Okay, this is somewhat off the wall, but it's a subject that's gone around in local circles for some time now, and I'd like to throw it out to the greater community.
I'm finding an increasing number of female gamers knit, crochet, or some similar handicraft. Also, I'm finding that of male gamers in my area, many/most of their GF/SOs knit, crochet...you get the image.
It's to a point that when I visit other cities and other friends, if I make the suggestion: you know, I wonder that gaming stores don't have a knitting section, I get: YES!!!! with some of them jumping out of their seat (one girl jumped up and knocked over her chair at the restaurant we were eating at)!
...is this just me?
Do you knit or sew costumes? Does your GF/SO? Is it a "female gamer" thing? Is it a "spouse of the gamer" thing? Do some of the guys do it?
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No signifigant others at our table; but yeah, my wife sews.....and so does 4/5 other players wives/GFs.
Funny you mention this. I'm going to get a group together for them now.
No signifigant others at our table; but yeah, my wife sews.....and so does 4/5 other players wives/GFs.
Funny you mention this. I'm going to get a group together for them now.
It seems almost an unspoken-but-common hobby among the gamer, gamer/SO population. So many of our friends have the guy who games, and the SO/GF who'd love to just show up and knit/crochet with the SOs/GFs of the gamers.
That was behind the "what would you think if a gaming store had a knitting section, or offered space for the occasional knit-group." Me bringing this up resulted in...jumping out of chairs.
One person knocked theirs over.
So I'm wondering if this is a thing, or if I'm just running into anomalies.
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My wife knits as well. And is a mean scrapbooker...Hmm
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ok. any gaming store with women in it is a good gaming store. i don't care how you get them in there.
...if you build it, they will come.
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While she's not in a relationship of any sort right now, one of my female players will sometimes knit hats or braid friendship bracelets while we play...
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My wife gets drunk and goes out and picks fights with cops. j/k
She briefly got the knitting bug about two years ago. She started making a scarf for my nephew, but like usual, she loses interest in a hobby and now it just sits there, begging for a dog to run amok with it.
why not go one step further, and make a RPG store/knitting/costume-craft store?
why not go one step further, and make a RPG store/knitting/costume-craft store?
Oh, wow. Thanks guys. :3
Re: Anburiad, it makes me wonder if incorporating some handicraft events might be good for some businesses (though it obviously wouldn't fit everyone). A "Traditional Handicrafts" event at a local store could be a way to gauge interest. Possibly timed near a Renfaire to get it started.
That's one idea. I'm just seeing some untapped potential...or at the very least, more ways to get our SOs involved with the hobby, or at the least, friend group.
I was also wondering if I was the only one seeing this parallel...
Re: Dan,
That /is/ sad. XD I wonder why?
If this is a parallel, maybe it's a way to bring more of our friends together, and more often. There /seems/ to be a parallel.
That is, the audience could be there. For more commercial events--it could be more a question of building up infastructure or the idea that "this is a place."
This is just conjecture on my part.
Myself, I'm excited at finding ways to bring people together. I'm also glad to hear it's not just me.
I'm a girl... I never once knitted, sewed, needle pointed, Though I have had 8 other woman I have gamed with Of those 8, 1 Knitted, one sewed, one needle pointed. The rest just gamed. THOUGH I do have a SO of one of the female gamers that makes chainmail while gaming
I've never done so, either.
Oh, I've tried. Tried! Because many of my friends do, and because they were interested...I thought I might be, too.
Nope. Nada.
It is perhaps, part of what made me notice this potential trend.
Then again, many of the female gamers I know of were interested in being able to craft their own costumes. The guys, too, though it was more 'socially acceptable' for...
...you get the idea.
My future-wife is a craft machine, but she avoids gaming stores like the plague.
When you're a 6'1 woman who plays pen and paper, you tend to attract many unwashed admirers.
I'm not entirely sure if this is a problem for other female gamers, but I find most I know avoid actual gaming stores because they get annoyed by the attentions of males they simply wish to game with.
So I dunno if putting craft supplies in store would work out well.
