This morning I was reading the Twitter-vrs and came across the hubbub between Ewan McGregor & Piers Morgan (surprise, I do have a twitter account, though I rarely post). If you don't know what I'm talking about, here are some screen grabs:

I was not bothered by either of their stances on the march, what bothered me was the not so subtle insult about being "just an actor". Demeaning a person because of their chosen profession irks me. Those three little words evoke so much. Both men are in the entertainment world, while one is a journalist (yes I put that as entertainment now a days) the other an actor. It appears as if the journalist is saying, I have more value than you because my job is more important that yours. When did it become okay to do that?
I was incensed, and took it upon myself to add my voice to cacophony of responses, I even wrote out what I thought was a witty but pointed twitter comment.
Then I stopped.
I looked at what I wrote.
Had I really become one of those people?
I deleted my comment before pushing post.
What I wrote neither added to the discussion (can there really be any kind of meaningful discussion on twitter), nor was it particularly nice. My comment wouldn’t mean anything to either of the people tagged in it, so why post it? Why add fodder to the troll sharks that already were gorging themselves on each other. Worse yet, was that comment taking me a step in the direction of a troll shark, fighting just to fight?
I myself have been on the receiving end of internet bullying/trolling, back in the day of not knowing how to use the block button and move on. I engaged in back and forth with this person(s) and all it did was escalate and make me miserable to the point of crying.
It was a hard earned lesson, and one I think I needed to be reminded of. It also brought to mind Phillipians 4:8 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (ESV)
Then just minutes ago this picture came across my FB feed:

Honestly, that says it all...

The start of 2017 has been interesting to say the least.
For our family we have had some massive ups and downs. Starting last November we have been in the “House Hunt”; a week into the New Year we pinpointed a house that appeared to be a good fit for us. The house needed work, but the work would put instant equity into the house (equity that we would really need, to get rid of the PMI that we are going to be stuck with, long story), and it was work my husband felt would be manageable between him, his brother, and brother-in-law. We put in an offer the first day we saw it, full list price with asking the selling bank to cover closing costs. The bank responded the next day with…no.  We reworked our financing, then submitted another offer, slightly under list but we would cover all closing costs. Next day: another no. After some back and forth with the listing agent, we went back in with our original offer, but this time the listing agent was going to go into the bank office himself and to go to bat for us. That was the Friday before MLK Day, so we had to wait until the following Tuesday to hear back. It was again, no, the bank wanted full list no concessions. Now we are back to the search and doing everything we can to save and raise money so we don’t loose out on the next one. If you would like to help, or just want to keep up-to-date on our hunt you can follow this link.
That weekend was RustyCon, so while dealing with all that, I was also finishing updating my Steampunk Kaylee costume to compete in it.
I went to the Con and had a blast, got to meet an author that I really enjoy: Robin Hobb, even got two books of her’s signed. One is for me and the other was for the friend that first introduced me to her books.
Their costume track was great, I learned a few tricks that I will have to use. I also participated in the recording of a fake radio commercial for RustyCon. That was a hoot and a half.
For Friday and Saturday I decided to try out the base of my new DragonKeeper costume. I discovered that I needed to take it in again (all the weight of the leather appears to be stretching out the foundation layer, I may need to add some more structure to the insides so that it don’t keep stretching). Thanks to wearing the costume I got to spend a good half an hour talking to a gentlemen who works with leather for a living and got some tips on how to do the final piece.

Finally there was the masquerade. I had originally wanted to complete in a completely new costume, but I realized the week before that it would not be finished to the level I would have wanted it to be in order to compete. It occurred to me that I had never really completed in Kaylee in a judged masquerade, I’d done a walk across with it at the first year of SteamCon, but that was it. So an update and finishing touches was in store for Kaylee.
I realized later that the updated part (the back) never got photographed...oh well, next con.

