Back from Balticon 42

Above: Allison, Jodi, Gary and Sheryl.

Back from Balticon 42. Dead tired but happy -- fantastic convention! The members of Urban Tapestry were the Music Guests this year; we don't often get invited to general sf conventions, and we were honoured to be headlined along with Author Guest Connie Willis, Artist Guest John Jude Palencar, and 2007 Compton Crook Award Winner Naomi Novik.

Thank you SO MUCH to the Balticon concom and volunteers for all their hard work, and for making us feel so welcome. More about some of the individuals within the concom and Balticon in upcoming posts after I've finished unpacking and catching up with work, but I thought I'd post a few photos and notes about our concert.



Above: Allison with her friend Connie. Connie sang for the FIRST TIME in open filk during the weekend.

Our concert went well, and the audience seemed to like us. It was a bit weird for us at first because we couldn't see most of the audience (we were in the spotlight while the rest of the room was darkened) but they clapped and laughed in the right places, so it must have gone all right.

One of the only faces I could see was our friend Howard's and he was smiling, so I focused mainly on him. :-)



Photo by Korak.

Here's a photo that Walter took of the audience arriving for our concert:


Photo by Korak.

The room was bigger than most venues we tend to perform in; the third section of chairs is not pictured above (it's off to the right).

I'll be posting more about Balticon in upcoming posts. For now, feel free to visit my Balticon Flickr photo set. I've noticed that Walter has uploaded his photos already as well, and Allison is in the process of uploading her con photos.

Here's one from Allison's set that I love:




The photo above (by Allison) was taken during the kids' concert. This little girl was entranced by the music and was dancing her heart out. At one point, however, we had to hold her back because she was trying to hug Dave Clement while he was playing. Heh.

Going back to unpacking...



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Comics, Beckett sketches, sewing, & Balticon

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. A survey: how many of you can identify with this week's comic?

I'm not just like this with books, but with everything. And I've found that INEVITABLY whenever I throw anything out, I need it within a week. But it's far worse with books.



As I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm working with Beckett Gladney on a graphic novel.



She's been sending me some character sketches and rough page layouts, and I'm getting more and more excited. So excited that I feel compelled to share a few of them in Blatherings.

It's SO amazing to see these characters come to life in Beckett's drawings. When I create them, I only had a vague mental image of what they might look like; I was purposely leaving the final appearance up to the artist.

And now, of course, it's hard to imagine them looking any other way. :-)

The story's geared toward young people and has elements of fantasy, mystery-adventure, and science fiction.

Right now I'm compiling a list of possible markets where we could send our proposal. If any of you have suggestions, I'd appreciate it if you would post them or please let me know.



Beckett's amazing, isn't she? She's also been giving me sewing encouragement and advice. Check out this cool Jedi costume that she made for one of her sons a while back. And this incredible pumpkin carving she did for Halloween. Ok, so she didn't SEW the carving, but it's just more evidence of how Beckett's creativity bubbles over into everything she does.



Speaking of sewing, by the way, I offered to sew Jeff's head yesterday. I didn't mean to, it just came out. He got his hair cut SUPER-short and it looks great; I was making a joke about offering to shave a picture into his head but instead of "shave" the word "sew" came out. You should have seen the look he gave me.

Eek. Goes to show you how obsessed I am these days.



Above: another bag experiment. Instead of following the pattern's instructions for the handles, I decided to serge the edges instead. Also serged the top edge of the bag and used double folded bias tape. My stitching is still crooked even after unpicking a bunch to try again, but I'm gradually getting better. The bag has small pockets on each side, and the lining is a starry sky fabric that I bought at FilKONtario.

On the fabric below the bag, you can see my first experiments with "free-motion stitching." By covering up the feed dogs and attaching a darning foot to my machine, I can "draw" with thread. This has a LOT of interesting potential, hm. I think I might try decorating the outside of my next bag experiment.



