4 days till A-Kon 27

OMG the last week and a half has been HELL on wheels. I finally finished Sarah's coat for Maddie Hatter. It was a PAIN in the ASS. Everyone says it looks AMAZING... I think it looks like crap. But that's because I can see the things that are wrong with it. Over the last few weeks, I remembered a very important piece of wisdom that my grandmother imparted to me when we were sewing together.

"The instructions for a pattern are very important. It will tell you which pieces you need and it will give you a general idea of how to put the thing together. Otherwise... It's a bunch of crap that will confuse the hell out of you. If you see something in the instructions that makes NO sense, go with your gut. More than likely it will come out OK, if not... You rip a seam or two."

The instructions for the pattern for the Maddie coat made NO sense what so ever. So I kind of put it together the best way I could think of to get it together. It's still not completely done, I have some more froo froo things to add to the back side, kind of like a skirt, but once that is done, I never want to see this costume again. And I don't think it's the costume so much. It's the fact that I had to make the fabric from scratch. Hours cutting the strips, more hours sewing those strips together, a few more hours using an iron to put on interfacing to stabilize the fabric and to keep the strips from raveling.

When I was in the store getting the iron on interfacing, someone suggested I use stitch witchery and I said HELL no. Stitch Witchery is basically it's a liquid that you put on a fabric to keep it from fraying. A very thin clear nail polish. For some things, it works great, but it does have a tendency to discolor the fabric. With as much as I was going to use, I was NOT going to spend more hours painting each seam. Sooo.... Iron on interfacing was my best friend. 

Getting everything cut out was a bit of a pill. I had what I "thought" was all the right pieces cut out and then I freaked out because I thought I was missing a pattern piece. I yelled at the cat because I was so upset about missing a piece. Looked over the instructions again, to find out that the piece I thought I was missing, didn't exist. At least it didn't exist the way I had gotten in stuck in my mind that it existed. For some reason I had it in my head that there were two long pieces for this pattern. Which isn't entirely untrue. There are. There is the front piece on the side, and then there is the back piece that ruffles along the backside. I had to stop and cut more strips to make more fabric, add interfacing and cut the back ruffle piece. 

*snickers* Butt ruffles....

Other things that happen while making this coat. I forgot to take out a pin the sewing needle hit JUST the right spot. I'm keeping it for posterity. 

I'd like to thank my cat for being a total pain in the ass this entire time. She took over my sewing area and did not want to give it back. There were several times that I had to evict her from my space. She was not a happy camper and has been lamenting the sounds of her people in the wee hours of the morning.

 

Last bu surly not least, I am finally off to make the Wonder Woman bombshell. I finished the shorts in about 4 hours, so I'm going to concentrate on the shirt tomorrow. Anyone know where I can get the belt buckle?

Productivity - 17 days to A-Kon

It was a good and bad day. I wanted to get so much done today, and in reality I did. But nothing I got done was anything I wanted to get done. I stayed up WAY to late last night which caused me to oversleep this morning. And even then, I don't think I got enough sleep. I got the daughter to work and came home to tackle the dishes and cleaning up my work space so I could get started.

I got the dishes done and was faced with cleaning my work area. I was not happy to find it a mess. My loving daughter managed to turn my work table into a disaster area. She is working on a costume just for her.

 This guy is called a Poewk. He is what's called a Wublin from the game "My Singing Monsters". You can read more about him HERE if you'd like. Meanwhile, the kiddo decided that she wants to make her own costume for Project Akon and is going as this guy as a human-ized. She started a mask last night. It's kind of rough at the moment, but as she gets more of the feathers on it, it should begin to look better.

The kiddo, that I really shouldn't call Kiddo because she's 18, but I do anyway, made a mess of my very small work table and didn't really clean up after herself. I found bits of foam, paint everywhere, and she even had the audacity to steal the cat's water glass for cleaning the paint brushes. And I wondered why that cat was waking me up at 7 o'clock this morning wanting water.

Yes, I have a cat that drinks out of a normal glass like everyone else. The cat Miracle is a character. If you stick around, you will probably see me throwing her off my work space from time to time. Right now she's going through a phase where she doesn't want to drink out of the fresh water dish we bought her, nor does she want to eat out of the auto feeder we have for her. The water has to be changed every day and in a cup. Her food has to be in a bowl and it has to be next to the water. It can't be on the floor or she will ignore it.

 I discovered that the cat had been losing a little weight and there were no tell tale signs she had been eating. The other clue was the down right affectionate behavior. The moment I jumped through hoops for the cat, she's not as affectionate anymore. Adorable, yes... But I think she's gone back to plotting my demise.

