Schedule Stuff

ACen

Still waiting for the next step (payment and accepting the dealer contract), sigh. 

Other Events

Last week I looked through various websites looking for other events to do, looking for months where we don't already have something scheduled, and looking mostly at weekend-long events - setup has gotten big enough (although we're still not sloths) that I'm questioning how many one-day events we want to keep doing.  The ones I looked at:

Con-Alt-Delete, 13-15 December, Lisle, IL
Anime Apocolypse, 27-29 December, Rockford, IL
Anime Milwaukee, 14-16 February, Milwaukee, WI
Kitsune Kon, 21-23 March, Appleton, WI
Chi-Fi, 27-30 March, Chicago (downtown), IL
No Brand Con, 25-27 April, Eau Claire, WI
Up in the Aether, mid-late May, Detroit, MI
Cog County Faire, 30 May - 1 June, Monticello, WI
Anime Midwest, 4-6 July, Rosemont, IL
Wausabi Con, mid-July?, Wausau, WI
Daisho Con, 22-24 July, Wisconsin Dells
Geek Kon, 22-24 August, Madison, WI
TeslaCon, Halloween-ish, Madison, WI
Con-Alt-Delete? Mid-December? Lisle?

And the rundown of reasons for/against

Con-Alt-Delete: Anime, 1st year, but appears to be by Anime Midwest staff, had a name change issue, wasn't sure when my surgery was going to be. Sold out now. If they run again next year I'll probably consider them. 

Anime Apocolypse: Sold out. Oops, probably would have been in the running. 

Anime Milwaukee: Too close to Military History Fest and Capricon (where we'll all be busy in the Cafe).

Kitsune Kon: Anime. Full with wait-list. I really need to keep on top of these things better. Also, a week before Chi-Fi, if they were both in the running.

Chi-Fi:  SF/Geek. Conflicted. Prices not unreasonable. Downtown Chicago does not thrill us for getting the trailer there (much less parking - would probably haul it back home), or getting there ourselves. 1st year, wondering what attendance they'll get. Xap pointed out that they have some good musicians coming, though. Currently leaning away.

No Brand Con: Anime. Seem to have their act together, prices decent, but 5 hours away.

Up in the Aether: Steampunk. Err...Detroit. Not exactly a thriving metropolis, or at least it has the reputation as an empty hulk of a once-proud city. And rather a haul. OTOH, there just isn't a lot Steampunk going on nearby, and lots of people say we should do more Steampunk stuff.  On the gripping hand, there's no information available yet for 2014.

Cog County Faire: Steampunk. Oh, how I wish it didn't start out with two strikes against it, which are being only 2 weeks after ACen, and outdoors. Right now we only have the EZ-Ups, which are only 10x10. IIRC we have no complete 10x20 garage tents any more, which are better/sturdier. The resort its at does have rooms for rent (real beds! power for CPaP/BiPaps and re-charging electronics), and the prices were decent (for the 2013 season, and I expect them to remain similar for 2014). Waffling hard on this one.

Anime Midwest: Just filled out the on-line application. It falls in the tail end of getting the MuseCon book out, but most of MuseCon's programming is lined up early enough that it shouldn't be a problem. 

Wausabi Con and Daisho Con: Anime. Too close to MuseCon.

Geek Kon: Anime, SF, and Gaming: Would we be sufficiently recovered from MuseCon? Xap's heard good things about this one . . . somewhere. Waffling, probably should decide sooner rather than later.
  
TeslaCon: Steampunk. Definite "YES" for 2014. Must keep an eye on their website and/or e-mail them in a week or two to ask them to let us know when vendor information for next year is ready. Will have to get to work on costuming. We'd heard of it before, but hadn't looked at it until Maneki Neko Con, and wisdom said that sandwiching it between my surgery and Windycon was a Bad Idea (if there was vendor space available, which may not have been the case).

Back in the Saddle Again

Windycon Publications

Wednesday I was very tired, so I stayed home. Programming Ops had let me know that the programming schedule was ready to go, so I finished up the pocket program. Which I then revised slightly on Thursday, and then uploaded to the printer. Got the program book Friday, which has already been returned for the press and bindery staff. 

Schedule

Friday I intended to send off our registrations for Boar's Head and Military History Fest, but I forgot that I didn't have stamps with me. So those went out Saturday morning. Also e-mailed about a couple conventions next year, have to let Ron and Xap know what I found out.

At some stupidly early hour Saturday morning I chose our spaces for ACen next year. Suffice it to say their process continues to annoy me (although the stupidly early hour part wasn't their fault).

Paperwork

Finding stamps led to cleaning a bunch of Otter-ish purchase receipts from my wallet, which I scanned Friday night. And then Saturday morning I had Robin fetch me the big pile of paperwork that needs to be recorded/dealt with, and found all the receipts to scan in that were in that mess. 

That, in turn, led to sorting said paperwork. 

Shopping

Saturday morning I went to The Leather Factory, and indulged myself in some (slightly pricey) leather I've been admiring for a while. My plans for it are a new map case, with a different and hopefully better design that the first one, a saddle valise/portmanteau (cylindrical/oval-ish hand/saddle luggage), and a music roll/portfolio/satchel.

After I got home and messed about with paperwork, I did some on-line shopping: I got thinnish walled PVC for the new map case, and some plastic bottles - a taller (also possibly larger diameter) cobalt blue bottle (8 oz), and a clear oval with round shoulders (12 oz):

For reference, the small cobalt blue glass bottles I have are 2 ounce, and the glass bottles are 7-8 ounce. 

