I realized one of the things that held me back from sewing before was the idea that it wasn’t frugal anymore. You can usually buy it cheaper than you can make it. That might be true to an extent, but there can be more to a hobby than just cost efficiency. Plus I think it depends what you’re making. For example, I just pinned Anthropologie’s Robina Dress on one of my Pinterest boards. It’s a $228 dress. Do I think I can make something similar for less than $228? Yes, yes I do.

Plus there’s the fact that sewing supports other interests of mine, such as general geekery. I want to make cool costumes; things that can’t be found mass produced in a mall store. Heck, it’s a handy skill to have even for tailoring mass produced items so they fit better or so that they can have a second life after being discarded.

Have you got any hobbies that you started even though they didn’t necessarily ‘make sense’ to you at first?

Related posts:

1. Entry into the realm of sewing
2. Theme Parties and Costumes

January 1st – New Year’s Day
March 14th – 3.14 Pi day
May 4th – Star Wars Day (May the fourth be with you!)
June 20 – Summer solstice
August 19th – Gene Rodenberry’s Birthday
September 19th – Talk like a pirate day
December 21st – Winter solstice
December 31st – New Year’s Eve

The great part about a list of holidays that you curate yourself is that you have total control to pick and choose which ones will show up on your list. Everyone can have a slightly different list reflecting their preferred flavour of geekdom. Which events would make it on to your list of geek holidays?

Related posts:

1. A Holiday Epiphany – Celebrating Geek Culture

A lot of traditional holidays are tied to natural cycles of the earth. With modern technology we are feeling less controlled by these cycles and therefore some of the holidays lose their depth of sentiment.

Plus, I’m finding as people are living longer and longer, it’s creating a difficult tension when it comes to more traditional special days. They end up becoming a bit stressful as we try to juggle schedules and fit everyone in. Since geek days don’t follow the canonical holiday schedule, and since the group who would join in your celebration isn’t necessarily your family, it means less stress and more party!

As someone who identifies strongly with hacker culture, DIYing your own holidays definitely has strong appeal!

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1. First up is a quick sewing project. When I bought the Jedi robe material, I also got enough muslin to make one of those long baby wrap carriers. The popular brand to purchase is called a Moby wrap and they look like this:

   

   My fabric is wide enough to make 2 of them, so I just need to cut it in half lengthwise and hem the edges. I have some fabric dye around the house as well and I’m trying to decide if I should try dyeing the fabric first or just leaving it plain for now. I’ve seen so many interesting fabric dye tutorials on Pinterest lately so it’s kind of tempting to give it a try.

2. Next is a project that got put on hold for the costumes. We decided to physically downsize our Dominion game by putting the cards into smaller card boxes and getting rid of the big original boxes that take up so much space. We’ve done that part but the card boxes are now very plain and boring to look at. So I’ve printed out a bunch of things to decoupage onto the boxes to make them look a little cooler.
3. Another sewing project to tackle. This one is also a practical baby project. Saw a fabric portable high chair on pinterest and think it’s a great idea so I might try to whip a few up. They look like this:

   

4. The biggest project and the only one with a deadline … a skant! This is my next costume project and needs to be done in time for August 19th when we’ll be hosting our Star Trek party! I’ll be wearing one of the original series designs like this:

   

   I will have to decide what colour, division, and rank I want before ordering supplies, so if you’ve got suggestions for me, leave them in the comments!

5. This is kind of like 4b because it’s a costume for Benevolance to wear as well. You’ll just have to wait and see what his will end up looking like!

Related posts:

1. Jedi Robes Costume Update
2. Entry into the realm of sewing

A Barf Vader outfit for Locutus.

I used freezer paper and fabric paint to make the shirt. It was so easy I can see doing this kind of thing again.

I followed this online tutorial for making the robes. I couldn’t find material wide enough so I had to improvise some sleeves and followed this tutorial for adding them. (Though there is an easier way if you haven’t sewn up the side seams yet.) Sadly, the assembly part was a bit too rushed for many photos to be taken. But I am incredibly happy with the finished product!