I met some new people, and hung out with people I already knew; had fun being silly, and finally (I think) got over my fear of presenting a costume in front of people. Last year I literally became physically ill the two hours before the masquerade.
The day before I had been to a panel about competing in the workmanship category and picked up a few tips. So while my kids were eating breakfast Saturday morning I quickly wrote up a page of documentation. It covered everything from a description key elements of the original costume and how I had used them in my interpretation, to techniques, to fabric choices. The photo printer decided not to play nice, so I quickly loaded the images onto my tablet and took that with me. I presented everything to the judges, they seemed particularly impressed that I had finished all my seams with either a serger or I had done French seams. After I was done with them I had to add my favorite part, I got myself dirty! I had packed some charcoal from our fireplace to stand in as grease and put some on my hands, face, and chest. During my presentation I purposely rubbed my noise to smudge it up too, then before skipping off stage I enjoyed a smuggled piece of contraband i.e. chocolate.
While the judges were off making their choices there was trivia! All of us contestants had fun messing with the MC and being goofy. Then the judges came back. I could go through and list who won what but if you are reading my blog, I guess you are really just interested in if I got anything. Guess what? I did! Two awards! Which means technically for a con the size of RustyCon, I now will be competing at the Master level!
The awards I won were: Best Journeyman and Best in Show!

The second one is the kicker for me, there was only one other Journeyman entry and that was a group. Along with now competing at the Master level, I also got a membership to next year’s con! Woot! I’m a happy girl with that (so is my pocketbook).
I also learned that next year there technically will be two RustyCons, one during its customary January, and then again in October! They are moving the con to October in order to avoid some drama that was going on. For me that is awesome because I had already decided that I would be dropping StreamCon in the future, and SteamCon usually takes place in October.
Hopefully I will get around to updating again soon, but if not, I will update after NorWesCon.
Oh, and on top of all that I did NaNoWriMo again. This time a standard mystery, not sure I’m fond of it, but I will try reworking it.

A little background, I grew up with a mom who sewed for a living; not clothes, but boat upholstery and interiors. My obsession with vintage machines might stem from that, the shop my grandfather owned mostly had machines from the 60s and 70s.
Fast forward until I am in my late 20s; my husband and I saw a pretty vintage belt driven electric White in a used building supply shop. They wanted $75 for it, I gave puppy dog eyes to my husband, but he said lets wait. We went back the next weekend and they still had it, so he agreed to buy it. About 4 months later I found a treadle cabinet that would work with it, and somewhere along the way I discovered the group TreadleOn, our grand leader at the time (the wonderful man who ran the website and email list) had been running the group since the 90s. He has since become a dear friend and valued mentor. Over the past few years I have acquired a few machines from him, most recently my first singer from the 60s. She’d been sitting unused for years in the back of a closet, so I cleaned her up and got her running real well. I emailed him about a month ago to let him know that she was doing great and enjoying her new home, and that she was getting used regularly. He responds back with a thanks for letting him know, and would I happen to want a Koala cutting table too? I answered with a resounding YES! I have a feeling he could hear me over the 20 miles distance. Previously I had been using my sister’s drafting table with a cutting mat on it. The Captain (our group’s nickname for this gentleman) tells me it would take 2 strong men to move it. Took me about three weeks to arrange a day when I could borrow my dad and his vehicle, but we picked it up on Tuesday, and boy am I a happy girl.
As payment for his lifting and hauling services, my father asked me to spend a few hours with him going through the storage spaces under what used to be our family business (my mother took over the business when me grandfather finally could not do it anymore, though he still showed up daily just to sit around and talk and feel useful. They finally retired 3 years ago, sold much of their leftover stock to a gentleman who was moving into their old location, doing the exact same thing. My mother still owns the building.) to help clear stuff out so they could turn one of the spaces into another office space. In the process I came across this lovely half hide of black leather. My dad said I could have it. THEN he unearthed a full hide of white leather and said if I had a use for it, I could have that as well!
That is nearly $700 in leather and a $200 cutting table just given to me!
Needless to say I am one happy sewist. I already have a project for the black leather, and am perkolating the idea for the white leather.

Been a while since I last wrote. Not much has been going on in my studio costume wise. Though things will hopefully be picking up. I’ve started on a new project that originally was supposed to be a mock-up for my next big build, but this has taken on a life of its own. I am once again building the entire thing on a people powered machines. There is some gathering I need to do and some zig zag stitching to finish off the raw edges. And now I have a machine that can be treadled that will do that! I acquired a Singer 306J. I still need to make a new table for it but that is a summer project for my father and I.
I took my 1927 Jones Handcrank with me on a short vacation and used it to piece together the top of the dress I am working on. I ended up talking more about antique sewing machines to people intrigued by my machine than I actually got to sew. But I did learn a new trick with sewing darts with using only one thread and not a chain stitch.
So I thought I would give a tutorial on how to do this, my first tutorial yeah!