Actually Making Stuff?

Nope. Didn't get that far. But I did look at/find pictures and some old patents for reference. Hoping to come the weekend (although I also have some outdoor work around the house in the plans, too).

Still need to get Ron or Robin to make me a mold for the bottom of the small glass bottles.

Also need to talk to Modelmaker about a fancy rod for this style of music (or whatever) satchel:

It occurs to me now that there's no reason that the bar-over-handle closure has to be just for a music portfolio. Now I'm thinking tablet bag. 

I think the new map case and valise/portmanteau will be probably be black. I like brown for steampunky things, but black will probably sell faster. The music case(s) will be brown, though, dammit.

Which reminds me, I need to get some striped ticking material to line the valise. An excuse for fabric shopping!  Woo hoo!

Windycon Publications Death March

I finished the Windycon program book Sunday and uploaded it to the printer. 

I think it was on Friday that I got half of the pocket program done. I did not do the second half, which is the programming grid, as I realized that I had/have another whole week to do it - I'll finish it up this coming weekend. And there was great rejoicing.

Back to the day-job yesterday. Ready for bed by the time I got home (and that was early), don't expect to be much better today. 

Naptime yet?

I'm Back

Survived surgery. More about that here.

Started getting edits to the Windycon program book made yesterday, need to do some more today and make the pocket program by the end of the weekend (do-able).

And that's about it for now. Wouldn't mind a nap, but not too bad, and if I nap now I suspect I wouldn't sleep tonight.

(Insert Maniacal Laughter Here)

I spent large chunks of time last week (except for Thursday night, which I took off), and the weekend on a long, ugly slog through the Windycon program book, declaring it "mostly done and ready to be proofread, dammit" on Sunday night at about 6:00.  At which point I adjourned to a hot bath.

One advantage of subsisting mainly on protein shakes is that meal breaks don't take much time out of the slog.
 There are a few things left to do that I will probably wantonly ignore until next week, several of which are tasks involving my Graphics Minion (Ron).  

Wantonly ignoring the book for a week is standard operating procedure, I proofread better after ignoring things for a while. This is why I try to leave two weeks between declaring a book "mostly done" and getting it to the printer. And to give other proofreaders time to do their thing, and to process their input. So really, the whole surgery thing is rather nicely timed, in that it falls right into that wantonly ignoring chunk of time.

On a not-completely-unrelated note, I seem to have a herd of hissy cows wandering around the living room...

Catching Up

Maneki Neko Con could have been better, sale-wise. We're not sure if there were fewer people there, or if they were off doing more than hanging around the building atrium, or what. Friday night sales were better than I expected, but Saturday only equalled Friday because of one last sale (of an item that really needed to find a new home, so that's another plus). 
  
Numerically I think we sold more test tubes than tails, but I'd say tails were the must successful type of thing. We also sold two potion bottles with lots more looking. So we got proof of concept for potion bottles and test tubes (especially since I didn't have any holders for the test tubes, was just selling the tubes).
 
They're working on moving Maneki Neko Con to a hotel next year (the one we spent Friday night at, as it happens), I'm thinking we'll probably give at least one more go. 

One of our Klingon customers (they had a fan table) suggested that we'd do well at TeslaCon (Madison, WI), and one of the local costumers agreed. But not this year, as its between now and Windycon, and only a couple weeks after surgery. Xap was investigating their website with an eye toward next year.

Setup was, once again, made of flail. We had a triangular space, and all the new gridwall to play with. We really really need to sit down and draw up some layout ideas. Packing up was fast, we were out in about an hour, thanks in part to help from Pen, and the logistics crew who took all the gridwall out on their big cart and pushed the Things and the Grinch. Yay for Pen, and Taz and his Logistics crew!

Working on the Windycon book. The goal is to get it done except for final proofreading by the end of this weekend, as I have surgery a week from tomorrow. 

Which meant that I did Maneki Neko Con on days 2 and 3 of icky protein shake starvation diet. Ron and Xap did most of the customer interaction, because low blood sugar is not good for my attitude. And I succeeded in staying nice for the customers. 

But I digressed. The Windycon book is being the Windycon book. Tuesday night I realized I was pretty much at page count, with about 10 pages of material to add. Ron suggested I e-mail the chair and co-chair. After sleeping on it, I did. The solutions were, in retrospect, fairly obvious, and mostly carried out last night (change to a couple more space-saving fonts, do additional compressional things, blah blah blah). Apparently I just needed someone else to make the suggestions to me this time around.  

Need to get our registration in for Boar's Head, which is the next event I expect we'll be at.

Keeping Busy, Mostly

The cartridge pouch is done, except for two things. The first is punching the hole in the tab which holds it closed, a 2-minute job, max. The other is slightly more complex. The pattern calls for the side pieces being double layered, but when I cut it out, I only cut out one of each side piece, and assembled it that way. All the photos of originals show doubled side pieces, so the plan is to cut new ones, trim as necessary to get a good fit, and glue them in. 

After my previous post I did more searching, and found another source for reproduction black buckles. And, it turns out, they specify their 7/8" buckles as for cartridge pouches. So my gut was right that 3/4" buckles looked small. Waiting for those to come in.

At MuseCon I was working on some very small reproduction (cap) pouches, which I thought I'd misplaced, along with the parts for a smaller belt-only pistol cartridge pouch. Saturday I found them, on the sewing machine table, trying to hide behind a box flap. I feel so S-M-R-T smart.

