Now we're making progress! You already have a fairly high end item. Now you're to come head to head with the most dreaded phenomenon in all of Norrath...Upper Level Tailoring. Rumor has it that the way to defeating the Sleeper lies in finding a way to make it want to be a grandmaster tailor.
When practicing for the sake of the shawl, most tailors simply aim for 158 when components to improve further get really hard to obtain, and then just keep trying the quest. You may still have to make many attempts in order to succeed at this point...grab a box of tissues and welcome to the club!
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Highest Skill Trivials
Drops to Collect (none stack)
You say to Rexx Frostweaver, "Am I worthy?"
Rexx Frostweaver says, "To ensure your worthiness you must continue to refine your prayer shawl. Speak with my wife Betti regarding the embroidered shawl and listen carefully to her words. Hurry now, there seems to be a sense of urgency about."
You say to Betti Frostweaver, "What embroidered prayer shawl?"
Betti Frostweaver says, "It will be an honor to assist you in fashioning an embroidered shawl. It is a very demanding product and I can see from the look in your eyes that you desire to burn your sewing kit in our furnace, but if you persevere, your efforts will be richly rewarded. When you are ready you must carefully weave a spool of sacred Coldain thread. Take the thread, this pattern, and the silk shawl and carefully embroider the pattern. The result will be most exquisite. Please show me if you manage to create one."
[Receive: Embroidered Prayer Shawl Pattern]
You say, "What sacred coldain thread?"
Betti Frostweaver says, "Take a woven frost giant beard, two siren�s hairs, two manticore manes and two drakkel dire wolf whiskers, and combine them in a sewing kit. The resulting thread will enhance your shawl�s power when embroidered in a special pattern."
Woven Frost Giant Beard: As you might expect, you'll find these on frost giants. They are somewhat rare, but not excessively so. You can often find them on vendors, although they will want over 130pp for one. (Be careful not to confuse them with the Braided Coldain Beards that some twisted people sell back to the Coldain after killing them.) I have looted beards off of giants in East Wastes, and it seems safe to assume that they probably drop in Iceclad, Great Divide, and Kael as well. I would guess that since they are called Frost Giant beards, they may not drop off of the storm giants in Kael, however, so keep that in mind if you are looking for a beard while hunting in Kael. The beards are Lore, so you may be able to loot an unwanted one if you holler in zones where giants are commonly killed. But this means you can't save up a few in case you need to make more than one try. The beards drop with charges of a strength buff, but are confirmed to work even if the charges have been used.
Siren Hairs: Put on your Patience Hat, these buggers can be a real pain. Note that the hairs you need are just called "Siren Hair" and NOT "Lock of Siren Hair". The locks of hair will not work. The right kind is not stackable. Due to the dark background of the loot window, they can also be hard to see on the corpse when they drop, so I recommend holding down the Alt key to display the names of everything on the corpse. I got my first attempt's hairs with the help of a level 60 wizard who was capable of soloing them. I then learned the hard way that sirens are enchanters, and therefore like to charm stuff. They really like to charm stuff. They charmed my pet first off. That is when I learned that when my pet is charmed and the charm wears off, my pet becomes an independent npc. It continued to fight the siren, but it conned indifferent and did not respond to my commands. This also means that when your pet is charmed and attacks you, attacking your pet back will make it remain agro when the siren dies. A few fights later, a siren charmed my wizzie buddy. When he hit me with the first spell and took out two bubs of health, I ran for the zone. But even with my own shaman buffs and sow, I was dead before I ran the twenty paces to safety. Ergo, if you are capable of soloing them that might be safer. If not, make sure you keep magic resistance as high as possible at all times, and have a plan for what to do when one of you gets charmed. And skip pets unless you are a necromancer or magician and turn into a pile of goo without them.
