Hey look I actually titled a blog post what it’s actually about.
Yeah a couple of days late with this. Wanted to gather up all the pics first including the ones from Chase’s camera.
So Thursday I get off work and go to take a nap and as I lay down, I get an idea. And I have to go do the idea right then and there.
I WAS going to carry my porg as a tribble but then I made this instead. There is no telling HOW old that blue knit it is – it’s from Hancock Fabrics LOL I made the little tunic using his robe as a guide, added a velcro closure to the back, some gold trim on the sleeves, and made the rank badge out of gold leather leftover from Kingdom Come Wonder Woman LOL Look his ill hands are already doing Live Long and Prosper!
I also made a quick bouquet to go with wedding Leia out of the flowers leftover from the wig plus a few other things I had around.
Friday morning we got up, got ready, loaded the car in the rain…
Uneventful drive, we stopped at Bucee’s for lunch, then headed on to the hotel hoping we could check in a little early. And we could, yay!
Ok so this hotel was weird.
They had no normal bell carts, just these little hand carts, but we managed to squeeze everything onto it. I’ll complain more about the hotel later LOL
So first up, I had decided I wanted to enter the costume contest. Yall know I am not about that life anymore, but I was really proud of Bail and Padme, I felt like we didn’t really get much time to show them off at Dragoncon 2021, so I figured why not. And we wanted to get prejudging out of the way, so we put those costumes on first and headed over to get judged. One of the judges wasn’t there yet though, so we got judged by 2 of the judges then headed back to the hotel so I could put Crusher on.
We perused the dealer’s room until my photo-op at 6.
A little bummed about the plexiglass (and the fact I was stuck taking the pic on my right side when I prefer my left) but she was so sweet and I’m gonna make it a point to meet her again the future possibly at her guest table instead.
Took a few pics with this cool bridge and then headed off to change for dinner.
Really loved the little fountain and park area between our hotel and the con center – it was really nice and great place for photos.
We went to this place called ToyBox Bistro:
It was really good, loved all the toy decor, and the staff was hilarious.
Chase had a Q gnome right behind him.
It started raining cats and dogs right before we left the hotel for dinner and we hadn’t expected any rain (the forecast made it look like if it rained it would only be overnight). So we had to run in the rain to the car and thankfully there we had an umbrella. BUT… guess who forgot to pack pants for the weekend? I only had 2 pairs of shorts. So I was FREEZING. Look my brain thinks “dragoncon packing” which is just a bunch of shorts because it’s 120 degrees all day at Dragoncon, I didn’t even think about it possibly being cold LOL
After dinner we ran to a walgreens because I also forgot to pack my toe-kinis. My new black boots had absolutely killed my feet wearing them with Crusher for just the 2 hours or so I had it on. I’m so glad I stopped because I ended up wearing those boots ALL DAY Saturday and the toe-kinis actually made a HUGE difference. Like Friday my feet were on fire, like a 7/10 on the “wearing heels” pain scale, and Saturday was more like a 2.
Saturday we got up and got dressed.
Got into my Star Trek uniform:
So right up until I decided to add Science Officer Grogu to the outfit I’d been torn on how I wanted to wear it. I wanted to wear it as Captain Leia, but I also just kinda wanted to do femme Kirk? Was going to do a 60s style ponytail with the ends curled up. But with Grogu of course I went with Leia and I decided to do Bespin Hair.
Scrooge!
Wore this for a while but we needed to put Padme and Bail on again so we could get prejudged by the 3rd judge, so after a piece of pizza for lunch went to change.
Loved this overall, it was really comfortable. I think I’ll probably wear it twice at Dragoncon – once as “Kirk” and once as “Leia.”
Got 2 Leia figures I’ve been wanting a while.
Back in Padme and Bail. Thankfully they aren’t too hard to get on – just difficult to make the walk each time because I’m paranoid about messing up the skirt. So I ended up pinning the skirt up with a safety pin for the walk to the con center each time LOL
Aaaaaand just as we were getting into this time, Chase’s boot broke.
To be fair, these were his Vader boots from 2005. 2005! One of the zippers actually broke over a year ago, when Kevin was putting them on for Jedi Luke… the zipper just crumbled into nothing. I sewed velcro onto the inside of both boots so Kevin could wear them to Black Lodge con last fall, because these are just cheap costume boots, we figured we’d replace them before Chase needed them again. Didn’t get around to it though and figured the velcro would be fine for this… and it was, until the entire sole fell off one of the boots Saturday morning LOL.
Thankfully Chase had also brought hobo Luke and he wore those boots/boot covers instead. Not perfect but you really can’t even tell because of the robe.
Time for the 2005 Vader boots to be retired I guess. I’m tempted to disassemble them and play around with trying to learn to make new uppers with an existing sole. Something I’ve always wanted to do.