It's similar to how a lot of female MMO players play male characters just to avoid the annoyance of having some 15 year old basement dweller "fall in love" with you.
And let's be honest, even I avoid gaming stores. I may be like a 10th level nerd, but some of the guys I see in my local gaming shop make me look like a social butterfly and I really don't have 30 minutes to hear some guy give me intricate details about his Warhammer army.
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When you're a 6'1 woman who plays pen and paper, you tend to attract many unwashed admirers.
I know this feeling. I'm 6 foot and when I wear heels or boots which is most of the time so I look like I am 6'1" to 6'3". I also almost always dress sylish but I am built like a Line Backer for the Broncos (Does not help playing physical sports and weight lifting and some body building most of my life). So yeah, I do attract the smelly trolls in game stores and the looks when I walk into a game store or where gamers are playing. I usually like teasing them while ignoring them. Cruel? NAHHHH Fun and Games
And while I do not sew, I DO design my own costumes and have a friend make them for me
Locally the guys in the comic/game stores don't usually get weird with me or other women that I've noticed, but if you have boobs (that aren't man-boobs) and walk into the Games Workshop Store, oh my lord. It's like they've never seen a female before.
Anyway, I do not knit or sew. I know a lot of folks who do, mostly women. Some of them are gamers. I would say all of them qualify in some geeky category.
You could try to have some kind of "Geek Store" that advertised to gamers, cosplayers, and other kinds of geeks. You could sell all kinds of games, costume stuff, miniature stuff and paints (since you want to attract crafty geeks). That kind of thing. In a good location with good marketing it could do well. In a less good location with poor marketing, probably not so much.
Alternately, you could simply set up your game store next to a Jo-Ann Fabrics.
I just want to say how awesome it was for so many knitters (male and female!) to stop by to chat/show off their projects at PaizoCon this year!
Re: Dan,
That /is/ sad. XD I wonder why?
Many other crafter-gamers wouldn't buy supplies there for the same reason that people prefer FLGSs to shopping for RPGs at Toys-R-Us—selection, staff expertise, and event support.
An FLGS couldn't afford to allocate enough space to carry a useful variety of yarns and equipment, and would be hard-pressed to always have someone on hand who's knowledgeable about product lines and crafting techniques. (I know I rely on my LYS to help answer questions about what yarns I could substitute for a pattern or how to decipher complex instructions.) Not to mention that any crafting classes and circles would have to complete with games for space.
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I crochet. I sew. I cross-stitch (but only under duress). I make costumes and draw characters and bake and cook. I'm a gamer SO, but I'm a gamer too. And most of the girls in my group knit...I suck at knitting, but I did craft chain mail once.
I couldn't see myself hating a craft section in a game store, but a game store is already a different kind of craft store to me. :) Painting minis is an art I never mastered--gots me some tiny hand tremors. So I appreciate the talent of the (gender neutral term time) guys who can whip out their kits and do it well.
Do you knit or sew costumes? Does your GF/SO? Is it a "female gamer" thing? Is it a "spouse of the gamer" thing? Do some of the guys do it?
I'm a gamer and a knitter. (I can also sew, crochet, do counted cross stitch and embroidery, and weave.) As appealing as the *idea* of having a gaming + knitting haven is, I'm not sure it would work in reality. I go to my local yarn store as much for advice about projects/yarn choice/pattern choice as I do to buy stuff. I tend not to go to local game stores, after a couple of unpleasant experiences.
Combining the two would require staff to be knowledgeable in two pretty distinct hobbies, and I'm not sure how well that would work, given the typical demographics of game store staff and yarn/craft store staff.
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Also, picture this:
Picture a Pathfinder fan and a D&D:4.0 fan arguing...
Now picture two fans of different yarn companies.
DOES KNITTING NEED FANBOYS!?
Lol! Ok, never thought about it much, but yes there have been a number of sewing/knitting projects around our gaming table for years now.
Locally the guys in the comic/game stores don't usually get weird with me or other women that I've noticed, but if you have boobs (that aren't man-boobs) and walk into the Games Workshop Store, oh my lord. It's like they've never seen a female before.