I decided to order more tails for Maneki Neko Con, including some less expensive ones (fox and raccoon). Those should be delivered today. They probably won't arrive until about the time we get home anyway, but I warned Robin so that he can keep the box out of easy dog access range, on the chance it arrives earlier than expected.

Saturday I tagged all the other tails and the potion bottles, and have notes to update inventory. Pippin was very good, only sniffing a lot, but that doesn't mean I trust him. 

Saturday morning Ron, Robin, and Marmaduke re-packed the trailer, with all the new gridwall and accessories, as well as everything that usually lives in Thing2, which had been in the basement since we used Thing2 at MuseCon.

Tagging bottles and tails Saturday was by way of taking a break from working on the computer - Friday night was the main content deadline for the Windycon program book, and I was trying to get a good chunk of it done this weekend. I didn't get as much accomplished as I'd hoped to, but probably as much as I is/was reasonable to expect. 

Progress, but Not Quite Planned

I had been sorta-kinda planning on working on more potion vial (test tube) carriers and/or a bandolier this weekend, as well as a way to put the little cobalt blue bottles on a belt.  

Didn't quite happen.  The grommets and grommet sets I ordered hadn't arrived (not entirely surprisingly), so I didn't get as far as poking at the bandolier.  I was going to pick up drill bits Friday evening for the bottle project, but on-line shopping meant that I Ron picked them up for me, and for various reasons we didn't get to doing anything with them Saturday morning. 

Saturday afternoon we went to a friend's, where she and Ron worked on the MuseCon website, and I worked on a cartridge pouch.Sunday I worked on the cartridge pouch some more, and Ron had fun with stained glass. 

Yesterday Ron had picked up the rest of the narrow gridwall we'd ordered, which had come in to the supplier much earlier than I expected (not that I'm complaining, I thought they wouldn't be in until after Maneki Neko Con). Now we have a recycling wheelie bin full of tall cardboard boxes, and front entry full of of tables and gridwall.

And yesterday the self-centering punches I ordered (and ordered and ordered) last week had arrived. The small set starts at 1/4" and goes up to 1" in diameter. The set with the big red handle goes from 1-1/8" up to 1-1/2". 

The small set is in a plastic case with nubs to hold things in place. The big set is in foam in a cardboard box. A larger-than-expected box, but the handle is bigger than expected, too. I need to find a case of some kind for it, hopefully a little smaller than the box it came in. Or the same size would be ok, if I could also work in the small set. We'll see.

Worked on the cartridge pouch yesterday, at this point there's one side of one side piece to sew on (which you can't really see here), and the tab to hold the outer flap shut.

I hadn't quite realized how much work there is in one of these, as Ron had done all the marking, stitching holes, and assembly on the ones we'd made previously. That would be why we charge $90 for them. 

I tried to order more of the black buckles (which hold the shoulder strap) that you can kind of see on the bottom of the cartridge pouch yesterday. They're replicas of ones from the Civil War, an are nice, but the supplier is out of them either again or still.

The pattern calls for 3/4" buckles, and the ones I used on this pouch were 7/8", as I'd decided the 1/8" was Plenty Close Enough, Thanks. I can get non-replica black roller buckles in 1" from one of my more usual suppliers, and I suspect the only significant difference is the weight of the tongue. I was looking at pictures yesterday, and I think I can
justify, at least to myself, going to 1" buckles. In fact, 3/4" looks like it would be on the small side. I just haven't quite convinced myself to do it. Maybe I'll exercise my Google-Fu one more time before I decide.

If nothing else, it would distract me from the fact that I've been fasting since 8:30-ish this morning, until after an ultrasound at 4:15 this afternoon. Yes, I know, that's not really a very long time, but OTOH, low blood sugar makes me cranky. And I have a Windycon meeting tonight. Yes, Ron is making sure I get fed between the ultrasound and the meeting. He doesn't want me arrested for murder . . .

Potion Vials

I have made another new thing - a prototype holder for potion vials (aka test tubes):

Unlike the potion bottles, this prototype has/had some issues.

It started out with just the upper strap, and the bottom shelf was supposed to be a pocket. Unfortunately, I made the pocket too shallow, and it flops open. Also, if the back flexes at all, the tubes can go right on past the shelf, and they have no lip to catch on the upper loop.

The last loop on the left of the lower strap is not in line with the rest of that strap. Not sure what happened there. 

The loops are snug enough that the whole lower pocket/shelf idea is probably unnecessary, and I'll probably just go with two sets of loops. I like the look of the wider upper one, I'll probably go with that.  And the corners will probably end up rounded off. Not sure if I want to stick with rivets for the belt loops, or go with sewing. 

Crunching the numbers, a piece like this for holding 5 vials would probably be $15. The test tubes, with nice black rubber stoppers, would be $1 each, either for the colored ones or for clear ones. Smaller tubes (not shown) would be $0.75, again with stoppers.

I used the slightly frosted translucent tubes for test-fitting, as they were kind of an "oops" purchase - I meant to get the transparent ones, but they weren't worth the cost/bother of sending back. Debating if I want to knock some off the price for those, which would come with the plastic stoppers shown for the larger sizes. I'm thinking $0.80 for the larger size, and $0.60 for the smaller, which I don't have stoppers for.

The next new project is a holder for small potion bottles - I have some very pretty small cobalt blue glass bottles with screw caps (root root root . . . yes, I do have a picture): 

These are 2-ounce bottles, about an inch and a half in diameter. (The larger clear glass square bottles I did over the weekend are 7 ounce and the spherical and cylindrical ones are 8.5 ounce). 

