Spinning WPI Reference

Before I get on with the post, I’d just like to say that I’ve been a designated driver now. DDs are cool. < / Doctor Impression >

My friends and I went out for St. Patrick’s Day for the first time, and I put on my Guinness shirt and volunteered to be the DD this time. I think I actually enjoyed it more than when I get to drink. Why? Bragging rights. “Look how terribly responsible I am, I’m the designated driver!” And I probably could have gotten free soda if I drank soda.

Anyway. I’m tired of looking up WPI (wraps per inch) references when I’ve spun something and then trying to remember which chart I used the last time I measured WPI, so I’m writing it all down. There is variation in what is considered proper WPI for different weights of yarn. This is what I’m using from now on.

Super Bulky: 1-9
Bulky: 10-11
Worsted: 12-13
DK: 14
Sport: 15
Fingering: 16
Light Fingering: 17
Lace: 18-40
Gossamer: 41-60
Zephyr: 61+

I can’t imagine what 1 WPI yarn would look like. Perhaps like Martha Stewart’s “mambo” yarn, which is frightening, horrible stuff. And expensive, at about $1 per yard. (Seriously, Martha?)

A Change In Plans

My sister has convinced me that, instead of doing Fi this year, we should take advantage of being twins and I should be Twilight Princess Puppet Zelda along with her Twilight Princess Zelda. I confess I was easily swayed.

Who is Puppet Zelda? The penultimate battle at the very end of Twilight Princess is against Ganondorf, Link’s archenemy in most games. Often Ganon/dorf will have captured Princess Zelda and Link needs to rescue her. In Twilight Princess, though, the battle takes a different turn. In the first stage of the boss fight Ganondorf controls Princess Zelda, turning her into his puppet, and makes her fight Link. (Once Midna forces Ganondorf’s control out of Zelda, Zelda joins Link in the fight against Ganondorf.)

Puppet Zelda looks slightly different than the normal Princess Zelda.

Technically Puppet Zelda’s costume should be exactly the same as regular Zelda’s costume. The difference is in her skin—it’s white with Twilight Realm-esque lines on it. Her eyes have also turned yellow.

However, to emphasize the difference between the two Zeldas (especially since I can’t afford yellow contacts) I plan to make some changes. I will do the pink part of Zelda’s dress in a muted purple. I may do the white part in a light gray, if I can find a gray that looks light enough. I will do her blue gems in purple. I will also change the pattern on her armor to a Twilight Realm-esque pattern.

This costume change will mean that I will get to paint myself white and draw lines all over my face. After examining screenshots I’ve decided that, while the lines on Puppet Zelda’s skin may be black or a very dark gray in-game, they will probably look best in dark purple on a real person. I’ll get to paint a set of ears, too. Doing my head and chest shouldn’t be a problem. The arms may be a different matter.

As you can see, the lines continue across all of Puppet Zelda’s skin, which is mostly covered except her upper arms. I don’t really want to paint my armpits because I’d probably sweat the makeup off all over my costume. I could just skip it, but that would be no fun.

I have the pattern I intend to use for the white part of Zelda’s dress. For my sister’s normal Zelda dress, I’m simply going to omit the sleeves. For Puppet Zelda’s dress, I will make short sleeves out of chiffon that will overlap a bit under the gloves. I can draw the lines on the sleeves with paint before I sew them on. This will save me the time and trouble of painting my arms and ought to give me about the look I want—and that look won’t sweat off.

If I make Puppet Zelda’s sword, we ought to be able to get some nice fighting pictures. I’m excited to see how all of this will turn out.

A Costuming Break

Not that I don’t have anything going on in the costuming department, but everything that I’m currently working on is in the sealing stage. Sealing, sealing, sealing. So nothing exciting to report there.

Instead, a shop plug. I’ve been spinning some fiber from Mad Angel Creations, and I love it—and not just because I know her from Ravelry. Here’s some of her Dusk in the Arbor merino as laceweight.

Remember that silk noil gossamer that I spun awhile back? That was a free sample that came along with this fiber.

I love the colors. As you can see, they’re gorgeous. They hold in well—I only had a tiny bit of dye tint my water the slightest shade of pink when I set the twist. Nothing came off on my hands or on the towel.

Mad Angel Creations offers free shipping, too, which is always a welcome treat.

Yessir, you heard it here! Go shop Mad Angel Creations! This is not a paid endorsement, I’m just really happy with the fiber I got from her.