First off: wind your bobbin with the color of thread you are going to want. You will need to wind it with way more thread than you normally would for the project at hand.

Next you are going to reverse thread your machine. Bring the thread up from the bobbin, through the needle and so forth, I have seen suggestions of leaving your sewing machine threaded like normal and then tying the bobbin thread to your spool thread and pull it back up through the machine to your spool.  I haven’t tried that technique because I find revers threading to work just fine.

At this point it is always useful to have an empty spool. When you finish reverse threading your machine you will need to hand wind that empty spool with just a little more thread than you think you will need to sew your dart. Do not wind too much extra because this will just be a wasted, if you do not wind enough then your will run out of thread before you finish your dart.  Rule of thumb is about 2X the length of your dart is how much thread you will need on your spool.

Once the machine is threaded make sure your needle is at it’s highest, lift the presser foot, and starting at the apex of the dart, line up your sewing line. Now this is important, before you make your first stitch lay your fabric on the bed of the machine so that it is touching the thread coming up from your bobbin; touching but not pressing. If the thread is being pressed into your fabric it will create a pucker at the apex of your dart.
At this point I manually turn the hand wheel until my needle is in the fabric but has not started to come back up, then drop your presser foot and sew your dart.

If you have wound the correct amount of thread onto your spool, you should have no more than this much thread left.

If you have multiple darts to sew you will have to reverse thread your machine each time, but honestly I think it is worth the effort.  This method has made perfect darts each time and is wonderful if you are working with very fine fabrics that you want to avoid extra bulk.
There you have it, my first tutorial.

My sister got her first box about 9 months ago and I caved about 3 months ago. I've had two boxes and every time there are at least 2-3 things that I keep. Each time something that I would have never picked out for myself is in the box that I end up loving.
If you haven't tried them, it is a lot of fun.
It is also a good way to stretch our box and try something that you wouldn't really pick up. And you don't have to leave your house to shop for clothes. For moms that is especially awesome! Even though I am a SAHM, I really can't just up and go shopping during the day. Have you ever tried taking a three year old clothes shopping? Don't even get me started on trying to take one into the dressing room!
If you are interested: https://www.stitchfix.com/referral/6261778
Give it a try.

Been a long time since I’ve updated and I have no excuse as for why.
What I have been up to since my last post:

1. I survived NaNoWriMo and even met my word count goal!
2. Christmas came and went
3. Work has not progressed much on the house so I still do not have my studio back.
4. Only small sewing projects have happened.

I attended RustyCon in January and competed in their costume masquerade with my Steampunk Mara Jade.  Guess what? I won something! Not just one award, but two: Workmanship Best in Call – Novice & Presentation Best in Class – Novice.  I cannot express how excited it was to get these. Yes, I’ve won a costume contest before (for Steampunk Kaylee) but this was being judged by people I know and respect that know costuming.  With both wins this now jumps me from Novice class to Journeyman! Talk about exciting.
On the flip side, I was also much more nervous to present this than I ever have been. To the point that I made myself sick and spent a good hour sitting down behind a booth trying to not get sick. I think the difference between this presentation and the others I’ve done is the fact that I wasn’t just walking across a stage, I had to present it, with music. I’ve never done that, and I honestly don’t know how. I’m not the most creative person out there when it comes to acting.  I’m one of those that you tell me what to do and I can do it, but me coming up with something on the spot like that…nope, not gonna happen. I ended up getting a little coaching and in the end I did a few lightsaber poses and that was that. Oh, and my music…Star Wars Main Theme J. I was thinking of doing the imperial march, but then I realized that would only be appropriate if I were in the black cat suit, and that it was leaning too much toward the dark side for her green outfit.
 
On to other stuff, my latest small projects are teddy bears. Yes, I am teaching myself to make them. I’ve done three so far, they aren’t the best thing in the world, but my kids love them and I am going to keep at it and get better at them.

