Back in 2019, I had two New Year’s Resolutions. 1, I wanted to learn to crochet, and 2, I wanted to DM my own DnD campaign. I’ve played DnD for many years and have always loved being swept away into these enchanting worlds. I was curious, what was it like to weave that magic? To enthrall players and take them on a journey?
I first dabbled with crochet whilst I was still a player. I was Alioth, a goliath barbarian who during her adventures acquired two goblins, Roarke and Droupe, from dungeon raids – and instead of killing them, strapped them to her back. Turned out Droupe was pretty good with his numbers and even became the party accountant for a while.
I wanted a representation of my two best friends, and Club Crochet had just the pattern I was looking for. From Louis’ tutorials I learnt how to crochet (and would highly recommend his videos for anyone starting out!) and an idea was born – what if instead of painting my miniatures, I crocheted them?
A couple of months later, I grabbed some friends, set-up Dragon Heist, and the Yarning Portal was born!
For our first session, I had each player’s miniature ready, plus Durnan and some monsters. It was a complete surprise for my party that I’d crocheted their miniatures and the squeals of delight as I unveiled them will always warm my heart.
At this point, my miniatures were a little large – around 1.5 x 1.5 inches. I had to custom print grids to draw out maps and found a nice method of using printed acetate over fancy fabric. Over the next two years, I crocheted an entire army of miniatures.
As my crochet skills improved and I was able to get more and more detail into a smaller area, I started to work on an idea of making mini’s that would fit into an inch by inch square – the same as a regular painted one. At that time, I had just finished Vox Machina’s adventures in Critical Role (my favourite thing to listen to when crocheting) and wanted to do an homage to the party who’d kept me company through all of my crocheting.
And for the first time I was going to write down the patterns as I crocheted!
And that brings us up to where we are now. The patterns and techniques I discovered whilst crocheting out Vox Machina are what I’m writing up into patterns on this blog. I guess in some ways, it’s also a crochet diary for myself. My party are still playing Dragon Heist, I’m still making new mini’s, so I’ll always been looking back on how I did that thing again!
If you’re inspired to start out on your own crochet adventures, I’m sending you the warmest of wishes and would love to see what you’ve made. Please share your creations tagging @YarningPortal on Twitter and Instagram and I hope you have as much fun as I’ve had 💖
The Yarning Portal 