Ahem. Currently on the spindle is not something from Mad Angel Creations. I filled up the spindle once with the merino (I got about halfway through the roving) so I decided finally to try the little bit of milk fiber I have. Yes, you read that right. Milk fiber, as in the calcium-filled beverage you squeeze out of cows. How do they make it? I don’t know, but I imagine it’s terribly science-y.

I do know that milk fiber yarn tends to be rather pricey, the roving not so much. Milk fiber is the same PH as your skin and will not felt, thus making it itch-free for babies, chemo patients, and anyone with sensitive skin. It’s also antibacterial, making it good for socks. It’s shiny and silky and soft. It feels like super-smooth cotton.

So far I’m torn on how much I enjoy spinning with it. Except for a few tangles it drafts very smoothly—perhaps a little too easily. Splicing it is another matter. I accidentally pulled the fiber apart and it took me at least five tries (no exaggeration) to get that sucker spliced again. But I took all my little wasted strands from failed splicing attempts (maybe I can card them again or something) and twisted them together to get an idea of what the finished, plied yarn will be like. And it feels niiiice.

And Now, For Something Completely Different

A rant.

Do not buy Americana pearlizing medium. The stuff is a disaster. I wanted to give the bow and light arrow a pearlescent texture to make them look more shimmery and magical, so I hunted through paint finishers. I found sparkly, but I thought that would just look cheesy. I wanted pearlescent, and I finally found one pearlizing medium. Thank goodness I tried it out on a piece of spare foam that I sealed and spray painted first.

The instructions say to mix one part pearlizing medium with one part acrylic paint. I thought I’d be able just to paint it on thinner and get a nice, pearlescent finish. It came out of the bottle so gummy that I couldn’t spread it on anything. So I tried following the directions after all and mixed it with one part gold paint. All I got was thick, chunky, ugly, dull paint. Mixing it with white paint gave me lumpy white paint.

Looks like the bow is just going to have to have a regular gold finish.

Speaking of the bow, it’s no longer naked. It has all its skin on.

I left the entire doorway in the picture so you can get an idea of the size. I’ve begun sealing it, a process that will probably take me at least a week and another bottle of fabric glue. As I was putting the skin on, I realized that I’d put one of the end pieces on backwards so that its “thorn” was in the wrong place. I had to cut the thorn off and glue it on in the right spot. Hopefully it won’t be too noticeable.

Not much else to report at this point. The hard parts of the bow are really done. The sealing, painting, and varnishing will be easy. And then it’s done! And the internet will get a free tutorial.

Someone poke me, I think I’m dead.

Or dreaming, because there is so much awesome sitting in the dining room right now that it just can’t be real. In the most lopsided trade in the history of the universe, I have acquired a loom.

I have a co-worker who originally got her degree in hand-weaving. A long time ago, she imported a loom from Sweden. (According to her, this was back when it was still affordable to import things.) She doesn’t weave anymore, and she’s been trying to sell the loom on Craigslist, but after a long time she still had no takers. She asked me if I wanted the loom. I asked her how much she wanted for it, because even used looms start at several hundred dollars but usually go for at least a thousand. She said no money.

Once I recovered my senses enough to pick my jaw up off the floor, I told her “heck yes!! but if you won’t let me pay you, then you have to let me do something for you.” As it turned out, she’d mentioned earlier that she had some temporary renters coming for about a week and not enough time to get her house as clean as she wanted. I offered to come over and clean for her. So, in exchange for some cookies and cleaning help, I have a genuine loom.

It is a Glimåkra Vävstalsfaboiken (I hope I spelled that right) made out of birch. It is missing the reed, so I can’t start weaving on it yet, but free loom = no complaints. Glimåkra is still a top loom company, so getting another reed will be plenty easy. Since it’s Swedish (like Ikea), it unscrews in a few places that make total sense and fit nicely in the trunk of my car.

My mother agrees with me that this is totally cool, and that it’s a shame we don’t have a bigger living room so we could just leave it on display all the time, even if I’m not using it. It will have to go in the attic until I get a reed and possibly a shuttle.

In less exciting news, Zelda’s prototype right pauldron is finally done, and I’m pretty happy with it.

I’m getting closer to success with the tiara’s forehead gem. This time I tried making an original mold from Amazing Mold Putty, then painting the inside of said mold with one layer of Castin’ Craft Mold Maker. It helped—the resulting gem is not quite as rough and does not have nearly as much of the Amazing Mold Putty sticking to it, but it still has some. I’m painting on more layers (will do at least five) of the Castin’ Craft Mold Maker for the next try; hopefully that will smooth things out and keep the Amazing Mold Putty from sticking for good.

The bow also has half its “skin” on. Still looking pretty good, in my opinion! (I had to back up waaay far to get the whole thing in the picture.)

