Character Name: Pyrex
Fandom: Realms of Peril & Glory, CY_BORG campaigns [Podcast]
Played By: Shamini Bundell
Yarn Used:
Skin: CraftSmart Value - Coffee
Clothes/Hair/Bags: Loops & Threads Soft and Shiny - Onyx Rainbow
Circuits: DMC #G168
Bags' Legs: CraftSmart Sculpture Wire
Basic pattern here.
Our beloved little orphaned gearhead (NOT a hacker). Pyrex is just one of those characters you instantly want to wrap up in a warm blanket and keep safe from everything - including, let’s be realistic, herself. She’s so delightfully awkward and earnest and I just love her. (I don’t think Shamini is capable of playing a character I hate.)
Pyrex differs from the base pattern as follows:
Trousers: I gave her stirrup pants. I don’t know why. I just felt very strongly that Pyrex would have stirrup pants and bare feet for some reason. So I stitched the first round of the leggings in the front loops of the last round of her feet, then slip stitched to a point that looked like the right place and did a chain until it was long enough to go under the foot and slip stitch back into the other side of the cuff, at which point I chained one and continued as normal.
Tunic: I was going for a baggy, sort of oversized top for her, so I did the ridge at the waistband like I did with Mini and Azu. After I finished the rest of her torso, I went back with the yarn and added the long part. I took a week off in the middle of working on Pyrex to make a baby blanket for a friend who was moving and wouldn’t have a fixed address for a while, and because when I went back to her I still had the stitch I used for that in mind, I decided to do a Catherine’s wheel stitch for the bottom (which is a bitch and a half to do in the round, just FYI). The pattern was as follows:
R1: Join yarn to loop produced from flo/blo stitching in center of back. Ch 1, sc in each st around, sl st in first sc (38 sc).
R2: Ch 1, sc in next 9 st, 2sc in next st, sc in next 18 st, 2sc in next st, sc in next 9 st, sl st in first sc (40 sc).
R3: Ch 1, [sc in next st, skip next 3 st, 7 dc in next st, skip next three st] 5 times around, sl st in first sc (5 sc, 35 dc).
R4: Ch 1, 4dctog. [Ch 3, sc in next dc, ch 3, 7dctog] 4 times. Ch 3, sc in next dc, ch 3, 3dctog, sl st in first 4dctog (5 sc, 5 7dctog, 10 ch3 sp).
R5: Ch 3 (counts as first dc). 3dc in same st. [Skip ch3 sp, sc in next sc, skip ch3 sp, 7dc in next 7dctog] 4 times. Skip ch3 sp, sc in next st, skip ch 3 sp, 3dc in first st, sl st in first ch (35 dc, 5 sc).
R6: Ch 1, [sc in first dc, ch 3, 7dctog, ch 3] 5 times, sl st in first sc (5 sc, 5 7dctog, 10 ch3 sp). Fasten off.
Head: Pyrex was described as having filaments and wires across her face, presumably wiring her RCA (and, as we later found, her connection to Bags). And, well, I had a whole bunch of leftover metallic thread from a cross-stitch project I did for my brother that I swore I would never use on aida again. (Someone on the Old Gods of Appalachia Discord server referred to it as “the devil’s asshair” and I have not been able to think of it any other way since.) Except that I ended up buying silver metallic thread specifically for this project that worked a lot better. Anyway, I really like how that came out. For her pigtails, I used the same method I’ve used since Alice to put hair in around the outside edges of her scalp, then also in two lines down the middle back for the part, and then looped a few more in the middle to fill it out. They turned out cute!
Arms: I used the same technique I used for Mini’s hands - just stitching around the magnets - for Pyrex’s. Partly that was because I forgot to bring any stuffing with me when I got to her arms and I didn’t feel like going top down, but mostly it was because she just struck me as the skinny sort.
Bags: What would Pyrex be without her spider robot companion?
I probably overcomplicated this a lot, but basically I just crocheted a rectangular cube, put a big red eye on one end, and made his legs with sculpting wire and yarn.
I crocheted a line of single crochet around the wires, then stitched them to Bags’ body (although towards the end I started doing that in reverse). He doesn’t stand up as well as I’d like, but he turned out pretty good!