ANYWAY… I also made one change to Padme —
No wig! I did a wig and hairpiece back in 2021 – and that’s how I’ve worn it ever since until now. I did that because I thought it would be easier and give me a hairline closer to Natalie’s. But it was honestly harder to get the wig on in the right place, stay in the right place, and getting the back hairpiece to sit right. So I skipped it this time and used the hairpiece on my own hair. I think it looked – and it definitely FELT – way better.
Anyway after prejudging, we only had about an hour and a half before we needed to be back for the actual contest. So I ended up not having time to wear wedding Leia 🙁
We decided to just go chill in the hotel room until time to go back over. Took a nap, redid my hair.
Then back over for the contest. Everybody was really nice, the contest went by really fast, I tripped on the robe on the way up the stairs LOL
And then we won Best in Show. Hooray! It’s just really really really nice to have all the work I poured into these costumes recognized. And then I realized this was the first time Chase ever won anything in a costume contest so… Best in Show for your first award, not bad LOL
After that we went and got changed and headed to dinner. I was once again freezing because again.. no pants LOL
We went to eat at the Poppy and the Parliament. We really liked this area of town, so many people out doing things and enjoying dinner and walking dogs. Dinner was very good, too much food and bummed I couldn’t take it home with me LOL
Sunday I got up and loaded the car with everything except wedding Leia. We went and had breakfast at the hotels’ buffet, which was really good.
Then I put on wedding Leia and we checked out and headed to the con for a bit. We took some pics outside first.
I’m not super happy with any of them though; I am squinting in every single photo because it was so bright out. So planning to go to a shoot this weekend, fingers crossed I’m not too tired after the event Saturday.
Made one more crawl through the dealer’s room, bought some prints, and then I changed into regular clothes at the car and we headed home.
Waved to the Space and Rocket Center from the road. Kinda thinking if we come back we come in Thursday night and go to the Space and Rocket Center Friday morning before con. I haven’t been since 2010!
Anyway, it was a great con, great weekend get away, had fun with all my costumes. Stay tuned for another post about costume progress, didn’t want to mix them up here.
NOW… I will complain about the hotel so if you’re not into that, you can easily skip LOL. I just need my old lady bitchin time here on my blog.
Ok so the hotel was strange. The rooms all had that weird drab minimalist dorm room look every hotel seems to be going to. Laminate flooring instead of carpet, no closet, no dresser, no bathtub. If we’d paid half of what we paid for this room, I’d have been fine with it, but we paid less per night for our hotel in New York and it was a much nicer room and experience.
Biggest complaints – no closet. Instead it’s just a space to hang things in the shelf where the coffee maker and fridge are. It’s only about a foot and half wide and doesn’t go all the way to the floor, so all of my stuff was just sticking out awkwardly at the bottom.
I needed to steam stuff, so got my steamer out and… there was no plug-in anywhere near that shelf. I guess I could have dug into the back and found where the coffee maker was plugged in, but… usually hotel rooms have an outlet right there for the ironing board. And they did have an iron and ironing board shoved into that tiny “closet” space. But nowhere to plug in. I ended up having to take my costumes into the bathroom, hang them on the shower, and plug in my steamer in there.
Which brings me to the bathroom. It was nice and spacious, I’ll give it that. But no tub, only a shower stall, which is an issue for me (long story related to my 2009 anemia thing). Wish I’d known ahead of time, but I could deal for 2 nights. Bigger issue was the mirror, which at first looked like it’d be great for putting on make-up – it had a full light bar all the way around it. But that light bar wasn’t bright enough, and there was no way to control the other lights in the room, so you had a massive overhead light overpowering everything and it was like putting on make-up in a cave. I need to invest in a good lighted travel mirror I guess.
But all of those are little nitpicks I could have overlooked if not for the bathroom door. The bathroom door was one of those frost glass sliding deals instead of a normal door. It rumbled like thunder every time you opened it… which when you’re trying to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, is not great for the other occupants of the room. Even worse if you accidentally run into it and it sounds like a bowling alley. The frosted glass door didn’t do much to block out light — or sounds. And there was no fan in the bathroom if you needed some “sound” privacy.
Biggest issue of all was the sound-proofing or lack there of. I don’t know if it was just the construction of the building or lack of carpet, but we could hear everything. People talking at normal levels in the hallway? Could hear every bit of it. Neighbor watching tv at normal level in next room? Could hear every bit of it. Every door slamming in the hall. Oh and if you wanted the white noise of the AC being? Get ready for lift-off because it sounds like a rocket taking off in the room when it kicks in. Friday night’s sleep was abysmal. Saturday slightly better only because we were exhausted.
So yeah it was a disappointing hotel stay. Which was a bummer because all of the staff we talked to were SO nice. Anyway, end old lady complaining segment.