'm both incredibly proud of it and also aware of the level of cheese and cringe involved. But it amused me across the earlier part of the week.

Anyway...

This week was a little bit of a repeat of last week... with supermarket and movie at mine, while I worked on my crochet cardigan.