I think for the little cobalt blue bottles will have one strap, a bottom socket, and either a belt loop or a belt clip - I'm inclined toward the belt clip just for something different. 

Robin and I have been consulting on how to do a bottom socket, probably stopping at a woodworking store on the way home tonight as part of that project. Ron also offered input.

Getting out the test tubes stimulated Robin's creativity, he was coming up with a design for a pouch to hold his share of the test tube stash. I think I understand what he's planning, but this morning I asked him to cut the parts out of paper. Not that his drawings aren't clear, but I'd just be more comfortable seeing a mock-up. Contra-wise, he'd probably have similar issues visualizing from one of my drawings: your own drawings are always easier to understand that someone else's. 

Yesterday I tried for the third time to order a large set of self-centering punches, as the place I ordered from Wednesday night does not actually have them in stock, and I wouldn't get them for 4-6 weeks. I'm not entirely confident in this place, as I still don't have an e-mail confirmation/tracking number, over 24 hours after my phone order. I'll be calling them this afternoon to see what's up.  If this place fails I'll probably suck it up and pay more than I want to/what the punches were going for a few months ago.

OTOH, I do have the invoice for the grommets and grommet sets I ordered yesterday from one of my usual suppliers. Those are for possible use in a bandolier project. More natter about that later, I think I've gone on long enough at this point.

More Bottles

I made another seven potion bottles yesterday: All three shapes in golden brown, and spheres and cylinders in red brown and chocolate brown.  I've got three more bottles, one of each shape left, I'm thinking of doing them with embossed straps around the bodies.

This set of bottles went fairly quickly, even though laying out the parts is a little fussy. If they sell well I need to make templates for the various parts, which would speed up layout.  

The bottles don't stand up nicely, because of the lump created where all the straps come together on the bottom. I may switch to attaching each strap separately to a bottom piece, so they'll sit better on a table. This set I'll probably display hanging, so their slightly drunken-looking leaning doesn't detract, since they are made to wear on a belt. 

Interestingly, although the square bottle is the shortest of the lot, that fourth side/strap means that its also the most expensive. Looks like prices will be $15 for the spherical bottle, $16 for the cylinder, and $17 for the square.

Did some shopping today: replacing a couple of undersized end punches that I've been grumbling about for several years, blades for my rotary cutter (rusted after Saturday night's shower), self-centering punches so I can make backing discs for conchos, a new on-off switch for the sewing machine, and some other odds and ends. 

I've been mulling over how to do cartridge loops or whatever for test tubes, but haven't decided on anything yet. They don't have an upper lip, so whatever I do has to have a provision to keep them from falling/being pushed all the way through.  I've also had ideas for a cartridge box type arrangement, which would be a larger/more expensive option.  Machine-sewing would be nice, or rivets.

New Things Made!

Saturday morning, with much help from Robin, I got the dining room cleaned! In the process, I made a bigger mess out of it, which spilled out into the kitchen. Mid-way through the process I had to get moral support from Ron, who pointed out that making a bigger mess is normal for cleaning up in here. 

Sunday morning I put a bunch of tools and hardware away that I'd piled up while cleaning. That wasn't too big a job, and didn't take too long.

Then I started rooting through the big bag of straps. First I pulled some that are the right width for belt loops, and too short for binding for belt satchels, etc. Those are set aside for use next time I need to make a batch of belt loops. 

Then I pulled out straps to make "Potion Bottles". Sorting, measuring, note-taking, measuring, note-taking, measuring, note-taking, splitting leather down, going out to Menard's to replace my square, measuring, cutting, measuring, later, I had the first one made. At first I thought I'd gotten the spacing on one thing wrong, but once I finished it, we decided I'd gotten it right. Then I made two more:

I did them with black leather because, as Ron pointed out, black sells. 

I did get the length of one piece wrong - the collars that go around the neck of the bottle. The length I originally meant to cut it would have been too short to sew it up easily, but on the first bottle I mis-cut it long, and went with it from there on. I also meant to have the seam on the collar on the spherical bottle back by the belt loop like the others, but that's minor. 

The new-ish press makes setting rivets very easy (not that it was difficult before), and much quieter. 

Next up, doing some more bottles. I'm going to do a set in one or more shades of brown, then I'm thinking of having Ron emboss and dye/antique the straps for another pass. Not sure about doing the collars. I'll probably do the belt loops, too, as that just means doing a bit more of a long strap. 

Slightly surprised that my missing square hasn't shown up yet. The new one was less than $5, so I wouldn't have bothered taking it back even if the old one had greeted us at the door. Maybe its waiting to see if the new one rusts after being poured on last night - I forgot to shut the dining room window when I was done working for the night, and the storm last night was blowing right in. OTOH, the new square is painted, so so I don't expect it to be an issue (and I dried it off). 

Shopping!

Toshiba is nice, and gives Ron both Friday and Monday off for Labor day.  This morning I realized that this means he could go down to Specialty Store Services in DesPlaines and get the additional gridwall we've been discussing since ACen. They don't necessarily have the best prices, but we don't have to pay shipping, which would probably be extra-expensive since it would be to a residential address. I didn't sit down and run the numbers exactly last time I was shopping for gridwall, but I'm pretty sure the price differential will wash out with shipping from the cheaper suppliers.

I opened up the bank account to confirm that we could afford to buy gridwall today, blinked a couple times, and told Ron that it would be no problem. As the result of negotiations between the State and the unions, I'd gotten a couple deposits that will cover it.

