A look at new gear obtainable from the 'Windurst: The Third Walk' alliance raid in Final Fantasy XIV. Arriving April 28 as part of Patch 7.5, this is the third and final alliance raid in the 'Echoes of Vana'diel' collaboration with Final Fantasy XI.

Before the entrance to the superhero academy, the boys compared powers.

"What do you do?"

"Er..."

"C'mon, spill!"

"I can add pockets."

"Like, interdimensional?"

"No, just normal, usable pockets. To any garment, matching any material."

"What use is that?"

"If I can help anyone I'd be happy."

I knew there'd be at least a few people following me who would enjoy the write-up! And I already have an idea for the next one, but I don't think I have time to do it properly (I was going to make it for a concert I'm going to in a month. Designing and knitting clothes takes too long!)

Congratulations to the Fan Art finalists! You are all amazingly talented. And to all the players and fans: keep forging ahead. It's worth it.

I hope you enjoyed reading this journey. I had a blast working on this (and also headaches at time) and would do it again in a heartbeat. I WILL make more dolls in the future. Deciding who will be the fun part!

Knitted dolls of Alphinaud (left) and Alisaie (right) from Final Fantasy XIV. Alphinaud is in his Sage outfit from Endwalker and is wearing a blue coat, white tunic, black pants and white books and gloves. Alisaie is in her Shadowbringers outfit and is wearing a short red dress, thigh-high knitted boots, and a beige bolero trimmed in white fur. They were knitted five years apart so my gauge changed in that time, and Alphinaud turned out smaller than his sister. Yes, Alisaie is LIVID at being the more "rugged" twin.

Here's the twins together - and yes, Alisaie is LIVID at being the bigger, more "rugged" twin. @bethanwalker.bsky.social ky.social @colin-ryan.bsky.social

A knitted doll of Alisaie from Final Fantasy XIV, sitting in a gaming chair. She is supervising the knitting of her brother. So far, just his head is knit to just under where his nose would be. His blue eyes have already been placed. The knitting is on four small double-pointed needles arranged in a square.

Alisaie supervised during this process as I had previously knit her--five years ago, so my gauge changed. This meant Alphinaud turned out smaller as I had tightened up some over the years.

A knitted doll of Alphinaud, from the back. He's got a mop of white hair on the top, with a neat braid falling down his back. He's wearing a blue coat and white gloves. You can just see the tails of his white tunic peeking out from underneath the coat.

A close of up a knitted doll of Alphinaud, showing off his glove. It is white with an opening on the back of the hand. The doll's "hand" is a simple gathered tube without a thumb, so the glove is pretty simple too.

Close up photo of a knitted doll of Alphinaud. You can see the bottom of his black pants in the photo, but the subject of the photo is his white boots. They go halfway up his leg, and have two flaps about a quarter of the way down.

A knitted doll of Alphinaud from FInal Fantasy XIV. He's got a mess of white hair, pointed ears, and blue eyes. He's wearing a white tunic with tails. The tails have silver stripes at an angle. He's also wearing a blue coat, black pants, white boots and white gloves that are open on the back of the hand.

Am I disappointed? Of course. But still: proud of myself. I persevered and worked hard and got it done to my satisfaction. Here's some close-up glamor shots taken today!

My official Fan Fest entry photos, showing a knitted doll of Alphinaud in his Sage outfit. There's three pics, a larger one on the left showcasing his front, with two smaller pics on the right showing him from the side and back. He's got white hair in a braid, pointed ears, and is wearing a white tunic, blue coat, black pants and white boots and gloves. A charm on a silver necklace completes the outfit.

I submitted my official entry just after midnight CST - about two hours before the deadline. Here's those pics. They are not great, so I am not surprised I did not make finalist.

Unfortunately, photos took some cursing and extra time. To get decent photos in the horizontal layout required took me another hour and a half.

I'd done all the knitting I could. I had planned on doing smaller details as well, but there just wasn't time. Still, I felt he was recognizably Sage Alphinaud. Time for photos!

Finally, I finished the hair. It took me another 1 hour 16 minutes. I finished at 10:30pm CST - 3.5 hours before the midnight PST deadline.

I had previously done the first glove when taking a break from the coat, but needed to knit the second. That took 1 hour 13 minutes, finishing at 9:14pm CST.

I took a break for dinner, then went back to it. I started placing hair, spending 40 minutes on it and stopping at 8pm.

Even so, I did not finish the coat until 6:17pm CST on the 6th. EEP! Just a few hours left to deadline!

I started his coat next. Thankfully, I've made doll coats before, so had some idea of how to do it, so I didn't waste much time figuring things out.

I did not finish the boots until March 2nd. Time was running out - the deadline was the 6th. Would I finish in time? I still needed to do his coat, gloves, and place/style his hair, at the very least.

I finally finished the white tunic on February 26, and went on to the boots, which I reknit in heavier weight yarn. That worked better!

The answer, after much trial and error: SHORT ROWS! I knit the bottom of the tails first, then did short rows to turn a corner and square off the top, then did decreases along the top to match the angle of the tunic. WHEW!

I started the tails bottom up. Doing the silver stripes was easy. The problem was that the angle of the tails' bottoms did not match the angle of the tunic bottoms. I would need to determine how to account for that angle.

So I had to rip out all that work and redo the tails. This took a lot of contemplation and experiment to get them right!

Here I made a collosal error: I went off memory, and did not double check the reference picture. I thought there were three tails on both front and back. I dutifully knit them. WRONG!

I knit the tunic top down, ending with a point made by decreases on both front and back. It was then time to make the "tails" of the tunic.

His white tunic was first. I goofed on my first attempt by not making an opening at back that would allow it to pass over his head. So I ripped and redid it.

Then in late January, the Fan Fest Art Contest was announced! Now, I actually did consider making some other things for it, but some quick calculations told me I didn't have the time. So back to Alphi I went.

This brought me to end of July 2025. Life improved. I had regained my confidence and gotten busy with stuff, so Alphinaud went to the wayside for a time.

So I put the tunic aside and knit his pants. This wasn't too bad, because I'd previously made pants for other dolls so it was just a matter of a few alterations to be true to his in-game pants.

Eventually, I gave up on the boot and started on his white tunic. I tried knitting the split hem first, but it was NOT going well.

I was testing different yarns, though, and the yarn I had tried was too gauzy held singly. So I scrapped that attempt and tried again with the yarn held double. It worked better, but made a tight boot that could stand up on its own. Oops!

I started with a boot. I wasn't sure how to do the flaps at first. I tried doing fold-over flaps but could not wrap my head around the logistics needed for the fold. I scrapped that and then tried flaps separately. That worked better!