The sirens you need are found in three camps in Cobalt Scar. There are also sirens in Siren's Grotto but they do not drop the hairs for the shawl. Two of the siren camps in Cobalt Scar are easy enough to reach. One is in the water at the base of the cliff where the little strip of land ends just beyond the zone to Skyshrine. The other is just outside the tunnel to Siren's Grotto. The zone is above the water line, so most people who hunt here set up camp at the zone and pull sirens there. I definitely recommend this if you are grouped with anyone, in case of charming. The camp that is not easy to reach is underwater about halfway between the first two camps, at approximately 560,1400. I'd try the other two spots if possible, as sirens are not the only dangerous creatures lurking in the water. The hairs are relatively rare drops so you should be prepared to spend several hours, perhaps even a few days. If you have to run into Siren's Grotto, you should be safe unless someone has pulled something to the zone. Just do not move more than a step from the zone, or you could agro the molkor that is just inside. If you do go solo on the sirens near Siren's Grotto or out in the middle underwater, just be sure to keep some form of Enduring Breath up at all time in case one charms you and takes you to meet all her friends.
Manticore Manes: Compared to sirens, manticores are a piece of cake. Their levels vary a bit but are at most 43ish. The manes do not drop every time but are common enough. The manticores are found rarely all around in East Wastes but especially in the hills near the Great Divide zone. You won't be tripping over them, but I found them quickly enough without a tracker just by lurking in the hills near Great Divide. There shouldn't be much around that is more dangerous than the manticores, but because there's a lot of critters there and the hills make it hard to see very far around you, be on the alert for adds. If you're having trouble finding them, try killing the dervishes and kodiaks and whatnot. Or, you could head out around the Iceclad bridge and Sleeper's Tomb statue and try killing other animals to see if manticores will spawn. These will take time but are one of the easier steps.
Drakkel Dire Wolf Whiskers: Drakkel Dire Wolves can be found in several places where you find Frost Giants. They are on Giant faction so you will take hits to both Kromrif and Kromzek if you kill these wolves. I spent my time on them in Great Divide because they spawn in droves out there, but I would assume that the right wolves in Kael drop them too. Be careful not to confuse the Drakkel Dire Wolves with the smaller Coldain Tracking Wolves also found in Great Divide, or the generic dire wolves found in Iceclad and East Wastes. The whiskers are pretty rare, but luckily other folks hunting wolves are pretty common. I had very little luck yelling that I wanted whiskers and was willing to buff or pay to loot, but I sometimes heard people yelling loc's for corpses with whiskers. I also made it a habit to swing by the canyon with the spires whenever I ran through Great Divide, and checked any corpses laying around. Junk pelts are common drops off of the wolves so you may check a LOT of corpses before you find whiskers, but if they are green or you do not want faction hits, you can eventually get what you need this way. The wolves themselves are easy enough, green at 53 but probably still blue to level 40 or so. When looting, be aware that the black hairs against the dark color of the corpse looting window can be very tough to see. I recommend hitting the Alt key whenever looting a wolf, to bring up the names of any items there and bring your attention to any whiskers that may have dropped.
The Combines:
In a Tailoring Kit: 1 Woven Frost Giant Beard + 2 Siren Hairs + 2 Manticore Manes + 2 Drakkel Dire Wolf Whiskers = Sacred Coldain Thread (Tailoring 148)
In a Tailoring Kit: Sacred Coldain Thread + Silken Coldain Prayer Shawl + Embroidered Prayer Shawl Pattern = Embroidered Coldain Prayer Shawl (Tailoring 208)
Note that if you fail at the final combine for this shawl, and you probably will at least once, you will get your fifth shawl back. The same goes if you fail at the final combine for the fifth or seventh shawls, you always get the previous one back if you fail to make the new one.
Given the difficulty of this shawl you will probably fail at least a few times before you make it. Some folks have tried as many as 15 times before succeeding, even with tailoring skill in the 150s. Do not give up, many others share your frustration and have gone through the same thing. You've made it too far now to give up!