We went through the on-line catalog, and decided on another four 2' x 6' sections of gridwall, a dozen 1' x 5' sections (1' x 6' doesn't seem to be available), a couple waterfall hooks, some corner shelves, scanner hooks, and acrylic brochure displays. We usually run out of gridwall before we run out of the 2' wide shelves we use, so we didn't order any more.

That brings us up to 12 pieces of 2' x 6' gridwall, for a total of 24 linear feet if we stretched it out (to display belts we use quarter-circle hangrails). With the added 1' wide gridwall, I'm wondering if we can reduce the number of tables we use.

The plan is that the 1' gridwall will stick out from the main 2' gridwall walls, like so:
  ___|___|___|___

Then, the hooks go on the 1' sections, and are long enough that they can hold a belt pouch through both loops. We got "scanner hooks", which have a secondary hook, in the hope that they'll keep the pouches from rotating too much. We'll probably need more hooks than we got today, but we're not sure which type will work best, and hooks are small enough to ship economically.  

The corner shelves are triangular sections of gridwall that hook into the corner formed by two pieces of 2' gridwall. 

The brochure displays are for MuseCon flyers. Because we're like that. Now I need to make some 2014 flyers before Maneki Neko Con.

Unfortunately, we couldn't get all the 1' gridwall we planned on, only three sections. More should be available some time next month. It would be really nice if we could get it by Maneki Neko Con, so we can give everything a good test-run before the bigger events next year (Military History Fest, ACen), but if it doesn't it doesn't. 

This morning was cool enough that I was thinking maybe I could get in and start working on the dining room in the mornings this weekend. I'm feeling the bug to get things made, with an event coming up. Unfortunately, nobody can clean that room for me, at most Ron or Robin can move stuff around as I direct. We'll see if it actually happens or not.

In other shopping news, I just remembered, the 300 yards of cotton twill tape I ordered for tails arrived a couple days ago. Each roll (100 yard roll each of black, off-white, and white) is about 3/4" thick by maybe 9" in diameter. They won't sit on the shelf where I've been keeping the few yards I got from the local fabric store rolled up on an old lace spool, but they won't be a problem to store. I had no idea how big they'd be, and was a little worried.

Schedule and I am Opinionated

Fox Hunt, an SCA event, is coming up on September 7th. Its at Plowman's Park in Big Rock, which is a nice site and not too far away. We'd probably do well at it. But my calendar looks like an ink explosion (although removing Robin's class schedule from it helps), particularly the weeks bracketing Fox Hunt. So we're not going. Ron says I'm not a wimp.

Got the Windycon progress report uploaded to the printer Sunday night, once the backup sucking  CPU cycles finished. There was some communications flail in some related issues, but I think it should be going out Real Soon Now. Which, carp carp carp, reminds me that I never sent the text to the webmaster to make a web page version.  Done. And the first/main deadline for program book content is careening at us (13 Sept.).

Its going to be warm enough this weekend that I don't forsee getting the dining room clean. I will, however, be starting the ACen exhibitor registration process on Sunday. Two spaces! Which will cost more than one space this year (but not double - time-tiered pricing), but less than we grossed this year. I think it'll be worth it. I hope. No, I think. We waffled, but I have capital-D Decided.

But on to the real point of my post today, which I can't seem to reduce down to one pithy bit.

This morning I was looking at a fairly well known crafty/creativity blog, where the blogger posted pictures of a Disney-character-themed steampunk outfit, including a belt pouch she'd made and antiqued. In part by toasting it in the oven.

I did not, quite, scream out loud. I did leave what I hope was a polite non-critical comment as to why this is not a good method for something like a belt pouch (toasting=brittle leather), and suggested that there are many sources out there for other techniques.  (If you suspect you know which blog, mine comment  is in the first 40, and is my Blogger ID, which is what I post under here).

Now, the blogger in question has experienced a lot of the crap that well-known female bloggers are wont to get, as well as personal issues, so I didn't want to be harsh in my comment, and didn't want to leave a trackback to here, which is why there's no link, as her work isn't really what I apparently want to vent about. Her commentariat seems to be very much of the rah-rah-everything-ish-great variety, which makes it just a little more challenging to not sound like a trollish jerk.

The blogger is, IIRC, in her 20s, maybe early 30s. I suspect that this is relevant. She and I may be technically of the same generation, but I think she's enough younger than me to really not have experienced the pre-Google world.

Now, the blogger in question is pretty new to leatherworking. She's also very skilled at some arts/crafts. She does some things that are amazing. She may have applied the technique of aging a piece be toasting it in the oven from some other field. But I have this niggling suspicion that she got the idea from the web.

The web has many wonderful wonderful things on it. It also has deep festering sewers of stupidity. There certainly have been many many books printed that are festering sewers of stupidity, but OTOH, art/craft technique books, especially the leatherworking ones, are usually decent. Publishers of leatherworking books have often been tools/materials suppliers, and an unhappy customer is a lost customer, and lost business.

The internet is wide-open wild wild west territory. Any opinionated goob can put up a blog focused on leatherworking, and if their work looks decent and they write with some basic skill, there's no editor to do the whole editorial input thing like you (HOPEFULLY) get in a book.

And the internet seems to be taking over the instructional market in a big way. I've bought a lot electronic knitting patterns than paper ones in the last year. We've started buying leatherworking books as PDFs that we own as paper copies - Tandy has created the Leathercraft Library with scanned copies of a lot of their books.

