Freaks, Geeks and Whovians

What is a Whovian?

This is a Whovian. . .

as are these. . .

How freaking adorable is that Romana?!?

and especially this. . .

And then there's me...

I love my crafting and art and all that is creative, but at heart I am pure geek.  From anime, comics, and manga, to gaming, star trek, and most definitely DOCTOR WHO! My husband introduced me to it when we first met and I have fallen head over heels in love with it. Old and new,  I love it all.  

So this year when fan expo came around and I found out that some of my fav celebrity geeks were going to be there including the one and only John Barrowman of Torchwood (a spinoff of Doctor Who) I couldn't resist the urge to make something extra special to wear.

So enter, the Tardis skirt.

See cardboard Tardis in the background?

*Note: A Tardis (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) for those that don't know, is the Doctors' machine that travels anywhere in time and space.  It's bigger on the inside....

Now, many people, as you saw above, do go out of their way to make crazy outfits for these conventions.  I decided to go a little more subtle so that I could still wear my skirt out in the every day world without it looking too costume. Of course, that did backfire a bit as it was so subtle many people didn't even notice it and those that did double took when they suddenly realized it was there. But I still got a good number of thumbs ups and compliments and even one person asked where I bought it, so I was pretty proud.

(And yay!  Photos because these have were taken with my phone and have been sitting on it since!)

It started with some Value Village shopping.  I found the perfect dark blue denim. And for the white I snagged an XXL white denim skirt which I am saving the left overs of for a future project.  Then off to fabric land to find myself some blue fabric to go with it. I think I could have gone a bit brighter as it blended in a little too well but, meh, oh well.



Step one: I figured out how wide I needed to make the panels.  since I didn't want them too thin I opted to shorten the number of panels by one row.  Looks a little stunted compared to an actually Tardis but it was the only way to make them look proportionate.

Next (not shown) I planned out the width of my blue strips and white panels and cut accordingly.  I also was able to use the long panels I cut out of the skirt for some of the smaller panels.  Here you can see the denim bits all laid out on the blue fabric for planning.

Next I sewed some blue ribbon onto the white window panels.  Then using a modified version of this technique here (I couldn't find the freezer paper so I made my own sticker like paper using card stock and spray glue) I printed the Police Telephone sign onto one of the denim squares.


First panel in!

Raw inside edges that later got zigzag stitched.  

 And DONE!

Now, showing my Doctor Who pride was great but I also love the horror section of the convention and I felt my other fandom was lacking.  And being that one of the people I was going to see there was Alan Tudyk, known more as Wash from Firefly, but more recently he and Tyler Labine made a comedic horror flick called Tucker and Dale vs EVIL.

So I decided last minute to throw together a little homage to my favorites. Here are some process shots....

Sketched out

Starting with some background and then the classic Nosferatu

Add in The Ring and start in on Simon Pegg from Shaun of the Dead

And right there in the bottom middle is my bit to Tucker and Dale vs EVIL.

All that's left are the zombie in the corner and Ash of Evil Dead as my top centre star.

Didn't finish it in time before the convention but I used it as is and still got some good responses on it.  Unfortunately it's remained in this state since then. Again, things got in the way. Hopefully I'll be able to sit down with it again soon.

That's it for the crafty side of things.  Next post will take us into October! (September was eaten by a visit from my mother and a lovely trip with her and my family to a lake house up north. A visit and trip who's photos I STILL haven't had time to go through and edit and clean up)



If you are of the geeky variety feel free to continue below for a few other things I saw at the convention....

She killed Sirius Black! She also made that dress and corset entirely herself including painting the fabric before sewing it!

The Man! Alan Tudyk!

The Legend

Chairface.

Pictures from the borrowed set of Frankenweenie

  

Khaleesi

Powdered Toast Man

Sweet Gauntlet

Red Letter Media Dudes!

A sea of geeks

And me.... exhausted, giddy, and totally in love....

Barrowman! *shakes fist*

Linked up:

Did I mention I crochet?

Yup, that too. Taught myself a couple summers ago and really went nuts that first year. Here are a "few" things in that department...

A little baby cardi made in cotton.	Royal Sisters Granny Scarf	Cheveron baby blanket.
Coralish Beanie	Duel Project. My husband (yes I said husband) crocheted the centre and I did the white edging. This was made for our baby boy just before he was born.	Got a pile of already made squares in a pile of free yarn. I did all the green joining and fringe work.
	This one was a biggie. The lined owl bag. Pattern was gotten from a Crochet Today magazine. Made as a Christmas gift for a friend, the striping provided lots of tails to sew in. And the tight single crochet made the project take a lot longer than I thought it would. But it was well worth it in the end.
Hat and scarf for my step dad.		A hat and scarf for a brother who at the time loved Monster energy drink (hence the colours).
This shawl, made for my mom a couple Christmas' ago, turned out super squish and soft. I sent it to her and called it a hug. Since being her only child and having moved away on her (left her in Wisconsin to move in with a crazy Canadian in Toronto back in 2006) I told her any time she missed me she could wrap herself in this and pretend I was giving her a big hug. She loved it. Though she could just be saying that... she IS my mom after all. :P
	This was actually my first real project (after a few hours of practicing the basic stitches on a 1 ft by 1 ft square and a few rounds. Once I felt I had a good enough grasp of the single and double crochets I found a little pattern for a goodie bag and super sized it to backpack size.
	And a couple little things. An apple cozy, and a long stitch flower. Just for fun.
	And most recently, a pair of baby blankets made for a friend who had just had twins. One boy, one girl. Got the idea for the pattern using the crossing action done when starting a cable in crochet and wondered what it would look like as a continuous stitch. At first I was just going to make a scarf with the pink yarn and as I worked on it I thought, how pretty would it be to sew strips of this together! And so the blanket idea came to be. It was about the same time I heard about the twins and I thought, Hey! Why not! I'm so happy with how they turned out. And they were well accepted which makes me very happy.

If you want to see more info on these projects and others that I've started but haven't finished feel free to look me up on Ravelry!  http://www.ravelry.com/projects/SweetMysterium