Kids were up at an ungodly hour (thank you turn back the clock) so I thought I should give ya’ll an update:
So it is NaNoWriMo. For those of you now in the know, that stands for Nation Novel Writing Month, and yes, I had to google that.
The goal is to get people to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. And guess what, I decided to give it a try.  For this project I will not be posting my progress here, but I will give updates.
What this also means is that I most likely will not be sewing in my spare time…what is spare time again? I’ve got two kids under the age of 10; one in the midst of potty training.
My handle if you want to look my up is pretty easy: RobinEgger.  I am saving my creativity for the word document.
This will be an interesting adventure for me in that I am typically a pen and paper girl, not a typing as I go girl.
As for other news, yes Halloween came and went. I got off easy this year, didn’t have to make anything and just recycled costume pieces for myself and my sister. The kids picked store bought costumes, so I got off easy there too.
We had a fun time strolling though Downtown Edmonds, ran into friends and ended up with TONS of candy, parent candy tax will happen. Then it was off to recreate old memories with my “other family” and celebrate Halloween with the Greenbergs.  All us kids in one place happens so rare that it was an occasion to be marked, and there is photographic evidence of all of us together, and you would get to see it if I could get my brother to send the picture.
Lets see, we covered present, past, now I guess it is time for things yet to come. This year the family will be celebrating Thanksgiving with Mickey in the Happiest Place on Earth. Yup, we will be braving Disneyland with a 6 year old and a 3 year old. We do have a magic ace up our sleeve though: we have Grandma & Grandpa going too!  Built in baby sitters! No not really, but it is always nice when there are more adults than kids, easier to keep track of them. Which does remind me that I do have a sewing project to do before hand. LittleMan has the habit of wandering off or just flat out running off, so I will admit to being one of those parents that puts a leash on her child.  Yes look at me with distain, but believe me, he needs it, he is fast when he wants to be. He currently has one that is built to look like a puppy ridding on his back and the tail is the leash, but I want him to have something more appropriate for the trip, so I am on the hunt for a plush Yoda that I can put straps and buckles on so he can pull a Luke Skywalker and run around with Yoda on his back. I think I will make the leash look like a vine or something.
That’s it for now!

I am beyond excited! Back in August I got a chance to do a photo shoot, my first ever, and just this week I got the raw images back!
I haven't had a chance to do any editing (ie adding cool backgrounds and touch-ups to even out skin tone) but I thought I would share them with you all.
I pulled out two of my Steampunk character costumes, Kaylee from Firefly, and Mara Jade from Star Wars. Sadly all my awesome props that I built for Mara were (and as of now still) being held in storage until all the construction is completed in our basement and the storage company brings our stuff back. At a later date I will attempt to edit in at least a lightsaber for Mara, but as of now this is how the pictures will be. If/When we do another costume photo shoot, I will attempt to bring her out again with all her props, and some modifications I am planning.
Also I added a few pictures from Steamposium 2015 to the Fabric section.

