Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share (25 page)

Just slip the package into the pouch inside your wallet. The bulb should just stick out of the top of the pouch, but should not clear the edges of the wallet itself. Put a few dollars into the billfold, and marvel at your lighted wallet!

O
ne of the most important accoutrement for any good RPGPLAYING GeekDad or kid is the dice bag. It is the container for your most trusted tools: d20, d12, d10, d8, d6, and d4. Indeed, you may have more than one, since you may have different sets of dice for different games (the full range for D&D, all d6s for old-school Champions, and so forth). And if you want to treat your tools right, as well as showing off your dedication to the games you play, you’ll want to make your own bag.

So it’s time for you and your geeklet to get in touch with your crafty side again, with this great project from GeekDad writer and serious RPG player Natania Barron:

Crochet is definitely a geek-certified activity. It’s important to understand these key concepts: Crochet is basically all about knot tying, which is a geeky pursuit from time immemorial. You are tying knots into yarn to build a structure; indeed, you could think of it as a kind of textile engineering! On top of that, crochet patterns aren’t really patterns at all: They’re programs. You are processing lines of code, and what’s geekier than that? Besides, every gamer young (your kid) and old (you) has to have a cool and original dice bag for the gaming table. Why not make your own?

GeekMom Natania was once a big knitter, but when she had her son, it became abundantly clear that knitting just wasn’t an option for her. Her son’s deft little fingers easily destroyed hours of work in seconds, and left her frustrated (and out a few Christmas presents). She knew about crochet, but thought it was, you know, for grayhaired ladies crouched around coffee tables at nursing homes. Thankfully, with Web sites like
www.ravelry.com
(a good place to start for basic crochet tips and tricks, and to grow into the community), as well as a recent resurgence in the art of crochet, she learned better.

The huge benefit of crochet is that the whole work rests on one loop. So, unless your child is being really devious, it’s unlikely that they can undo the work as quickly as with knitting. And the added benefit is that crochet is super malleable. It’s almost like working with clay. Once you learn the basics, you can make all sorts of projects that, as with knitting, would be a lot more challenging—hats, socks, toys—truly endless possibilities.

This dice bag came out of Natania’s desire to add a little style to the RPG gaming table, where the dice container is just as important an accoutrement as the dice themselves. Using the bits and pieces of yarn left in her knitting stash, Natania worked out a dice bag that would be roomy enough for a fistful of dice, yet still be sturdy. After a few prototypes, the best design appears to be made out of 100 percent wool, felted, with a totally flat bottom. The flat bottom works well because it rests on the gaming table perfectly, so you don’t have to spill dice all over the place and can just peek in and grab what you need. That said, the pattern allows for plenty of alteration. You can add colors, vary the stitches, or get really saucy and bead the bag.

Here’s the “program” for building your dice bag (Asterisks surround instructions that get repeated):