But those PDFs cost money, and the other thing that seems to have grown with the rise of internet craft instruction is the drive for freeeeeee information (which is another rant for another day). 

The problem is compounded in leatherworking when people ignore books that are older - a lot of the basic leatherworking books we use are 20+ years old. Yeah, they look dated, but the techniques are solid. Hand-stitching, for example, has been done pretty much the same way for centuries, substituting metal needles for boar bristles, and adding in the convenience of pre-waxed thread.

There's several leatherworking books on the market currently that I haven't bought because there's no new techniques in them, and all the example projects make me say "ewww" ("fashionable" is not a big word in my vocabulary, guilty guilty guilty). OTOH, I have some books from, IIRC, the 1920s and earlier that include chemical recipes that make me cringe.  So no, old does not automatically mean good, either. But if you substitute in modern dyes and finishes, the basic techniques are valid.

I guess my point is that you have to be review internet sources with a more critical mind, because the author may be talking out of their hat, or neglecting to tell you that X is great in Y situation, but has A and B as site effects, because there's no editor to question them. And remember that the internet doesn't hold all the world's knowledge. Those (old) books of techniques? Still useful. They didn't suddenly go out of date just because they aren't on-line.

More Tails

I still haven't cleaned the work room. Saturday was sucked up by MuseCon and Windycon business, and yesterday was too warm. 

Home today because of having the truck in the shop. I've been alternating between working on knitting and sewing swivels on tails. I've gotten 8 out of a dozen tails done. And had both dogs snuggling at different times. Between the tails and the dogs I'm covered in fur. Pippin has been very good about the tails - he's sniffed, and he has to at least turn and look every time I open the bin, but hasn't done any more than that.

Today is supposed to be hotter than yesterday, so cleaning is not going to get done today, either.

Saturday morning I sat down to work on the Windycon progress report, and discovered that I hadn't set up my style sheet (my term) - the document where I define all my text styles. That took a bit, but got it pretty much done before the MuseCon meeting. I finished up the progress report yesterday about 11 am, did a couple-three editing passes with Bill and Angela, and once a backup that was sucking serious CPU cycles was done, I uploaded it to the printer last night.

(if you read my personal blog, I did indeed copy and paste a good chunk of this post from it)

Monday Again?

Still haven't cleaned the work/dining room.  

Got the new bins for the Thing, but still have not re-packed the Thing.

Ordered a dozen more tails, which brought us up to two dozen needing swivels.  Saturday I sewed swivels onto a half-dozen, sent one home with Wash, and  yesterday I did another half-dozen. This is progress - I'm working on something!  And I think I'm getting faster at sewing swivels onto tails.

Thinking of ordering another batch of tails. The most recent batch were all pale, we could use some more darker ones.

Windycon publications work is ramping up. Saturday and/or Sunday I'll be creating a progress report, and then in a couple-three weeks is the first program book deadline.

In scheduling considerations, I've pretty much decided that we'll be doing Boar's Head in December, and not a brand-shiny-new anime con that's being held in Lisle. They're on consecutive weekends, so doing both would be too much. The convention recently had some identity issues that I'm concerned would hurt their projected attendance, and is pricey. Boar's Head, OTOH, is usually good, and we haven't done an SCA event in a while. So we'll stick with the known quantity. 

MuseCon Report

I survived MuseCon. I didn't kill anybody. Yes, that was an accomplishment.

I did get signage done. I got signage printed. Then I got some more things printed. And then some more things printed. The week or two before MuseCon I always end up making multiple trips to Kinko's. Fortunately, there's an office on a not-unreasonable route between home and work.  

One mistake I did make was making and printing errata sheets for the book on Tuesday. Silly person. Friday morning I was making new ones. Note to self, don't try that again - MuseCon has a printer/copier, make the sheets up, and bring the PDF for Registration to run off.

One thing I did right was to give Registration a thumb drive with PDFs of all the documents I thought they might want to print, so they wouldn't have to chase me down. I'm not sure if they used any besides the correction sheet and the one-sheet schedule grid, but they had access to them.

And I actually got leatherworking done! I started a pair of mittens Friday night, but realized that if I was going to be running leather sewing as an Open Build (drop-in workshop), I should probably be actually mucking about with leather so people could see that I was the person to talk to about it. I'd brought the percussion cap pouches I'd started back in, what, February? I finished the sewing on two and have a third at least tacked together (all had already had belt loops sewn on). 

We'd emptied out one of the Things and packed most of our stuff in it - kits and tools for leather sewing (2 sizes of key fobs, book covers, belt pouches), leatherwork for youth (mystery braid bracelets and pre-punched coin pouch kits), Ron's leather tooling class, which meant slabs of granite and *all* of his tooling tools, and paints, miniatures, etc. for Robin's painting wargaming miniatures Open Build. Plus some personal stuff. We still ended up with a suitcase and ukuleles not in the Thing, but it made getting in and out a lot easier. I think we'll be doing that again next year.

Not sure if I'm doing leather sewing again next year. If so, I'll definitely be dropping, re-designing, or doing some pre-assembly on the belt pouch, as doing the belt loop then the gusset makes it take too much time. I had two students who didn't get to finish. One is GT offspring, and had all the hole marking done on the gusset, so I sent him home with an awl, needles, and thread to finish on his own. The other had done some lacing, so he decided he'd take his pouch home and lace the gusset on. 

