Thursday, July 13, 2017

Thursday Thoughts Part 2: Comic Con Sewing

I have been sewing madly the last few weeks trying to get things finished off for the convention. I had finally decided that I was done and posted on Facebook the following post

Did my comic con stall stock take 6 laptop bags, 17 iPad bags, 44 cosmetics purses, 37 pencil cases, 44 earbud/round pouches, 29 zipper coin purses, 29 tissue packet covers, 4 hanging towels, 14 pot holders, 9 hair scrunchies, 5 bandana bibs. All made from geeky type fabrics (Pokémon, doctor who, StarbWars, batman, Wonder Woman etc) I am done now. It's 2 weeks till I leave for overseas and the convention is a week after we get back. I have to tidy my sewing room before I go so need to stop
I was basically having a little boast about what I had done. What I didn't expect was for my friends to start asking about stuff and wanting to buy from me. It started with one friend asking about the iPad bags so I posted her photos of all of the different ones 


Pokemon iPad messenger style bags

and a couple of people asked if they could buy them. Someone asked about the cosmetics bags so I photographed them and posted the pictures 
 Doctor Who Cosmetics bags


and sold 4. Then someone asked about the scrunchies... 
 I didn't mae any more of these - these are leftovers from our Christmas market

and someone about the coin purses... 
Batman and Star Trek teeny tiny zipper coin purses

 I ended up photographing everything and putting them into an album on Facebook 


Ear bud pouches, these ones with periodic table and formulas


Betty Boop pencil cases

Bandana bibs for babies

Space Invaders tissue packet covers


I have been selling things from there. (still have to photograph the laptop bags, the hanging towels and the pot holders but you get the general idea)

The album is actually public if you want to have a look. Comic Con Sewing Album 

I have a page on this blog that I put items I had made onto (so the Comic Con selection committee people could have a look and see what sorts of things I have made/could make) I will load the photos onto that too... eventually.

Thursday Thoughts Part 1:- our travel plans

Did I tell you we are off overseas at the end of this month? Well we are... we leave here on Tuesday 25th and fly out of Australia on Thursday 27th. We have given ourselves a day extra in case something goes wrong on our drive to Brisbane. Its 900km and we regularly do it in a day and rarely have we had anything go wrong... but, since we are retired and have the time we have decided to have the extra day just in case. So... we leave in 12 days time.

We fly to Japan first off for a week to visit with Sho, our host son from 2004. He lived with us for a year and this will be our 3rd visit to see him. This time we get to meet his wife and baby daughter so its very special. We will also get to visit with his parents and perhaps see some of his siblings.

From Japan we fly to Frankfurt (via Dubai and a 5 hour lay over at 3 AM... blergh) and from there catch a train to Prague where we will be joining our week long Barge Bike tour. Then its back to Germany (by train) and 4 days with our host daughter from 2006 Lena and then train to Amsterdam for a long weekend. From there we will fly to Norway and have a week with our host son Joergen (from 2005) and will attend his wedding whilst we are there. Then we fly to Scotland, hire a car and have 12 days driving about UK (well Scotland and England) catching up with some of Fixit Guy's cousins and his aunty Joyce. We arrive back in Australia on the 12th September. 

We won't be coming straight home though. We have volunteered to help out at a conference in Brisbane - serving on the Handmade With Love stall for Our Rainbow House at the Australian Pricipals Association conference. Our group has been making lots of items out of the fabric from Zambia especially for the conference. 

The Brisbane Comic Con is only a week after that - the one that I am hoping to share a stall with my son's partner Earthyyu of Earthyyu Drawstuff  I say hoping to, as we have applied but have to be selected and we don't hear until the day we leave Emerald... so we are assuming we are in and I will take all the stuff down with me. Its too far to come home and then drive back down for the conference so we will stay down. (well I will anyway. Fixit Guy is still debating)

Then my daughter is going to be heading down to Sydney Comic Con the following week. She is going to be driving down for it and I have decided to go with her. It will give me a chance to see my mum again (she turns 95 the day we fly out of the UK) and also my sister who has been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. It will also give Fangirl company on the drive and I will be her off sider at the convention. 

So I won't be home till early October... and then we are planning a trip down to Melbourne in November to catch up with our son down there for his 30th birthday.....

Its all very exciting and hard to get my head around. 

Thursday, July 6, 2017

WIP Wednesday

Wow I am actually getting a WIP Wednesday post written and its only 7 mins past Weds. That is a record for me for a few months.

This week I have been working on some of the Comicon sewing I am doing for the stall I am hoping to have at the Brisbane Comic Con in September - I will only hear if I get in at the end of this month. Here's hoping (We have to apply for a stall and wait to get selected) I am planning on sharing the stall with my son's partner that I have been calling Gamer Girl on this blog. She is now using the name Earthyyu Drawstuff ... so I am going to swatch over to that. You can see some of her stuff on her Facebook page here.

This last week I have been making some Easy Cosmetic Bags (from Sew So Easy) - by some I mean I made 25 this week in a variety of Pop Culture fabrics. I now have a zipper bag in every one of the pop culture fabrics that I have. I have also been working on some Teeny Tiny Zipper bags, using up some of the scraps of the pop culture fabrics. They are a variety of sizes as I was just working with the size of the scraps. I realised that I was out of the lobster clips I usually put on the zipper bags. I have ordered some split rings and will use them instead. It is a bit frustrating as I am sure I have some somewhere here at home but can't locate them. Now that I have sewn the bags I won't be able to use them on these as they are sewn but the split rings will be good. 

I have completed putting all the photos from my mums negatives on facebook. My mum loved taking photos, mostly of her kids (she had 8 so lots of practice). In the 1950s women were kept in hospital for 10 days and it was the only time my mum got to sit and stitch. She worked on a supper cloth over several babies. Just recently my sister who was in possession of this cloth passed it on to me. I was delighted to find that my mum used it in this photo of one of my siblings (I suspect its my brother Frank who was born in 1952 but not sure.)