This is my twang stick!

As opposed to “this is my boom stick,” because according to Eddie Izzard bows and arrows go “twang” and stabbing swords go “phbbbbt.”

On Tuesdays I end my shift at work when my sister starts, so I had ample time to shape stuff. I was worried about how the arrowhead for the light arrow would fit together, but it worked just fine.

I do realize that the pointy bit should be twisted about 45 degrees off of the way it’s oriented, but that would have created all sorts of structural issues that I didn’t want to deal with. Who’s going to notice that detail unless I point it out? (Like I just did…)

The fletching for the light arrow is also cut out and detailed on both sides. I can’t do any more constructing on the light arrow until I’m finished varnishing all the sides, which will probably take a bit of time.

I’m incredibly pleased with the bow’s “skin” so far. I spent about an hour tracing and sketching out the pieces on computer paper, only to realize when I was almost done that they were curving the wrong direction. Oops. So I turned the bow over and traded the computer paper for a big piece of butcher paper, and things went much more smoothly after that. I have 1/4 of the outside “skin” cut out, put mostly together, and shaped.

The pieces there are just sitting on top of the bow; they’re not attached yet, so they may be a little off-kilter in the photo. The eleven small pieces are put together to make six bigger pieces which I will attach individually. Hopefully, my sister still suspects nothing.

The tiara is almost finished (just waiting for the forehead gem to cure) and now the prototype right pauldron is almost finished, too. I’m finally getting the hang of weathering, (it looks kinda crap in the photo from this angle) so once the puff paint around the gem dries I can finish the weathering and varnish the sucker.

I can also successfully conclude the great hollow resin experiment. Castin’ Craft Mold-Maker gave me a lovely, smooth texture to the outside of my resin, and it has a nice shine without needing any sort of glossing.

It’s a Secret to Everyone

This weekend I thought to myself: “I should make Zelda’s bow and light arrows. That would really make the costume.” Then I thought: “But I have no woodworking skills, even though my father probably has the tools.” Then I looked up screenshots and realized that I didn’t need woodworking.

My sister knows that she’s getting the Zelda costume, but she doesn’t know that the costume will include a bow and light arrows. (And if I’m good at only working on it when she’s not home, she won’t find out. She doesn’t read my blog. Why should she? Whenever I make something I run in her room and make her look at it.)

So, I should be able to use the bow and arrows as a big birthday surprise. And I do mean big. The bow is taller than me. It’s about as tall as my doorway. It is a big bow. Just look at this Super Smash Brothers Brawl screenshot I used for scale reference.

The size actually works out in my favor, because I was able to use a short dowel rod for the wooden handle in the center. I can use the size to hide its straightness. This will be slow going since I need to do most of the work on it when my sister isn’t home, but I should finish before May. This is the first weapon I’ve made, so I’m very excited.

Sorry the photo’s not very great. I wanted the bow standing on its end for as short an amount of time as possible as the ends are the flimsiest parts right now. What you can see now is just the “skeleton” of the bow—everything except the wood in the middle will ultimately be covered by fun foam.

As with Zelda’s tiara, pauldrons, and future other bits of jewelry, I will eventually be making tutorials with free downloadable+printable patterns. Speaking of Zelda’s tiara, the prototype is almost done. I’m just waiting on stuff to dry/set up for the jewel on the front.

And, speaking of resin, (kind of) my experiment with hollow resin continues well. I gave the piece from the end of last week a coating of triple-thick spray gloss, and even though it’s not smooth it’s acceptably shiny. This will work if I can’t improve my technique.

And the plastic wrap worked just the way I’d hoped it would.

It's hollow, suckers! Or it will be once I make the back!

I’m not settling for that yet, though. Over the weekend I tried out a new mold maker. Castin’ Craft Mold Builder takes a LOT longer than Amazing Mold Putty to set up. Well, I suppose both are ready to go in about twenty minutes, but with the Castin’ Craft Mold Builder you have to paint on layer after layer after LAYER until it’s thick enough. I did eleven layers before I pulled it off to see how sturdy it was, and it’s still balloon-thin. But the stuff does seem amazingly sturdy for its thickness, even though it smells like old fish. The inside looks pretty good, so I’m hoping it’ll give me a really smooth surface.

We’ll find out soon. The resin is setting up.

Progress…kind of?

The back of Twilight Princess Zelda’s tiara is ready to get spray-painted now. I actually lost track of how many coats of sealant I ended up putting on. Depending on how long it takes me to make the forehead gem, I may have the prototype tiara finished soon.

Yes, this is upside-down. I forgot to flip the photo.