Another Steamposium is in the bag.  All in all it was an awesome weekend.  This was the first year that I have taken my daughter, and that definitely changes the experience.  Typically when I am attending a convention, I spend 90% of my time in panels or networking.  When you have a 6 year old with you that really isn’t possible.
Of coarse we got out of the house later than I wanted to, so we didn’t get there at opening.  Then I didn’t account for people wanting pictures of her every 5 minutes, or her attention to be riveted on the oddest things.  We did make it to the main events that I had intended us to do, but I did not get to a single panel…sad for me.
Sunday was all for me, I left the little girl at home and attended panels strait through.  The last one had to be one of my favorite: “Steampunk’d with Kato and 4 contestants.  I definitely had my eyes opened a little to what it is like to be on a reality elimination TV show.  NEVER want to do one myself now.
Now on to the costume part.
My inspiration was the Abney Park song Herr Drosemeyer’s Doll.  It was definitely a learning experience.
To be perfectly honest, I really should not have competed in it.  It was not my best work, and it looked downright juvenile compared to the other competitors. I could give all kinds of excuses as to being my first time working with tulle (that skirt had over 20 yards of it), I was over committed (had one of my tri-annual consignment sales going on that same weekend), I didn’t anticipate how long it would take (over 30 hours on the skirt alone), I didn’t start soon enough (I was working full time up until two weeks before the Con), and I was constantly getting interrupted (that’s the life of a SAHM of two kids, 6 & 3).  In all honestly, those are just excuses, I can only say it is not my best work, and I am not all that proud of it.
One part that I am proud of was my make-up job, not the smoothest application of the base white but in the rule of 3 (3 inches, 3 feet, 3 yards) I passed on two out of three.  But the best part for me was while I was in the bathroom touching up my makeup before the competition and non-other than Kato (yes, that Kato: the Queen of Steampunk design) said my makeup looked awesome (insert fan-girl squeeee).
When it came to the contest I am slightly kicking myself for not letting the LittleGirl walk across the stage with me.  She really wanted to, but I hadn’t signed up as a group, but still, it would have been the topper of her day.  Next time I have that kind of opportunity, I am going to let her come with.
On the construction side of the costume, I learned that my power machine does not like the ruffle attachment; it messes with the machine’s timing.  So after struggling for two days with it I put aside my power machine and pulled out my trusty 1920s White Roatary Treadle.  Let me tell you, that little thing may weight half a ton, but I keep being amazed at how she handles working with the most delicate of fabrics all the way up to leather.  After about 15 minutes reacquainting myself with her I got to work, only to discover that something was causing her to stick at a specific point on her rotation.  Costume work is set aside and out come the mineral oil and tools.  I discovered a relative rat’s nest in the bobbin casing.  With her being almost 90 years old, there isn’t a lot of information readily available service manuals, so I did some exploratory poking and prodding with tweezers and a strong flashlight.  Eventually I got the thread out and re-oiled her.  By then it was nearly 10 and I had to work in the morning.
The next day I emailed my treadle group (yes groups dedicated to these amazing machines do exhist) and asked if anyone knew how to take apart the bobbin casing properly to clean in there.  Thankfully the founder of our group new exactly what I was talking about and offered to help.  He doesn’t live too far from me so that weekend I went to his house and he pulled out one of his and showed me how to take it apart, and he also had a service book from the 50s that had about 6 pages dedicated to my machine and how to take some major components apart, in particular the tension, which according to Captain Dick is very tricky to put back together without instructions.
After all that, my White was back up and running beautifully!  Finishing the ruffling was a snap.
I opted to go and buy a pair of granny panties to attach the tulle to rather than spending the time to construct a proper ballet pair, and since my tights were white, you can’t really tell.
Sewing the ruffles to the base was interesting.  First off I needed to draw a line on the base layer to use as a sewing guide.  I am not perfectly strait and flat, so I couldn’t just measure so far from the top and draw the line, and I did not have someone helping me so I improvised;  I attached a pencil to my hem marking tool and turned around it, letting it draw a roughly level line.  I wanted to use a zig-zag stitch so there would be possible for some stretch, so I had to go back to my power machine (90 years ago, a strait stitch was all there was).  The throat space is not as big as I would have liked, so it took some major work to get all those ruffles in there.
By the time I got the skirt done, I had two days to get the top done.  Half way through I realized that I hadn’t bought enough boning.  Sadly I had to use plastic boning because all my spiral steel boning is still in storage.  I ended up forgoing going to Friday of Steamposium to get the top finished and was done with it around 12:30am Saturday morning.  I spent another 20 minutes on LittleGirl’s costume and went to bed.
On Saturday LittleGirl and I arrived at Steamposium.  Within the first hour I was reminded as to why I do not use plastic boning: it bends and stays bent.  I was lucky enough to get one of the lady vendors to adjust my modesty panel and re-tighten my lacing.  Even with it tightened all the way, the bottom was still a little too big.  Half way through the day I started feeling something poking me in the side.  The fabric of the top has some metallic thread to it, so I just assumed that was what was poking me.  That evening when I tried to take it off, something was catching on my underclothes making the top hard to get off.  When I finally got it off, I discovered that I had sewn two strait pins between the fabric and the lining, right at the boning!
Needless to say, I will be pulling this top apart and rebuilding it to fit properly and add in the spiral steel boning.
One good thing to come out of this is that I have discovered that I am starting to get rather proficient at adding grommets!