Poland, Boston, SPN con, and Sewing
Random update is random, as usual. I have pictures to share, even though most of you still reading this journal have probably already seen them.
Busy happenings here since August or so - I did GISHWHES per my previous post, followed by a week of down time before I had to fly to Poland for work. Wroclaw is very different in summer compared to february - there's actually people on the streets. In summation; decent trip, saw Auschwitz which was heavy and which I won't go into detail on because there's nothing I could say about it that other people haven't said better.
Then home for about a week and a half before going up to boston for a week to see bironic (yay!). Visit included a labor day bbq/vid watching party, a trip to the aquarium, watching broadchurch (best watched with someone who's willing to poke fun at it with you) and gilmore girls (ditto), seeing mini strandbeests , and bironic's endless patience while I shopped for clothing and various costume pieces. I've abbreviated the trip a lot, which is not to imply it wasn't great - it was awesome by default because it meant time hanging out with bironic.
Friday morning flew down to Dallas for the Supernatural convention.
This is the first time I've been to an official convention, I think, since I-con in highschool. It's a very different experience. eg - I had buttons made to hand out because I'm used to fans giving each other little things and wanted a conversation started. Here, people hesitated to take them until I clarified the buttons were free (because apparently people sell buttons sometimes, from their seats...) I'm not sure if that's an official-con vs. fan-con thing or a SPN fandom thing. It was strange (and a little sad) to me. Regardless, good times were had. I didn't really meet anyone in the sense of anyone I'll continue to talk to outside of the con, but everyone was friendly. I picked an official con for two reasons: 1. I don't know any SPN-specific fan-run cons, and I really want to meet more people who are in the fandom. and 2. Unlike with HP or other fandoms I've been in (with 1 exception), I desperately wanted to see many of the actors in person, just to see what they were like.
Mark sheppard and Richard speight were my favorites -- all the stars were great and it was nice to see them (that was half the point of me going, after all), but I found them to be the funniest/most engaging. Of course, now my craving for decent crowley and gabriel based fics has doubled and there's not a lot that i've found out there for either.
They had a karaoke night - I didn't sing, but the costume theme was 'cult classics'. Since I can never resist an excuse to wear a costume, I declared Psych a cult classic and went as the psych pineapple -
It's hard to do an interesting costume for SPN, since the characters really just wear everyday clothes (unless you're dressing up as a monster, of course). I didnt want to just do that, so I attempted to make a castiel-inspired dress. My first attempt was an utter failure; the fabric was not friendly, and even though it looked like a basic sundress on the pattern package, it included darts and a lot of complicated pleating that i've never done. I messed up the top irreparably not 2 hours into sewing. At that stage (thanks to the last-minute work trip to poland), I had not a lot of time to sew, but being me, I ended up buying all new fabric and pattern 2 days before leaving and attempting something new anyway. This time I went with an even simpler dress pattern, aiming for a kind of mod version of (female) castiel. The dress actually came together rather okay -- the measurments declared on the package for the sizes were *way* off. According to it, I needed size 18 to fit my waist. After I had the front/back sewn and put it on, I realized it was huge. HUGE. and ended up having to take it in by about 4 inches on both sides. If I sound a little frustrated, I am - the waist measurement for size 18 on the package was *exactly* what my waist is (I measured to be sure), so there's no excuse for it being that big on me. Anyway, this resulted in the collar being much bigger than intended, but it looked somewhat intentional, so ok. The collar/sleeve seems, however, look terrible. I'd never done this type of binding/seam before and had some trouble. You can tell it's hommade and rushed, but it was passable so I kept it. The shoes you can't see in the picture, but they're cork-heeled wedges with blue and white stripes and little bows - they matched perfectly after I spray painted the white stripes gold. Here's the dress, since you can't see it in full in the official pics:
Convention photos - The photo ops go super fast, so there's really no time to say anything. Because they're so expensive, I just wanted my first (possibly only) ones to be decent pics, so I didn't ask for any special poses because I have a hard enough time getting a decent picture when i'm just standing there.
1. Rich + rob:
Gabriel and chuck are two of my favorite characters, despite how little we see them. Gabriel, in particular, I think could be explored a lot more in fic than he is. My pic with them was the first one I had, and I was extra nervious. I sort of walked up to them and said 'I don't know what I'm doing' -- at which point Rich said 'we've got this, sweetie' and they both grabbed me and squished me into a hug. Which was great from an experience standpoint, but I'm not sharing the pic because I was so surprised that I look so awful in it i'm not willing to show others.
