Well, the inability to add photos took all the air out my my so called "blogging". I feel that maybe I could no longer post photos because I had used up all my space here so I decided to delete the oldest posts from 2009. Since this is supposed to be my on line journal, I copied all of those 2009 posts into a Word document and saved that.
Anyway, now to get caught up since it has been a over a month since I posted to the extent of how much I can actually remember.
I worked on a bunch of different projects in Janauary that involved leatherworking and also tried to resculpt the Hoth Trench Trooper hat comm. I worked and finally finished the holster for the Bespin Luke Blaster and then moved on to making the one cylindrical pouch that Luke also wears. What a pain that pouch turned out to be. The result was not great, but was at least not truly hideous. Usually when I complete a project I know exactly how to do it better "next time". With that cylindrical pouch there was no clear better way to approach it. Thankfully, I am not planning on doing another one of those!
I had finished the sculpt for the Hoth Trench Trooper hat com and then made a mold of it using Moldstar product instead of Rebound and the mold didn't come out good at all, I ended up throwing it away. I think I might have used to much sealer and release agent on the sculpt and that goo just kind of stayed there. I cleaned up the sculpt and tried again and the second mold was only a little better so I had to take the whole thing apart, sand it all again, glue it back together and now that I am ready to try again, I no longer have any mold supplies so I will have to wait with that.
January 20th I had a Star Wars event with just two of us. The only character the parents wanted at the party for their son was Darth Vader. I was very fortunate to get one of our Vaders sign up for such a short event. It took longer to drive over, suit up and suit down than for the actual event, but the parents were happy and we got a check for $100.00 for charity. I chose to wear my New Republic Jedi costume because it is black and I carried my Count Dooku lightsaber because it was red. No one was interested in what I was or what I was doing there, but I was mainly there as a handler and to get some photos.
January 26th saw the 20th Annual Frozen Butts workday. It had looked all week that for the first time in probably over 10 years that we were not going to have any snow on the ground for Frozen Butts. No snow on the ground means that we would not be able to have brush piles burning during the workday. A nice bunch of piles burning is kind of a tradition at the FB workday. Lo and behold, the very night before the workday we got a small coating of snow that was just enough to allow us to light brush piles. Not only does a burning brush pile add atmosphere to the workday, but we were also able to toss the freshly cut invasives of the day straight into the burning piles and thus eliminating a bunch more piles. It is so much easier than stacking endless piles. I had spent a lot of time making a Powerpoint presentation commemorating 20 years of Frozen Butts workdays and planned on showing it at the Pot Luck that follows the workday. I had everything ready and Renee brought the needed laptop, projector and speakers but didn't have the password to the laptop. To make a long story short, most people had already gone home by the time we got that straightened out and so I found out a way to turn the PP into a movie and I posted it on Youtube. Last time I looked it was view by about 65 people so I know at least someone watched it. The workday turned out fantastic! Great weather, great people, and just a plain old good time with LOTS of work getting done also.
I finally got tired of looking at the house a mess of projects strewn over every single horizontal space in the house so since I had either finished or come to a dead end on some of the projects I was working on, I put everything away. Another thing that I spent many, many hours on in the month of January was re-doing the barricaides for the Imperial Cadet Training game that was used at a couple Star Wars events last year. The previous barricaides were made of plywood and were very heavy and bulky to carry so I redesigned them using pvc and canvas fabric. All of that stuff had to be custom made and I painted the canvases too. I even made custom carrying bags for each of the 3 barricades so that they could be easily carried.
With no television anymore, I continue to try to find cheap ways to view things. I started watching "True Blood" because I was able to get the first 2 seasons dirt cheap. WEIRD series....truly weird. I rented seasons 3 and 4 over a couple weeks from Mokena Video and am now up to date as much as I can be. Season 5 is due out on DVD but I don't plan on buying it, I will wait till I can rent it. I am also still struggling through some of the later books of the "Vampire Diaries" and also read another Dan Brown novel that was really good. On my last trip to Half Price Books (I had a gift card) I was able to pick up all 3 seasons of "Roswell". I remembered that series and remembered that I liked it and watched it. One thing became clear though...I might have seen season 1 when it was on the air, but I am now into season 2 and don't think I saw any of those episodes at all.
Time to get something done!
Projects, projects, projects...they seem to be everywhere and multiplying! I am still working on the leather pouches for Bespin Luke and they are really not coming out as good as I would like. The whole "wet forming" thing is really a pain and I am having no end of trouble with that. Actually, I am just having a lot of trouble with the two bottom corners of the pouches as I am finding it difficult to get a nice, square corner. Lack of that square corner makes stitching the leather difficult also. I have moved from the single needle method to the double needle method of hand sewing leather and finding that each has a certain advantage. The real problem now is that I have run out of some supplies and either need to get to Tandy which is a 3 hour (and lots of $$ for gas) round trip or order on-line and have it shipped. Shipping would probably end up cheaper in the long run BUT some of the items I need like dye and Barge cement can't be shipped if there is a danger of the product freezing. Suffice it to say that those items can't be shipped at this time of year....so I am kind of stuck in neutral. I hope to get back to my General Riekeen costume today and I also have to work on completing my second Hoth Hat and second Endor headgear pieces for the Joliet SW Day event. I need the second set of these headpieces so that one can be on display in the Library and one in the Historical Museum.
