Where did my Thanksgiving weekend go? Part 2 (Friday + early Saturday)
Kelvin told me Andrew was coming over on Friday, which was a little disappointing to me since that meant we weren’t going to spend the day doing nothing. I already knew I wasn’t going to do nothing ALL day because I already planned to meet up with Sandra at some point, but it would have been nice to have some of the day to do nothing. I knew he was going to come over to work on a puppet for his next cosplay costume, which is cool and interesting, but requires energy and thought. Kelvin reassured me they were only prototyping, but I knew it was going to be an all-day affair for Kelvin.
Andrew arrived around lunchtime with his backpack of stuffs, which mainly had materials for his puppet and DVDs to try on our new TV. I don’t really remember much much of the going-ons this afternoon because I didn’t really get involved, but I recall watching several videos on making muppets, some prototype heads made of muslin, and eating lunch at Fresh Choice. I think I eventually played Picross and took a nap while Kelvin and Andrew worked on prototyping. And by work on prototyping, I mean watch DVDs on our TV. Sandra finally called me as I was napping and was ready to meet up, so I dragged Kelvin and Andrew with me to go pick up Sandra. I wanted to go to JoAnn to pick up sewing supplies so I can get started on sewing projects, and with the machine out for the puppet making and Ravi and Jess throwing a “Crazy Hat Potluck” soon, I figured it was a good opportunity do some sewing.
It turns out JoAnn’s was having a big Thanksgiving weekend sale. Nothing insanely Black Friday crazy, but still pretty decent, I think. All notions (sewing necessities and randomness, like needles, bobbins, pins, zippers, etc.) were 50% off, and all McCall’s patterns were $1.99. I have no idea how good these sales are since I don’t buying sewing supplies often, but every time I’ve bought stuff in the past, it’s been at retail. So I pretty much went to town. I bought all sorts of sewing junk I needed (like bobbins, sharpener, flat-head pins) and some sewing junk I didn’t need (long measuring tape, second seam ripper, invisible ink marker). I bought 5 different McCall’s patterns: 2 dress patterns, 1 animal costume pattern, 1 chef’s gear pattern, and 1 hats/scarves pattern. (I was really excited about the patterns, cuz at $2 they were way cheaper than their usual whatever % off and cheaper than eBay.) I bought some fleece that was on sale, too. They did make some money off me, as I bought several things at not-as-huge-sale price or even at retail. I bought a bunch of thread at retail (which probably wasn’t smart, since I’m sure they’ll eventually be on sale), and we got some sort of thick canvas material (for an apron I want to make) that wasn’t cheap. I also bought more muslin for practice sewing. My total came out to be quite large that day, simply for the quantity of junk I got. I made everyone stick around for a couple hours, but oh well… I was pretty happy with my load.
Afterwards, we had dinner at Pot Sticker King. I’m still quite fond of that place, tho their beef noodles weren’t spicy that evening. After dinner, I dropped Sandra off and went back home with Kelvin and Andrew. With more muslin, Kelvin made a final prototype for the night that turned out quite good. They drew on eyes and nose and kept playing with it all evening until we left to drop Andrew off. I wish I had taken a picture of it.
Andrew left his iPod at our place, so he came back the next day. Of course, this meant more working of the muppet. The muslin muppet they had played with yesterday was a good start, but it needed a wider neck for Andrew’s wider forearm. They seam-ripped the poor thing apart to make modified patterns so they could make it on real material. (I didn’t know this, but Wal-Mart apparently sells fabrics for pretty cheap, including the suede stuff that Andrew got for $4 a yard.)
Kelvin worked at Muppet Alpha, while I had Andrew be slave laborer and cut out some of the patterns I got the day before. I was working on my first “crazy hat”, which is a chef’s hat. (Apparently, there’s still a lot of sewing terminology I need to learn, so I’m really winging it at the moment. I haven’t finished it, but I hope it doesn’t turn out too terrible.) I was also doing laundry, as Kel and I were heading up to SF later that day and staying overnight. Kelvin eventually finished a prototype with the suede, and it turned out pretty good! We obviously still need to add all the other components, but it’s a decent beginning.
Our apartment looked like a fabric warzone after all this, though we were able to clean a lot of it up last night. Right now the dining room table is serving as our crafts table and sewing machine holder until we get a folding table from Kelvin’s folks.
New thing I learned today: Muslin is a tightly-woven undyed cotton fabric, and it’s often used in clothing in areas of hot, dry climates because it breathes well. Because of its cheap cost, it’s often the material used for test sewing before sewing something with expensive fabric. The resulting garment is also called a muslin, though a prototype garment made of other cheap material may also be called a muslin.
I only knew to use muslin for test material because a while back I asked a JoAnn’s lady what the cheapest material available for test sewing was, and she pointed me to the 99¢ a yard muslin. I didn’t realize this was common practice, but of course, it’d only make sense for it to be.
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