Next year I am going to do a costuming class - Japanese-style costuming. I'm calling it costuming so I can tell any authenticity fascists to stuff it. My plan at this point is to do a scheduled session on Friday talking about the various garments and basic layout and construction, and then do an Open Build for doll clothes version of the garb we wear (and get compliments on) to events. 

Looking at hiring a cleaning service at home, because the house is *still* a mess from ACen prep. and I'm sick and tired of it, but I'm not getting much done about it. Cleaning Fairies (as in magical beings that clean house when you're not looking) don't put crap away, but would help. And we actually got *raises* at the day job. No, the state is still broke, but the unions bludgeoned the state into giving us something for cost of living. Together with some other changes in what goes into and comes out of my paycheck, I'm pretty sure I'm going to hire Cleaning Fairies.  But not for my workroom, because I don't want to scare them to death, and much of the time I wouldn't them messing about in there anyway.

On that vein, my plan for this coming weekend is some housecleaning. Because even if we do hire Cleaning Fairies, e have to put our own carp away, and oh great Flying Spaghetti Monster, my workroom is a complete disaster, and unusable as is.  And I think I'm finally ready to get back to work. And maybe we can actually record sales/inventory from ACen, because no, we haven't done that yet, ad way too overdue. Yes, I am embarrassed to admit that. 

Provided I don't just sleep all weekend. I'm not up to this staying-up-late-at-convention thing any more. Gronk, I am a dinosaur, gronk gronk. I was thinking about going home early and taking a nap, but at some point a repair person should, hopefully, be coming out to fix the front windshield on the Kia (stone chipped/cracked yesterday AM). 

Must remember to stop at the Container Store this afternoon and get two new smaller vaguely milk-crate-like bins to replace a large one currently in use in one of the Things - it's too easy to over-pack, and then the sides bow out, and the other bins don't stack on top of it nicely. Ron has declared that It Will Be Replaced, and since we're re-packing tonight, now's the time to do it.

Odds and Ends and Pictures

Sent off our vendor information for Maneki Neko Con 2, which is the anime convention run by the Anime club at Prairie State University, in Chicago Heights. We did well enough last year that we'll do it again. We'll be there Friday afternoon/evening and Saturday. Vendors can also set up on Thursday for faculty/staff/students/general public, but that would mean another day off, and I think my August-September may be busy enough as is.

This means I really should get back to making leather stuff. Real soon now. Yeah, I should. 

Stopped at Rockler yesterday. Robin successfully resisted anything, Ron had a minor fail. coming home with several blanks and some pencil kits. I got a new mechanical pencil out of it - the wood is stabilized spalted tamarind. "Stabilized" means its been soaked, via pressure (probably vacumn) in a resin. Spalted wood has been discolored by fungi, which also weakens it, but it can be pretty, and stabilizing it fixes the weakness issues. Here's the new pencil (bottom), along with my purpleheart pen (top):

 
Started signage for MuseCon, got all the room signs done, I thought, on Saturday, then went back on Sunday and added "MuseCon" and the MuseCon logo to them (which wasn't too big a job). Still need to make a few more signs, will probably start on that again tomorrow - I've finally accepted that I don't really accomplish things Monday night, so not planning to do things on Mondays means less frustration with myself.

If you go back and look at older posts, you may notice pictures have vanished. I went through and sorted almost 200 pictures from Picasa into folders, which warning messages say breaks links to them. I can live with that. I can re-link (if I can remember what a picture was), on request.

On the personal/posting pictures side of things, I have been knitting.  

Friday night I did the last couple rows of ribbing and cast off the socks I was working on. Lorna's Laces Solemate, color is "Flames". The Lorna's Laces website is, btw, craptastic, featuring an excess of stupid flash tricks, so I can't just link to the description of that yarn. Grumble.  Knit toe-up, with gussets and a short-row heel.

Friday I also started a pair of mittens, using the assorted mini skeins of blues and purples I got at the fiber fest recently, and some fingering-weight sheep's-white Blue-Faced Leicester yarn I got to go with it. The yarn is from a Wool2Dye4, who sells white yarn for dyers, usually in bundles of 10 skeins. However, they have the "Secret Stash", where they sell odd and ends from shipments/mill runs. I got two 438-yard skeins (plenty for a pair of socks from each skein( of their BFL 4-socking for $17.40 (plus shipping), which is not bad at all, as sock yarn goes. 

The wave pattern on the right is the back of the hand, the more simple geometric on the left is the palm (which is one color repeat shorter in the picture). The last repeat of the waves is a verigated blue. The top wave is dark purple, the two medium purples are different shades. I need to darn in ends again, before the number gets too large - that's the problem with switching colors, more ends to darn in.

The wave pattern is a pain. Here's the chart I've madet for the mittens:

It takes seven vertical repeats before it starts at the same spot again. You can see it better from my chart, the white spaces form the same wave pattern as the color. The palm side pattern is much simpler, I only charted out the mitten tip and a little past to be sure I understood the repeat (and because I had space on the paper to go past the tip).

The kinda dirty and wrinkled spot is a muddy pawprint. Pippin came in with damp paws last night, decided Ron needed to play with him, and levitated onto Ron's chest, with a paw on my pattern.

Haven't quite decided what I'm going to do for the thumb, either pattern, color, or type of gusset. I'll decide when I get there, and start knitting the thumb. I'm working top-down, so when I get to the point where the thumb joins I take a break from the body, knit the thumb, then join it and keep going. I like top-down mittens because I can make the pattern come out nice at the top, without ending up with a mitten that's too long or too short. Charts done for knitting cuff-up work just fine for top-down, you just turn them over (or not, and just flip it in your head), and work increases instead of decreases and vice-versa.
 

