Balticon (part 6), Evil Squirrels and Sewing Disasters

Above: One of my highlights from Balticon was hearing Rin Barton perform in open filk during the weekend. As I mentioned earlier, this talented young woman also won Best-in-Class Journeyman in the Masquerade for her Princess Koneko costume:



Rin says it was her first time performing in an open filk. Wow, what a voice...and such beautiful original songs! Rin also had her own webcomic for a while. Wish we had more time to talk.

Meanwhile, I've already raved about another new talent who emerged at Balticon this past weekend: our friend Connie; Jodi and I met Connie through Allison. Connie had never sung in open filk before. Here, Jodi and Allison rehearse one of Connie's songs:



Connie's Tolkien songs are gorgeous, as is her voice. I hope we'll see her in more open filks from now on! Maybe (rumour has it) even FilKONtario someday...



I'll be writing more about Balticon, but right now I'm interrupting my con report because I feel compelled to share more evidence that THE SQUIRRELS ARE TAKING OVER!



Yesterday morning, I was working in my basement office when the power suddenly shut off. In fact, it turned out our whole neighbourhood lost electricity, and the culprit was...you guessed it...a SQUIRREL. In yet another attempt to cut off communications and take over the world, the local squirrels managed to blow the local transformer.

We've lost our phone communication before because of squirrels when they chewed on the telephone lines. When that strategy failed, the furry little demons must have decided to try another plan.

The hydro guys told me they hate squirrels, and that squirrels are responsible for a lot of power outages. Ontario Hydro has started putting up "squirrel guards" around all the transformers; these give the squirrels a mild shock when they brush by the wires, hopefully resulting in them steering clear of the area.

Anyway, I was surprised to find out from the hydro guys that the squirrels sometimes ATTACK them when they're up in the trees doing repairs.



In fact, I watched as two squirrels ganged up on the hydro guy repairing our transformer and snapped the photo above. He had to use his repair pole to shoo them away.

My friend John (Happy Birthday, John, by the way!) writes: "Evil Squirrel Overlords send out their more aggressive young foot-soldiers on suicide missions like this to distract you from their ongoing plan to destabilize the global economy. When paper money won't buy you food, those who have been carefully hoarding food (like our squirrels, who keep their bagels in our mailbox) and have the teeth and claws (or thuggish raccoon henchmen) to defend it will rule supreme."

Spent time songwriting and sewing this past weekend, as well as (finally) finishing unpacking from Balticon. I had several sewing disasters. One resulted in my turning a dress into a skirt (I totally screwed up alterations to this dress so decided to salvage what I could). In another, I discovered that the very cheap fabric I had picked up on Queen St. was cheap in more than just price -- it MELTED when I tried ironing it! Eek.

And finally I gave up on this top; I've vowed to NOT buy any more of this slippery ultra-stretchy fabric until I have more experience. It's impossible to pick stitches out, which makes any mistake deadly. Ugh. I've been experimenting with extra fabric to see what I can do to transform the top into something I could actually wear.



Anyway, I comforted myself by cutting out a bunch of tank top shapes (I modified a store-bought pattern to fit my own body shape) and painting on them. I used acrylics mixed with Liquitex Fabric Medium. Fabric soaks up a lot more paint than canvas but it worked out pretty well.



After I finished each painting and let it dry, I turned it over and ironed it on Cotton setting to set the paint. Then I sewed the top; I serged a rolled hem around all the edges and seams instead of the usual folding, pressing and sewing. This saved a ton of time so I could spend more time on the painting part.

Susan suggested in Flickr that I add beads to the butterfly painting; I think I'll try that!



I was pretty happy with the result, and I plan to do more fabric painting. Tank tops are the easiest for now, but I also plan to paint some bags and purses, dresses, vests, and other pieces of clothing. Once I'm more confident, I'll probably try other sizes as well, and put some up for sale in my Etsy store.

I think it would be fun to create pieces of art that people could wear using paint, collage, beading, and quilting techniques. Meanwhile, though, I'm also continuing to learn more about sewing basics. My first Beyond Beginners sewing class is later this week!



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