acanthusleaf | (no subject)

The Steampunk Convention was a blast, even though Saturday was a blur of sleep-deprivation as is usual for me. The cool: My two shopgirls,

klossen and

klwilliams , both rocked. They were there when they said they would be,

klossen was super-energetic demo girl above and beyond the call of duty, and

klwilliams and

psychic_frog got me lunch on separate days when I was too stupid to figure out that I needed it. Seeing all the amazing contraptions walking by my booth was purely awesome. I hadn't been to a con in over a decade, and because this was the first Steampunk-specific con, I didn't know what to expect. 99.9% of the attendees had dressed up to some degree of coolness. I had an off-the-rack blouse and skirt from Gentlemen's Emporium and made a shop apron of light brown leather with multiple pockets and loops custom-sized for my jewelry tools. I will likely wear it to SCA events too, because it is leather, doesn't look any more out-of-place than my usual canvas apron, and has pockets to my heart's delight. I loves me the pocketses. I lose things much less frequently when I have pockets. The apron also gets me out of wearing a corset. I didn't get the trim onto my ballgown, which remains basic black. I got one waltz in at the ball before crashing on Friday night.

Speaking of looks, klwilliams also had clothing from Gentlemen's Emporium, but she chose the Wild West look with long coat and hat, and she looked HOT HOT HOT! The hat and coat gave her that confident stride.

sophiastclair had made most of

klossen 's outfits, and they were both cute as buttons. Very cute buttons in corsets.

One of the booths had - get this - Propeller Pith Helmets! I covet one intensely. Mucho cool stuff available, but nobody was doing anything like the stuff I wanted to do but didn't finish. This makes me feel a bit better. I took a couple of orders for the armillary sphere rings, so I'll make back my expenses.

This was a con for seeing people I hadn't seen in ages. I got to talk with Victoria Ridenour, who liked my tentacular ring that I made in jewelry school and is open to doing barter. I cannot express the level of squee. Other SCA people that I mostly know chatted with me at the booth because here was someone they know, at least.

thread_walker 's hubby was there in Victorian finery. That boy needs pocketwatches. Elric (Mike) from Windymeads was there, dressed as (I think) a hussar, with this very tall hat. He bought a Wulfenbach Trooper pin from Studio Foglio, and putting it on the hat made him look just like one of the Baron's troopers from the assault on Sturmhalten (pardon the Girl Genius fangeeking, but there's more to come). His joke of the day was that he is part of the airship fleet - he steers the Baron's pinnace. The most astounding person to me, however, was a fellow named Robert whom I had not seen since high school.

misagillian and

bonacorsi wouldn't remember him, I don't think. He was a sophomore when I was a senior. He had his 19-year-old daughter there at the con with him. The daughter's mother was there too, and her name is Roberta. I am super-happy to be back in touch with these people.

The con seemed very well run from my perspective - only a couple of little glitches about the dealer table. The shuttle bus to the concert was a very nice touch, and was a very nice bus. The hotel itself was luxurious. The staff were a tad overwhelmed, but clearly did their best to make everyone comfortable. We needed a ballroom at least twice that size. Next year it is supposed to be in San Francisco, in July, at the Kabuki hotel. I'll miss the Domain, but clearly next year will be bigger, and the poor hotel was maxed out.

The concert was fabulous! I finally got to see Abney Park play live. I may be the only one bored by the backup-singer's bellydancing, but then I've seen so much good and poor bellydancing in my years in the SCA, that a dancer has to be really good to hold my attention for very long. the music was great, and the guitarist/violinist/mandolin player Nathan is a total rockstar. Want their latest CD. Their table was of course jammed after the show, so I figured I'd pick up a CD on Sunday at the con, but they had already left. The lead singer Robert was sick, which may have contributed to their early departure. He looked rather peaked, but his voice was strong and they did put on a great show. Yes I danced in the aisles. So did pretty much everyone else. Phil and Kaja Foglio twirled each other around for a great deal of the show. What an adorably cute couple who also are brilliant comic artists!

The only panel I got out to see was Jake Von Slatt talking about his new Wimshurst engine. You can read a big chunk of the talk here: http://steampunkworkshop.com/california-steampunk-convention-keynote. I want to blather more about this talk and my thoughts thereon, but I'm too tired tonight and I've blathered enough. I did get to talk with him, as I was seated right next to him at the breakfast buffet the next morning. Extremely cool.

I seem to have picked up my usual sort of scratchy-throat bug from the con. This is a bummer, because I'm too out of it to go to the first classes I just signed up for by the Friday night Waltz people - the Charleston and the Bohemian National Polka. Hopefully I can make it up next week.

I'm back to cleaning and organizing the house to create a reasonable workspace. Must get back to being productive without being insanely stressed out. Yeah. I'm so good at that.