My resin experiments are, overall, going well. The back of the gem for the tiara front is still sticky, but it’s solid so I popped it out of the mold anyway to see how it turned out. It’s better than expected. The shape is right, and the edges are relatively straight, but the surface needs work.

It didn’t occur to me that the clay thing I had made would be porous no matter how smooth I made the sides. The mold got into all those little pores, and the resin got into the mold of all those little pores. When I pulled the gem out of the mold, some of the mold came with it. The clay thing and the mold will have to be remade—but I have an idea. If I spray the clay thing with a few coats of the finishing gloss I use for my Dungeons and Dragons miniatures, that ought to fill in the pores.

The other two gems turned out perfectly.

The circular one is for a pauldron and the oval one is for the back of the tiara.

Speaking of pauldrons, I’ve gotten the puff paint detailing finished on Prototype Pauldron #1 and have done the first layer of sealant.

While I’ve got the resin out, I thought I’d try one more experiment—casting hollow resin. Being able to make hollow resin will expand the size of the gems I can make. It took me three tries to make a mold that worked, and while it’s still not perfect, it has renewed my faith in Amazing Mold Putty. (I was about to give up on Amazing Mold Putty completely.) The surface is a little rough and has a few small flaws, but I think a spray of the aforementioned finishing gloss will hide that. The experiment isn’t over, but I’m calling it workable so far, especially since you can see a shine in the photo.

Progress, And Stuff

Costuming is at a pause now as I sit and wait for things to dry—something I am notoriously bad at.

I made a mold for my clay gem, which worked pretty well. Turns out I didn’t need to make the little cardboard box to put it in, though. Live and learn.

Now it and two other gem molds are setting up with resin, which won’t be ready until Thursday at the soonest. I already know I will have to redo the gem. The sides of the mold did not end up smooth, and some resin leaked out and hardened inside a crease at the edge. How closely the gem resembles what I wanted will tell me how much I need to improve.

In the meantime, I got to work on the back of Zelda’s tiara. Pattern-drafting, cutting, and shaping went smoothly. Now I’m waiting for the glue over the fabric backing to dry.

In the meantime again, I also started on one of Zelda’s pauldrons. Pattern-drafting was a little more tricky for that, and I’m thinking that on my next try I will want the shoulder angle to be less steep. I’m not sure how I will keep it on, either. Tip—40 seconds in the microwave  does heat fun foam enough to shape it, but the stove is still faster, easier, and possibly safer. (I’m crossing my fingers that I didn’t release any sort of noxious fumes into the house.)

Drawing the designs on went surprisingly well—since I couldn’t see the tops of Zelda’s shoulders in any of the pictures, I guessed at the design. Overall I think the piece is looking pretty good now that it’s glued together. The lines of puff paint are proving especially tricky for me. My hands shake when I attempt very fine motor control, (or soup-eating) it’s something I just can’t help.

Twilight Princess Zelda’s Tiara (front) Progress

I was out of town this weekend to see Benjamin Bagby and Norbert Rodenkirchen perform. Yes, they both had their reproduction Anglo-Saxon harps, and Rodenkirchen had his swan-bone flute. The performance was amazing. I also had a Doctor Who moment while in an ice cream place that encouraged graffiti on a certain wall.

I got a surprising amount of work on the prototype Zelda’s tiara done for being out of town.

Before I left, I got it glued together, sealed, and gave it two coats of fabric paint.

I have tried three or four gold acrylic paints before and found that they were not opaque, so I thought that fabric paint might do it. Nope. Still not opaque. Where the light hits, the tan foam with the gold acrylic paint actually looked pretty good, but not good enough, and you could see brush strokes. So, I buckled and bought some shiny gold spray paint. I’m not crazy about spray paint, but at this point I had no other choice.

Success! The gold spray paint worked very well. However, since I have very little experience with spray paint, I put on too much and it dripped. It was also pretty windy outside, and the tiara blew over and smudged. On the next one I make, I will paint in the garage and make sure I hold the can back farther. Next, I watered down some black acrylic paint for weathering.

My weathering job looks like crap. On the next one I will make sure I have better lighting–if I even weather the next one. Honestly, since this is jewelry instead of armor, I don’t think it needs weathering.

Currently the first coat of varnish is drying. I am not sure that it will need more than one.

I also picked up some air-dry clay and a piece of posterboard for mold-making. The clay gem for the forehead is also drying.

If that still looks good once it’s dry (which will take several days at least) I will use it to make a mold, then cast the real gem in resin. I’m crossing my fingers that the edges are straight enough. I have a feeling they are not.