I cleaned up my work space, got the cat situated and then I had this wave of tired wash over me. I blinked and it was two and a half hours later, my daughter had called three times, and it was time to start dinner. Dinner was meatball subs with a generic salad.

The schedule for tomorrow: Get at least to the point of cutting out the blue and gold Madeline jacket. If I can get it all put together, I will feel even better. If I can get farther than that I will be ahead of myself. Here's to good luck and all those things.

#Cosplay #AKon27 #productivity #cats #kids

Steam, Stars and Stripes

As many of the local DFW peeps know, Project A-Kon is right around the corner. According to my count down clock, it is 18 days away.  In those 18 days, I will be striving to make four costumes. Yeah, four of them. Should I mention that I have to work too? The costumes that are on the block:

Madeline Hatter 

She is a character from Ever After High.One of my daughters' favorites. We have a wig and my daughter is making the hat and working on the shoes. I am in charge of the jacket and the half skirt. The hardest part of this costume is that we could not find the blue and yellow striped fabric to make the jacket. So what I am going to have to do is cut 3 or 4 inch strips of blue and gold. Then I'm going to have to put those strips together to make one piece of fabric before I cut out the jacket. It will be time consuming... But it will be glorious when I'm done.

Wonder Woman - DC Bombshells

This is for a friend and it should be the easiest of the costumes I have to do. I will save it for last, just before I start mine. The shirt is a simple western shirt with the WW logo in gold thread. The belt buckle is going to be out of foam for now. If I can find someone to 3D print, or cast it, or even find it online, I will give that info to my friend and let her purchase it. For now, my job is the shirt and shorts. Time willing, I will get the gauntlets done as well.

H.G. Wells - Warehouse 13

For the same friend. She wanted to go as H.G. Wells from Warehouse 13, but then changed her mind to a generic steampunk pirate fem fatal. I might just stick with the H.G. Wells idea and give it a more piratey feel. Thoughts are welcome.

Steampunk March Hare

This one is for me, time willing. I don't have any concept art yet, but I've got an idea in my head that should work. I plan on a mask of some kind, or possibly a hat with ears. If I can sneak time in to make a corset, I will, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

So there you have it. Wish me luck. I start tomorrow with the Madeline costume. I'm planning to start streaming on Twitch around noonish. Maybe a little sooner or even a little later, but the target is noon. Stay tuned in.

Computer Issues and Crafting - They don't mix well.

Today was supposed to be an awesome day. I took my daughter to work and then I was going to spend the day working on several things. I made a few stops to see if I couldn't find a cheap webcam that would be compatible with Windows 10. I have a perfectly good webcam, but it seems to have issues with Windows 10. Crazy, I know... considering its a Microsoft Life Cam. That turned out to be a bust, because no offence... I've spent more money than I can right now getting ready for A-Kon in the next few weeks.

I got home and was ready to go. I had a lot to do after all. I had all the plans made in my head as I was out and about this morning. I was going to revamp the blog a little. I was going to research the pictures I probably needed to show... "This is what I'm working on today and this is how I'm doing it." I was literally rehearsing my speech in the car. I was so excited to test this new journey I wanted to go on. Plus I had a few things I wanted to research.

Got home, swapped out the dishes like a good little girl and went strait for my computer, to start my day's journey into the cosplay community.

"Unmountable Boot Volume Error - Restarting system..."

This was a loop that lasted a few time. It would get into the repair mode and then... nothing. I would force a restart.... and... nothing. Luckily, I did have a few things at my disposal that allowed me to connect to the internet and search for a fix. I had a corrupted boot file and no way to fix it, except for a complete tear down and reinstall. That was good and bad. Good, because my computer was prepackaged and came with a separate internal hard drive that does nothing by house the OS. Bad because I bought the computer with Windows 7 pre-installed.

Once again, the fates smiled upon me and gave me hope. I was able to get into System Recovery mode and get the backup started. A little while later, I was ready to reinstall. Not a few minutes after that... I was booting up to a fresh and clean Windows 7 screen. HAZAH! Went through and disabled or uninstalled all the bloatware. But then I was hit with a very... VERY interesting idea. I had a perfectly good webcam that wouldn't work with Windows 10. I can apparently reinstall Windows 10 until July 29th. I think I'm keeping Windows 7 for a little while until I can afford a new webcam.

So my day was a bust for the most part. I did manage to bring my computer back from the dead. I was able to make the older webcam work. I've pretty much got everything installed again. Yay me.