Above: Edna Mole critiques my first attempt at sewing with a knit fabric.

I went to the library and browsed the sewing section for books on fabric art. I found a book that had some gorgeous examples of someone who used free-motion stitching that looked paintings, except using fabric and thread instead of paint. Investigating further, I discovered that it was all considered quilting.

Quilting? Uh oh. So right now I'm trying VERY HARD to resist finding out more about quilting and how to quilt and cool things I can make through quilting and and and...

(pause to take deep breath)

So I leave for Balticon tomorrow! Hope to see some of you there. The Balticon programming schedule (PDF) is now online, for those interested. In addition to open filk, you can find us (or me) at:

Friday 7 pm, Salon E: Everything You Wanted To Know About Filk - We'll be joined by Gary Ehrlich.

Sat 2 pm, Valley Ballroom: Musical Guest of Honor concert - If you're attending Balticon, please do spread the word about our concert, thanks. The info was inadvertently left off the main schedule page.

Sun 4 pm, Belmont: Writing For Web Comics I: I'll be participating along with Rosscott, Phil Kahn, Barb Fischer, James Robertson, Darren Gendron, and James Hatton.

Sun 9 pm, Salon E,F: Theme Filk - Literary Songs

Sun 11 am, Chase: Children's Concert - We'll be joined by Gary Ehrlich, Tom Jeffers, Sue Posteraro, and Dave Clement.

Mon 12 pm, Salon E: Enhancing Your Musical Performance *** This may be rescheduled since it's currently listed at the same time as our Kaffeklatch in the McCormick Suite. Or the Kaffeklatch may be rescheduled or cancelled.

Scheduling may change, so please do verify the above programming times when you get to the convention.

Woohoo, can't wait! Have a great weekend, everyone, and I'll be back next week.



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Fence destruction photo-essay

Above: Walter in our crab apple tree.

Busy week. I have a ton of things I have to do between now and Friday morning, when I leave for Balticon, so today's post is more a photo-essay than a written post.



Between the back fence starting to collapse and our impending garden revamp, we decided to replace the fencing around our backyard. This involved talking to multiple neighbours who shared this fencing, but fortunately they were all fine with the idea.



Jeff put out the call to our friends, and asked me if I'd be willing to make lunch on the holiday Monday. I said sure; he said I'd be cooking for about 4-5 people including us.




However, I think he underestimated the generosity of our friends (as well as the appeal of being asked to destroy someone else's property :-D).



I had been planning to take more photos but was too busy panicking about what to feed all these people. I ended up making a big pot of soup from a bunch of ingredients I scrounged from our freezer, fridge and pantry: chicken, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, kidney beans, parsley, thyme, oregano, a bit of cayenne pepper, and chicken broth.



It actually tasted much better than I expected; it's been a very long time since I had tried cooking something from scratch without a recipe -- my last attempt was so demoralizing that I decided to stick to cookbooks. This successful venture has encouraged me to try experimenting in the kitchen some more.



Anyway, we did have enough food after all, yay!



Huge thanks to Scott Murray for volunteering to man the bbq; I think he could tell I was stressing out. :-)



That also gave me time to make some chocolate cupcakes slathered with a healthy slab of vanilla icing -- the original plan was ice cream for dessert, but it was too cold outside to make that idea too appealing. Though a few ice cream lovers did sample our Dibs -- has anyone else tried these? WAAAY addictive!



Anyway, the fence is now down. Our backyard feels strangely open. I like the open part, but not the lack of privacy part; I suspect our neighbours probably feel the same way. Hopefully we can get the new fence up soon.





Many thanks to Andy, Ray, Iain, John, Scott, Walter and Vartan for their help!





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Graphic novel project with Beckett!

Photo of Beckett by Alisa Garcia on Beckett's camera.

