Tavelog: Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, CA

In other news, I snapped a few photos on my recent trip to California:

Laptop cover - is just the beginning...

Fusible fleece is sandwiched between two layers of MultiCam fabric. Makes a nice laptop cover. The plan is to make a messenger bag to match, but I'm still thinking about exactly how I'm going to do that. I've been looking at this pattern (McCall's 5824):

But without doing the patchwork, of course.

Fun with Austen

Take the Quiz here!

More bags made from recycled stuff!

The "Army Wife" Bag - made from a pair of ACUs. Due to popular demand, I am actually going to make this one for sale - $75 complete, or if you actually give me the pants to make it from - $50.

I also recently tried the pattern on a pair of jeans:

Obviously, you get fewer pockets than if you used a cargo or BDU pant, but it's still spiffy looking.

Next, I am going to try scaling this pattern down to handbag size, maybe, and there is also a messenger bag pattern that I want to work with, although I don't know if I can adapt it to make it out of pants. It will be a challenge worth embracing:)

Iron Chef Sewing: Shorts

I guess I do sewing like I do cooking - give me a secret ingredient, and I'll make something based on that ingredient. I let the materials at hand tell me what they want to be, and today I went into the sewing room without any plan or inspiration.

I happened to look at my box of wood block stamps, and thought I haven't used those in a while, so there you go. The shorts are made from scrap pieces of cotton broadcloth, and the ink colors are what I happened to have on hand. The shorts pattern is your basic, very simple two-piece with a casing at the top for drawstring.

So I went with a bright orange paint for the elephant motif, on the brown shorts, and a bright red with the peacock motif on the blue shorts. I want to make more:)

BTW, shorts are a great way to use up scraps of fabric. You only need about 1 1/4 yards.

The wood block stamps are from India - I received some as gifts, and found others on eBay-kistan. They don't make really good impressions, so the result is very rustic and folky.

Win an Unforgettable Mother's Day

Win a weekend in Sardinia for your mom! Staying at the beautiful Hotel Faro di Capo Spartivento in Chia. All you have to do is say why your mother deserves to win - leave a comment on the facebook, twitter, or blog of CharmingSardinia.com.

Ok, well actually I think my mom deserves to win, but best of luck to you all! May the best mom win;-)

http://www.charmingsardinia.com/sardinia/mother-day.html

MegaCon Costume Stuff

Spent a couple weekends in sunny Florida, and that was nice. Had fun at MegaCon, even though it isn't entirely my cup of tea. Sure, I like comic book superheroes, and I'm a huge fan of anything Star Wars, but the con is now dominated by the anime kids, and I don't really get all of it. My favorite anime films are 25+ years old at this point. So, I'm a bit behind on the current trends.

I did squee over all the hype for the upcoming release of the "Thor" movie.




S.H.I.E.L.D. - the fictional law enforcement agency in the Marvel universe

...and took photos of everything Star Wars...

I am currently working on an imperial officer uniform, and Stefan has informed me that I could make one for him, too, if I wanted.

The costume that I wore at MegaCon is my own invention - it is a very faithfully constructed 1870s period ladies dress, made out of the digital urban camo fabric of the fictional US Marine Space Corps uniform, with all the appropriate emblems and insignia of such. No one was going to guess that one, but a lot of people thought it was something "steampunk." I just wanted to do a twist on the USMSC uniform. That is not unusual to see at a con. For example:

On the right - Gladiator/Roman Soldier Stormtrooper. And, there was also Pimp Vader.

I thought the BSG folks looked great, and I promise myself that I will do a BSG costume, probably a deck hand or shuttle (viper) pilot, at some point.

So I got to thinking about a lot of other fantasy/sci-fi costumes that I would like to do, like a Romulan, or Borg from Star Trek...maybe something from Babylon 5...