The world is starting to open up again, but among us there are folk who felt the lockdown most keenly during convention season.

They missed meeting friends, swimming in a sea of fellow fans – regardless of fandom; reveling in the costumes either as a cosplayer or just an appreciative passer-by; viewing films, trailers, and shorts; listening to authors, famous actors or other community celebrities as they reminisce, lecture, or engage in open panel banter; shopping for that special Something that sings to the inner nerd; and more. Like the Game Room. There’s almost always at least one, where folk compete for the sheer fun of it, or sometimes for prizes.

I know many people who live for game rooms, then bring home their favorite games and introduce them to their circle of local friends. This strip is for them, the gamers, be they lovers of electronic formats, the classic card and board games, multiplayer role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, or the new set of tabletop/parlor games, like Settlers of Catan.

This strip is 134 stitches wide x 28 stitches tall, including the narrow companion border at top and bottom. 2 blank rows are left between this and the following strip.

Samples	Fabric Used	Stitch	Thread Consumption/ Notes
	28 count evenweave	Back stitch, 1 ply	Pips are French knots
	18 count Aida	Back stitch, 1 ply	About 3 yards. Pips are French knots
	28 count evenweave	Back stitch, 1 ply	Pips are French knots
	28 count evenweave	Double running, 2 plies	About 1 yard of blue, 1/2 yard of yellow, 1/4 yard of red, 1/4 yard of light blue. The snake eyes pips are each 2mm paillettes. Other pips are tiny 1×1 cross stitches

As usual this band plus working notes and hints has been appended to the write-up on the SAL page, accessible via this link or via the tab at the top of every page here on String-or-Nothing.

If you are working our Epic Fandom SAL either as a whole or as a strip excerpt, please let me know. It gives me great joy to see how my “pattern children” fare out in the wide, wide world, especially when they meet up with creative, playful people.

Band 6 be released on 23 November in the Enablers Facebook group feed, then echoed here on or about 7 December.