As I may have mentioned, I've been working on a graphic novel. Unfortunately my artist had to opt out recently (for good reasons, and I support her decision) and I thought I might have to shelve the project for a while. Happily, however, I managed to find another artist who was willing to work on the project.

So...I'm pleased to announce that Beckett Gladney and I will be working on a graphic novel together. No, we don't have a publishing contract yet, but my agent is going to be sending out our proposal once it's finished.

I'm doing the writing and Beckett's doing the art. I've raved in the past about Beckett's amazing photos, as you may recall...



Image by Beckett.

You can see more of Beckett's photos in her Flickr site. I especially love her portrait photography. Here's one she took of our friend Dave Clement, and it remains one of my favourite Dave photos ever:



Image by Beckett.

Here's one she took of me which I've used in professional contexts:



Image by Beckett.

I usually hate photos of myself, but I really like this one. :-)


Image by Beckett.

Beckett's an illustrator by trade; I love her artwork! You can see her online sketchbook on Flickr as well as on her Web page. Beckett also did the painting on the cover of Urban Tapestry's Myths and Urban Legends CD as well as Sushi and High Tea.


Image by Beckett.

Beckett's husband, Paul, is also a good friend. They live out on the west coast, way too far from Toronto. :-(



Image by Beckett.

Beckett's also a musician, though she'll claim she's not. You can hear her harmonica on Seanan McGuire's most recent CD, Stars Fall Home (click on the soundclip for "Country Song.")



Anyway, I'm SOOOOOOO EXCITED about working with Beckett! We've been sending layouts and roughs and scripts back and forth; I can't imagine doing this by snailmail. She and I will likely be posting about the progress of the project in our blogs (Beckett has a Livejournal), maybe even some samples.

Wish us luck, eh? :-)



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Timov: cranky but honest

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated.



I -love- my new serger and am much more appreciative than I was when Fabricland first called me and told me that I had won their prize draw ("What's a serger??").

Instead of having to unpick stitches, iron and then sew the alteration I'm doing to a top I recently made, for example, I just serged over everything! The extra material and stitches got automatically cut off by the knives AND a new serged seam got put into place in just one pass.

A HUGE thanks to Beckett, by the way, for e-mailing me a sketch of how I might alter my dress back to make it fit better.



I've noticed that many sewers tend to name their dressmaker forms. Archiver-tim suggested the name "Adira" which apparently means "a maker of dreams" in Centauri (Babylon Five reference).

The name's gorgeous but somehow I think my creations aren't going to be too dream-like, judging from all the mistakes I seem to be making. But I like the nerdy aspect, so I've decided to name my form TIMOV, which is the name of one of Londo Mollari's wives. Also the word "vomit" backwards.

In B5, Timov is rude, cranky but unwaveringly honest. I think the name will suit my dressmaker's form pretty well. :-) Thanks for the inspiration, Tim.

I've adjusted the settings on Timov so that she matches my own measurements. That was certainly an enlightening experience, cranking the hip adjuster bigger and bigger! I'm certainly more pear-shaped than the "ideal figure," plus I have a much longer torso.

I'm thinking of setting up a "face holder" on top, so I can print out or draw interesting faces on Timov whenever I feel like it, and turn the form into part of my office decor. Like my office needs more decor.

:-)





Above: some Castelmar plants.

I hadn't realized until a few days ago that it was a holiday weekend. I'll be working on Monday as usual. I've found that as a freelancer, I tend not to be aware of holidays until I go out to discover that everything's closed.

Spending this weekend doing Urban Tapestry prep, writing and doing layouts for the graphic novel, more card illustrations for Blush, and inevitable sewing.

Six more days 'til Balticon!

Babylon Five Virgin update

SPOILER WARNING: The blog below focuses on my reports while watching Babylon Five for the first time. An LJ feed is also available. If you haven't seen B5 yet and don't want spoilers, please DO NOT click below.

Season 3, Episode 65: Shadow Dancing
Season 3, Episode 66: Z'Ha'Dum



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