Sorry to thread jack, but this made me remember an incident at the FLGS I go to. It rarely has any women in there, except for a couple that play Pathfinder, and to put it bluntly, aren't the kind that even gets a love-starved gamer's interest. However, not long ago some guys were playing Warhammer and one's gf came in. She could've been a model. I never saw so many Mt:G and YGO players freak out in my life. Games actually stopped and they literally stared at this girl the whole time she was talking to her bf. When she left, he just looked at them and smiled.
Just some fuel, if anyone wants to become a fanboy of traditionally feminine crafts.
--My mother is 6'1" and has stories about sitting outside the game store, knitting, waiting for my dad to get off work (he worked in a game store) this is back in 1978. She worked in a yarn store. How cliche is this?
Some thoughts:
What would happen if you had some of these gamers or gamer-SOs start to bring their knitting to gaming store events? It's a great thing to do during downtimes--just keeping your hands busy, sort of like sketching or doodling.
Or, had the occasional "advice on Renfaire costumes" day, hosted by one of the community gamers. Or some sort of workshop.
Would it encourage more women at gaming stores? Would it help them meet other women and men interested in gaming, and grow the community that way?
These are honest thoughts and questions. :3
I'm not trying to be stereotypical, here. This just seems to be a solid interest out there.
Again, I had the one friend knock over her chair, so...!
--My mother is 6'1" and has stories about sitting outside the game store, knitting, waiting for my dad to get off work (he worked in a game store) this is back in 1978. She worked in a yarn store. How cliche is this?
Until lately, I never realized it could be a cliche. XD I just thought I might be seeing a /trend/...
Shared interests are good. They're a great way to meet more friends, and get together over coffee. They're also a great way to help a SO make connections with your friends, and vice versa.
That would be awesome. I love it. :)
Thank you all for sharing. This has been great. :3 I truly hope it's been a help to someone.
Cosplay workshops, held by competent people, at game stores would be a great idea. For both men and women.
I think generally, I know one thing I have come to deeply crave out of my local game stores is SPACE -- space to hang out with fellow gamers, space to play a game, space indeed to hold workshops and talks. I know that's rough because space is a commodity, and Game/Comic shops (all of the ones in my area are hybrids if not primarily comic stores with games on the side) I've noticed tend to like to cram every single last iota of space they have full of books, graphic novels, and toys, so there's no place to DO anything but shop and leave -- which may make sense from one retail POV, but geeks really often desire the ability to hang out and meet each other and learn about new games and books and whatnot, and someone who had the facility to offer that might actually attract a lot of loyal customers. If they had the space to hold demos, events, and panels--and made an effort to advertise at local universities and other areas (cheap and easy enough to do these days with facebook and twitter and other social media).
The one store that had any kind of gaming space has nearly lost it all to a neighboring business that basically shares the same square footage. And I used to often travel there even though there are closer game/comic shops to me, because of that space. But now that it's gone, they've largely lost my business. (I even said to the manager once, "hey I really want to run more Pathfinder demos!" In other words, "I want to help advertise stuff for you for free, devoting a lot of my own time and money to this!" And he just was like, "Well, we don't really have space anymore, maybe later." And that was it.)
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I am a male 'gamer' with a g/f 'gamer' who once attempted to knit. She thought it was too time consuming and she's impatient. I've considered taking it up recently, mostly to make things for HER.
I'm also working towards a BFA in fine woodwork (still a freshman though) and plan to make all sorts of geeky stuff, an epic gaming table chief among them. I collect nerd-craft ideas via pinterest, but if any of you folks know of another good source, I'd love some links.
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It's interesting. I don't knit, but several girls who date gamers do. Also, in the SCA link for those who don't know what it is, the women tend to be the ones who help on home-builds of armor. They sew the clothes together, do things like Viking Wire Weaving, a lot of them are into leatherworking...
A good many of them are also gamers. In fact, a vast majority of them have played D&D at some point in their lives.
I told Mr. Nepherti that he could get into 40K simply because I wanted to paint the figures.
I definitely think there is a correlation.
EDIT: Fixed Link