Graphic Design Accomplishments

Silly me, yesterday I said that I haven't done anything Otter Necessities-ish lately, even though I include graphic design stuff under the big heading of Otter-ish.

Last week I finished the Program Book Death March, and finished the book Thursday night. Almost a week early, yay me!  OTOH, the person I've worked with for the last few years at the printer (CL Graphics, in Crystal Lake, IL - shameless plug) retired at the end of June, so I'm working with new (to-me) people, and we're also changing binding method, so I wanted plenty of lead time in case there were issues.

Ron's uploaded the book to the MuseCon web page, at the moment its the first link in the top of the page "A Few More Updates" box: www.musecon.org

The second link is for pre-ordering shirts, the deadline for that is Sunday night. (This message brought to you by Shameless Plugs-R-Us).
 
Last year we had 52 interior pages, which was more than optimal for saddle stitch (fold & staple) binding, but they made it work. This year I was pretty sure we were going to go over that on page count, so I also loosened up the layout a little, mostly in terms of line spacing. And then we added a whole 'nother room of programming, the blinkie guys added a couple/few new blinkies, and with one thing and another we're up to 64 interior pages. 

So, the plan is for a spiral binding - a metal or plastic coil that looks like a stretched spring. Although the printer called yesterday, to ask if they could test-run a copy on a (new?) machine they were going to fire up last night, which might be able to saddle stitch the book. They also suggested slightly lighter paper as an option for saddle-stitching. I said they could go ahead and run a test copy, but budget-wise we're expecting to pay for a more expensive binding.  

Saturday we started signage. We're "Nurturing Our Muses" this year, so I've been going with a gardening-ish theme, which none of the artwork I've been using for signage really fits. So, I went through my Dover book of flower, fruit, and vegetable seed packet images. and found a bunch that I liked and weren't going to be too hard to take the words off of. IIRC Ron had that done by lunchtime. 

So far I've gotten signs made for Registration, Hospitality Suite, a list of optional supplies for the book-making class, and gotten all three days worth of signs made for the Lakeshore Ballroom.  I do one 11"x17" sign per day for the programming rooms, and then just one sign each for Hospitality Suite and Reg.

In past years I've picked fonts that are similar to what was used on the original artwork, but the seed packets all use either a pretty basic serif or sans-serif font, so I've picked one similar display-size sans font and am using that on all of them. So instead I've been changing the color of the text to coordinate with the background images. Because I'm crazy that way...

And tonight I'm going to put together a book of old family photos for a relative's major-milestone birthday. The original plan was a scrapbook page (yes, that is the sound of me rolling my eyes), but on a quick pass through the not-really-old photos, I found 3 dozen strong candidates. Plus there's a couple more of the really old pictures of people I don't know who they were, but they have the Ohman family face that I want to include, as well as some fairly recent ones. So I'll still do a page for the scrapbook, but also a book of photos. Which I need to have done and in Michigan by Saturday. Procrastination FTW. I'm pretty sure the relation in question doesn't read this, so I'm safe nattering about it.

So, I have been busy with more than just knitting and fussing about Ron and Elrond.

Pictures, Primarily Personal

Picasa Web Albums and WordPress no longer talk to each other, so I'm going to inflict pictures of recent knitting projects on this blog. Still nothing particularly business-ish to report, but at least I'm working on something again - for a while after the ACen prep binge I couldn't seem to work on anything.

Here's Elrond being opressed by a pair of cabled gloves I finished a little over a week ago:

I haven't blocked the gloves, which get pulled in by the cabling, so here's one on my hand (although the gloves are too small for me):

Here's a blurry shot of the palm side of the cuff.  These are the "Kingdom" gloves from Knitty.com:

The cuffs are knit back and forth, including a hem facing. Then clever short rows turn the stitching 90 degrees to go around the hand. 

And here's Elrond being opressed by the Christmas stocking I finished before the gloves:

These pictures were taken one morning last week when it was nice and cool, so he's not looking oppressed because knitwear is too warm, just the overwhelming cruelty of being a model.

Eventful Personal Life

Yeah, I fell off the blog again. 

The rundown on all that's been going on lately is on my personal blog, which this is a link to, so all you have to do is clicky if you want all the not-too-gruesome details. 

Still haven't done any leatherwork. Not sure when our next event will be, depends on Ron's progress and what happens with scheduling my turn, once I do all the preliminary hoo-ha, which was put on hold because of Insurance Issues.

Ron made (and sold) a couple more pens. I made a second bottle stopper, pretty boring. It came out nothing like I wanted, because of what is most likely tool control issues, but it isn't bad.

Robin's been making cylindrical wooden obelisks. We'd both been having problems with the key chuck walking out of the lathe when doing things that don't use the tailstock, so we got a new key chuck (the style found  on a drill), that's been threaded for a drawbar, which keeps it from walking out of the lathe. If all the words sound like English, but you have no clue what I just said, it can be summed up as: we got a not-particularly-expensive but more useful version of A Thing that should make turning small things easier. 

The MuseCon program book is almost done. I have to put in icons, the numbers for all the scheduled programming (I know what the numbers are, have to put in the text boxes in the right spots and fill in the numbers), and put in filler art.  Which is good, as I'd like to get the book to the printer Thursday night/Friday morning.

MuseCon t-shirt design delivered to OffWorld Designs. Need to see if they have an update on suggested shirt color, etc.