Related posts:

1. Theme Parties and Costumes
2. Sumo Party Tradition is Born

Progress has been slow. Slower than I’d like. Fabric has been purchased, washed, and dried.

I couldn’t get a rotary cutter, mat, & ruler because they only had 2 mats in stock: one ginormous one, and one tiny one. So I have to go back next week.

I have ironed the shorter piece of fabric, but won’t be able to start ironing the longer one until Monday at the earliest.

Then comes the fun part of actually creating the pattern and putting it all together! Im going to need to improvise a bit because my fabric is shorter than what is called for, so I have to make sleeves separately. Aside from that, the rest of the sewing parts are really quite straightforward.

Hopefully after next weekend I’ll have another post with some pics showing progress too.

Related posts:

1. Entry into the realm of sewing

There are not many fabric stores in my general area. I suppose if I were willing to go further afield this might be different. Plus, the online modern way of business has kind of spoiled me. What do you mean I can’t browse your inventory of fabrics from the comfort of my home so that I don’t have to spend time physically pacing the overwhelming racks at the store? The store closest to me also didn’t seem particularly well organized. The staff, while generally friendly, and I’m sure quite knowledgeable, we’re certainly not trained in customer service. I asked questions, but the responses were a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ No one ever asked the purpose of what I was looking for to try and ensure I was getting the right kind of stuff for the job. Maybe my experience isn’t typical though.

There was also very little fabric information available. All the bolts were marked with care codes denoting wash instructions. But unless you’ve memorized what a 1, 2, or 3 means, you wouldn’t have easy access to that info, since it wasn’t posted anywhere in the store. Perhaps it shows my inexperience, but it would certainly make things easier for the casual seamstress.

But I did manage to navigate through the store and pick up material for 2 different projects. It seemed expensive until I compared it to the cost of buying the items that I’m making. The fabric is washed and dried and waiting to be ironed (it will be interesting to see how long that might take while trying to look after Locutus at the same time).

Now I’m off to hunt for some cheat sheets on stitches and thread tension. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks you’ll see a post with some pictures of my progress!

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These parties already have me giggling with their promise of silly fun. It’s a random holiday and an excuse to revel in a topic of geeky interest. Plus, it’s a chance to practice my sewing and costuming skills. Not only will I be honing my skills, but I’ll also be building up an awesome dress up wardrobe for kids in the years to come!

This year is the first year we are putting the idea out there with our May the Fourth party (which may be revised to a Revenge of the Fifth party due to low turn out on a Friday night) that we are co-hosting with The Nighthawk & his wife Deborella. So I’m working on coming up with Star Wars costumes.

I’ve already started brainstorming a list of other possible theme party ideas too. The idea will be to select a day appropriate to the theme. Here’s my list so far …

• Superheroes!
• Batman (I think his world is rich and nuanced enough to support its own party)
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• Firefly
• Star Trek
• Zombies!
• Classic video games
• Samurai Night Fever

If you’ve got other ideas feel free to throw them out there in the comments! Or if you’ve got good tips about sewing and costuming for me, please pass them along!

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I decided to tackle my hydration level next. I’m aiming for 6 glasses of water a day simply because that’s what is preloaded in the app.

I’m hoping to see the following results:

• more energy
• more balanced appetite levels
• healthier skin (though I’ve never really noticed a big difference with this in the past)
• more breast milk volume? (sorry, was that TMI?)

Unlike flossing, this habit will face a few more challenges. Right now drinking other beverages is in some ways more convenient. Coke Zero in particular. Having the single serving ready to grab in the fridge is big in particular. It doesn’t seem like the act of getting out a glass and pouring water would be hard, but try it while holding a hungry squirming baby and you’ll start to figure out the appeal of a sealed can. Plus our new Brita doesn’t have the same capacity as the last one do there’s also the added step of refilling it.

Anyway, we’ll see how it goes. Hopefully after 30 days I’ll have seen some improvement in how much water I’m getting.

1. it’s actually been longer than that but there isn’t any way of transferring the app data I had on my iPod to my iPhone

Related posts:

1. Re-establishing Good Habits

…the bar is now open. Well, it was open before too, but now we have a drink menu!

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