2. Misha and Mark: This photo op was right after Mark's saturday panel. Since he spent a good portion of the time good-naturedly giving anyone dressed up like castiel a hard time, I was expecting him to tease me about the castiel dress. Instead, he said he liked it! Whoot! and, as i've said before, I don't care if he said it just to be nice - i'll take it! :D During autographs, Misha also complimented it, so i'm counting the dress a win. Of course, I also made a bit of an idiot of myself in front of Mark, but whatever. I'm sure he's used to it.
3. Jensen: Oh dean. Dean is definitely my favorite brother. Sorry, sam fans; I like Jared, but Sam is just not my character. Hence, Jensen was the only photo op I bought as a solo pic. By this point I'd managed to calm down a bit more about the photo ops, so it was a little easier. Nonetheless, I realized afterwards that my legs were shaking. I didn't really say anything to him other than that I think he's a great actor. Really happy with how this one came out, though I shouldn't really be surprised, since that man cannot take a bad picture.
4. Jared + Misha: I bought this photo op at the last minute, in a fit of being frsutrated with the car rental costing over twice as much as expected, I sort of threw my hands up and decided that I might as well spend even *more* money on something I wanted. Anyway, all I did was thank them each - misha for creating GISHWHES, and Jared for the 'always keep fighting' campagne. GISHWHES you guys know I love, but I've also have clinical depression (that comes and goes in waves), so AKF hits pretty close to home for me and is a cause I think doesn't get enough attention in general.
After the convention, I was back at work for a week -- hacking my lungs up with con crud (which still isn't 100% gone, thanks). Then a week off during which I was supposed to go to the beach with my mom and aunt. My mother cancelled the beach part at the last minute because of work demands, so I ended up with some days off at home and a long weekend at her house. Always nice to see this particular aunt, and since it rained the entire time we were there, it was a good thing we weren't at the beach. Watched movies with them, lazed about, and went shopping, because I desperately need new work pants (and pretty much everything else, too) - I've lost some weight recently, and have been putting off buying new pants as long as possible. After spending a fairly obscene amount of money, came home with 2 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, a belt, and quality shoes. Hurray for clothes that fit!
p.s. I've never felt short until I got my photos back and saw how much taller even Misha and mark are than me (I know they're not short; I just didn't think the height difference would be that obvious, as i'm 5'7")
Now home again, and all my planned adventures are done with. With all the travel, my diet and exercise hasn't been normal since the start of august, so hopefully I can get back on track quickly.
Also, I now have a washer/dryer! this is an excellent thing.
Busy happenings here since August or so - I did GISHWHES per my previous post, followed by a week of down time before I had to fly to Poland for work. Wroclaw is very different in summer compared to february - there's actually people on the streets. In summation; decent trip, saw Auschwitz which was heavy and which I won't go into detail on because there's nothing I could say about it that other people haven't said better.
Then home for about a week and a half before going up to boston for a week to see bironic (yay!). Visit included a labor day bbq/vid watching party, a trip to the aquarium, watching broadchurch (best watched with someone who's willing to poke fun at it with you) and gilmore girls (ditto), seeing mini strandbeests , and bironic's endless patience while I shopped for clothing and various costume pieces. I've abbreviated the trip a lot, which is not to imply it wasn't great - it was awesome by default because it meant time hanging out with bironic.
Friday morning flew down to Dallas for the Supernatural convention.
This is the first time I've been to an official convention, I think, since I-con in highschool. It's a very different experience. eg - I had buttons made to hand out because I'm used to fans giving each other little things and wanted a conversation started. Here, people hesitated to take them until I clarified the buttons were free (because apparently people sell buttons sometimes, from their seats...) I'm not sure if that's an official-con vs. fan-con thing or a SPN fandom thing. It was strange (and a little sad) to me. Regardless, good times were had. I didn't really meet anyone in the sense of anyone I'll continue to talk to outside of the con, but everyone was friendly. I picked an official con for two reasons: 1. I don't know any SPN-specific fan-run cons, and I really want to meet more people who are in the fandom. and 2. Unlike with HP or other fandoms I've been in (with 1 exception), I desperately wanted to see many of the actors in person, just to see what they were like.
Mark sheppard and Richard speight were my favorites -- all the stars were great and it was nice to see them (that was half the point of me going, after all), but I found them to be the funniest/most engaging. Of course, now my craving for decent crowley and gabriel based fics has doubled and there's not a lot that i've found out there for either.
