Jennifer's 365 Project

The Toy and Comic Expo by our house is today. It's the same show we attended last year and again earlier this year. The building is also where they had the Grand Rapids Comic Con earlier this year.
Jeff and Dan were there of course, so we met up with them then headed back to our place for some SmashUp and lunch.
There's not a whole lot of craft tables at the Toy Show, but I still managed to find something. So I picked up a cute Tardis tree ornament while I was there. It's actually by the same person who did the pins I'd bought earlier this year.

Now that we're back from up north and I have a little more time, I wanted to finish working on the Doctor Who pillow I'd started earlier.
The original Tardis didn't come out so well, but it was an excellent learning opportunity.
I learned pretty quickly that the original setting I had were crappy but I didn't have to use a blanket stitch. I could still use the zig-zag stitch and not bunch things up (setting information below).
I soon started to get the hang of it, and while things are perfect, they're a lot better than Tardis #1.
Anyway, here's a slideshow of all of the steps, plus materials and measurements.

• Find an image to trace...

  http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3770/9693881035_c68621da23.jpg
  

• trace!

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  once traced, then cut out and get ready to iron...

  

• Ironing

  http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3762/9697107800_e419ee0372.jpg

  with an iron, fuse the Heat n Bond Lite to the fabric

  

• cut everything out

  http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3756/9693880285_768573772e.jpg

  once cool, cut out the shapes

  

• Lay everything out

  http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2841/9697107356_6d8dcdba67.jpg

  to ensure it looks good and all the small pieces fit

  

• Iron On

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  remove paper backing and iron onto fabric

  

• Fuse-N Tear

  http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2870/9693952873_a7f7bfa740.jpg

  once all pieces are ironed on, cool, flip over, and iron on Fuse-N Tear stabilizer

  

• Applique in progress

  http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2807/9693952381_0f21df1188.jpg

  stitching all of the different pieces down

  

• laying everything out one last time

  http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3671/9693952207_4692a2212d.jpg

  just to ensure everything still looks ok

  

• pin the pillow

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  pin the two pieces of fabric together, wrong side out

  

• Tardis side

  http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7416/9693882489_f96814e1da.jpg

  Tardis side of the pillow

  

• upclose Tardis

  http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3815/9693881297_d8a9e5944c.jpg
  

• Dalek side

  http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7345/9693882103_df5926d476.jpg

  Dalek side of the pillow

  

• up close Dalek

  http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5331/9693881855_518382a672.jpg
  

Materials used:

• Fusible Heat 'n Bond Lite (adhesive)
• Pellon Fuse-N-Tear
• fabric and thread
• PolyFill (polyester fiber filling)

Measurements & Sewing Machine Settings:

• 14.5" x 14.5" pillow fabric
• 3" tall Dalek & Tardis 
• Applique pieces placed 3" from the edges of the fabric
• zig-zag stitch set to stitch width of 3.0 and stitch length of 0.2 for edges
• zig-zag stitch set to stitch width of 2.0 and stitch length of 0.2 for smaller detail pieces (like eggs on the Dalek skirt)

We missed C2E2 last year, which meant we had to go this year. We left early in the morning so we could spend the maximum amount of time there.

The convention this year was in a different wing than 2011 event. Despite DC, Image, and IDW not having booths there, the convention felt pretty packed. Arachaia was there and had a fantastic sale so I managed to pick up two awesome books.

As is often the case at comic conventions, there was a ton of shopping. Comic conventions always have way more than any anime convention I've been to. Shopping isn't my thing, so I usually get bored pretty fast. But the booths are eclectic enough that there's always some interesting take on a comic character, or Doctor Who. I'm also amazed at how much Adventure Time has blown up all over the place and is somehow super popular.
I didn't see any cosplay of the new Doctor Who companion, but I did see a ton of people dressed as Daleks, the Tardis, and of course the Doctor. These two women dressed as Weeping Angels I thought were particularly clever.
Comfort and Adam were there, of course, being awesome at what they do - art! It's always cool to stop by their booth during a convention and say hi. Plus we got to spend part of the evening with them once the event was over.
We spent some time in artist alley, on the show floor, and we really only saw one panel - one hosted by J. Michael Straczynski. It was a pretty good panel.

I'm a little sad that I didn't bring my DSLR, but at the same time the aisles were so packed that it would have been a nightmare much of the time to do anything - at least for me. If I were maybe six inches taller or wore heels maybe things would be easier.

The whole convention was a fantastic experiment with my new 3DS. I had the StreetPass and SpotPass running the whole time. I managed to snag all sorts of things, from puzzle pieces to a ton of character teams to battle in Fire Emblem.

The Grand Rapids Toy & Comic Show is happening again today. It looks like it happens several times a year. The last time we went to it was at the beginning of December 2012.

Anyway, this time around there were fewer handcrafted tables and more straight toys and comics. But I still managed to find something. Namely, these two adorable felt Doctor Who felt pins. They're made by Etsy Seller Allonsy Alonso. She had quite a nice set up of various Who-themed items, all of them pretty freaking adorable.
We hit the show first thing in the morning and weren't there for very long, so that meant we could decorating the Doctor Who cookies I made earlier in the week. I made about four dozen sugar cookies, give or take, so we decided to try a few different things. Chris suggested dipping some in chocolate, which was a pretty good idea. And tasty.
Next I made a massive batch of frosting for the non-chocolate cookies. We just used white and Tardis blue.
Let me just say that I'm terrible at this type of stuff. If something needs to be pretty, neat, tidy, or otherwise bakery-shop-like in its appearance, I just don't do well. I tried to make a Green Lantern Fondant cake once and it was a disaster. I've tried a few different approaches with frosting a cake and I just end up tearing into the thing. I lose patience very quickly, and that's part of the problem. It's also probably why some of these cookies came out oddly shaped. Chris, on the other hand, has a lot of patience. So I let him start in attempting to decorate the Dalek cookies.
After trying to decorate a few Daleks and Tardis cookies with the piping bag, we decided to give up and just frosting the back of them like we did with the chocolate cookies. That way you could still see the detail from the cookie cutter on the front and also enjoy tasty frosting.

Of course, we also have about another third of non-chocolate, non-frosting cookies for anyone who likes just plain sugar cookies.

I certainly didn't set out to make today so Whovian, but since there's a new Doctor Who tonight, I suppose that's as good a way as any to spend today.

Today started out kinda blah. Having a cavity filling done first thing in the morning is always the most fun.
Finishing the first Dalek washcloth, however, is.

I'm pretty sure I have enough yarn left over to make another in off-white, plus I have a whole thing of green.

I'm going to make bunches of these and practice getting more even stitches. I also think I might try blocking this, just to try that. From everything I read it sounds like blocking can help even out stitches, and as you can see, there are some tight and loose areas in that stockinette bit.

This knitted up fast, once I got started, and I had a lot of fun. Maybe because most of the time I just had constant Doctor Who episodes in my mind while knitting.

I'm enjoying these quick easy projects. Poor Chris's scarf gets no love. I'll finish it eventually, I swear! I only have like another foot I need to knit on that thing...