DragonMaster Competition

Today was a DragonMaster competition at the IMD park. It was for all of Iron Mountains, but it was held locally which made it very convenient for me. I entered three pieces of chain mail jewelry as well as my belt and one of my swords. I put in the belt and sword as a, "what the heck" kind of thing. I mainly was entering the jewelry. I entered a bracelet I had previously made for Karen and the necklace I made for Marleah. The only thing I made fresh was a new bracelet similar to the one I made Kathy for her birthday. I made it mainly purple so that Karen would like it. This was my first time entering one of these competitions so I didn't really know what to expect. One guy brought 23 entries. My five seemed fairly pitiful. He didn't have anything in my category so my jewelry wasn't competing against him. He had a ton of stuff, though. He really inspired me to beef up my tailoring and leatherworking skills. I have already started doing a little sewing, but I need to see if I can get a little tutoring from one of my friends. It would probably help if I had a project in mind before I asked for assistance. I saw a nice (from what I can tell with my limited knowledge) leatherworking set on sale from Tandy. It is kind of expensive, $500, but it has a bunch of tools in it. My concern is that I would get these tools and have no clue on how to use them. I thought about seeing if the local Tandy store offers any classes, but I haven't done it yet. In my mind it would be in their best interest to offer free (or very cheap) classes. It seems like it would create more business for them. I know, the last thing I need is more hobbies to dabble in. Oh well.