They had a karaoke night - I didn't sing, but the costume theme was 'cult classics'. Since I can never resist an excuse to wear a costume, I declared Psych a cult classic and went as the psych pineapple -
It's hard to do an interesting costume for SPN, since the characters really just wear everyday clothes (unless you're dressing up as a monster, of course). I didnt want to just do that, so I attempted to make a castiel-inspired dress. My first attempt was an utter failure; the fabric was not friendly, and even though it looked like a basic sundress on the pattern package, it included darts and a lot of complicated pleating that i've never done. I messed up the top irreparably not 2 hours into sewing. At that stage (thanks to the last-minute work trip to poland), I had not a lot of time to sew, but being me, I ended up buying all new fabric and pattern 2 days before leaving and attempting something new anyway. This time I went with an even simpler dress pattern, aiming for a kind of mod version of (female) castiel. The dress actually came together rather okay -- the measurments declared on the package for the sizes were *way* off. According to it, I needed size 18 to fit my waist. After I had the front/back sewn and put it on, I realized it was huge. HUGE. and ended up having to take it in by about 4 inches on both sides. If I sound a little frustrated, I am - the waist measurement for size 18 on the package was *exactly* what my waist is (I measured to be sure), so there's no excuse for it being that big on me. Anyway, this resulted in the collar being much bigger than intended, but it looked somewhat intentional, so ok. The collar/sleeve seems, however, look terrible. I'd never done this type of binding/seam before and had some trouble. You can tell it's hommade and rushed, but it was passable so I kept it. The shoes you can't see in the picture, but they're cork-heeled wedges with blue and white stripes and little bows - they matched perfectly after I spray painted the white stripes gold. Here's the dress, since you can't see it in full in the official pics:
Convention photos - The photo ops go super fast, so there's really no time to say anything. Because they're so expensive, I just wanted my first (possibly only) ones to be decent pics, so I didn't ask for any special poses because I have a hard enough time getting a decent picture when i'm just standing there.
1. Rich + rob:
Gabriel and chuck are two of my favorite characters, despite how little we see them. Gabriel, in particular, I think could be explored a lot more in fic than he is. My pic with them was the first one I had, and I was extra nervious. I sort of walked up to them and said 'I don't know what I'm doing' -- at which point Rich said 'we've got this, sweetie' and they both grabbed me and squished me into a hug. Which was great from an experience standpoint, but I'm not sharing the pic because I was so surprised that I look so awful in it i'm not willing to show others.
2. Misha and Mark: This photo op was right after Mark's saturday panel. Since he spent a good portion of the time good-naturedly giving anyone dressed up like castiel a hard time, I was expecting him to tease me about the castiel dress. Instead, he said he liked it! Whoot! and, as i've said before, I don't care if he said it just to be nice - i'll take it! :D During autographs, Misha also complimented it, so i'm counting the dress a win. Of course, I also made a bit of an idiot of myself in front of Mark, but whatever. I'm sure he's used to it.
3. Jensen: Oh dean. Dean is definitely my favorite brother. Sorry, sam fans; I like Jared, but Sam is just not my character. Hence, Jensen was the only photo op I bought as a solo pic. By this point I'd managed to calm down a bit more about the photo ops, so it was a little easier. Nonetheless, I realized afterwards that my legs were shaking. I didn't really say anything to him other than that I think he's a great actor. Really happy with how this one came out, though I shouldn't really be surprised, since that man cannot take a bad picture.
4. Jared + Misha: I bought this photo op at the last minute, in a fit of being frsutrated with the car rental costing over twice as much as expected, I sort of threw my hands up and decided that I might as well spend even *more* money on something I wanted. Anyway, all I did was thank them each - misha for creating GISHWHES, and Jared for the 'always keep fighting' campagne. GISHWHES you guys know I love, but I've also have clinical depression (that comes and goes in waves), so AKF hits pretty close to home for me and is a cause I think doesn't get enough attention in general.
After the convention, I was back at work for a week -- hacking my lungs up with con crud (which still isn't 100% gone, thanks). Then a week off during which I was supposed to go to the beach with my mom and aunt. My mother cancelled the beach part at the last minute because of work demands, so I ended up with some days off at home and a long weekend at her house. Always nice to see this particular aunt, and since it rained the entire time we were there, it was a good thing we weren't at the beach. Watched movies with them, lazed about, and went shopping, because I desperately need new work pants (and pretty much everything else, too) - I've lost some weight recently, and have been putting off buying new pants as long as possible. After spending a fairly obscene amount of money, came home with 2 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, a belt, and quality shoes. Hurray for clothes that fit!
p.s. I've never felt short until I got my photos back and saw how much taller even Misha and mark are than me (I know they're not short; I just didn't think the height difference would be that obvious, as i'm 5'7")
Now home again, and all my planned adventures are done with. With all the travel, my diet and exercise hasn't been normal since the start of august, so hopefully I can get back on track quickly.
Also, I now have a washer/dryer! this is an excellent thing.