Library, and Finishing Touches

Last night, one of my coworkers held a program I wanted to attend in our library, so I stuck around after work. That meant I had some spare time to wander the library with Stella and show her a few highlights!

Our glass art "fireplace." It's not actually warm. And it's not Chihuly... It's a local artist
inspired by Chihuly.

The very beginning of what we call "Main Street."
The wall on the left is the public library's adult fiction,
and it stretches the entire length of the building
(which, according to reports when we opened a few years ago,
is a football field).

Then, we had this morning off, so we frantically worked on some of the finishing touches to my cosplay for this weekend, which PerfectlyBohemian correctly identified as being from Attack on Titan!

Fabric glue to fold the edges of the patches under,
and binder clips to hold the edges in place until it dries.
I would have sewn them, but I didn't plan ahead,
and sewing would have gone over some of the drawing.

And the BIG patch for the back of the jacket.

This will be one action-packed weekend! Stella is in for some treats.

Cosplay Preparations

After a whirlwind of library conferences, Stella and I are now preparing for a whirlwind of comic conventions! We have been largely unsuccessful in finishing most of my cosplay ideas, but we have at least one ready for this weekend. For logistics reasons, I need to use an older one for the other day of this con... You'll see why later...

This is the hand-drawn patch (or... going-to-be-patch-piece-of-fabric)
that we made for the back of my jacket...
I'm going to be Zoe Hange from Attack on Titan.

Crafting and Cupcakes

We are going over to a friend's house for Game of Thrones tonight, and I volunteered
to bring dessert again, so we made angel food cupcakes! Some of them aren't very pretty...

But this one is almost as cute as Stella!

We also had to take advantage of the break in the
recently rainy weather to do some spray-painting
for cosplay... But I wanted Stella to stay away for
her own safety, so she watched from inside.

Stella in Radford (and Wasserhund)

I'm pretty sure The Innovative Library Classroom at Radford University is the last library conference I'll be taking Stella to! But it was fun, and very informative, and Radford is beautiful!

This was actually at the end of our trip, but we stopped at the same scenic view
on the side of I-64 to see the Blue Ridge Mountains. (We did this on the way back
from Roanoke, as you may recall... What can I say? I don't see a lot of mountains
around Virginia Beach.)

Mountain selfie!

Pretty lawns at Radford University... Trying to get a bunch of photos
before it starts to rain! We barely made it.

Their library is so gorgeous! And big! Can you see Stella on the stairs?

We found the Alumni Gardens next to the library

Walking around the Alumni Gardens

Radford U has quite a few outdoor sculptures on campus

This sculpture and the next one were in the same
area of lawn, with a sign designating it a sculpture garden

Opening remarks at the conference

Stella got her own bed in the hotel

Getting a nice steam from the shower in the hotel

Stella, what are you doing? You aren't coffee; get out of there.

You may remember our Wasserhund Brewery growler... Right after we got home
from Radford, we took a friend to Wasserhund for Friday the 13th lunch.
She got a few flight tastes, and the glasses are just Stella's size!

Cosplay Crafting

If cosplay has taught me one thing about myself, it's that I prefer to work under pressure. It's two weeks until Tidewater Comicon, and I don't have any of my cosplays finished. So Stella stepped in to help me.

We made a stencil...

...we peeled labels off of PVC pipe pieces...

...we played with tulle...

...and we built a hammer head out of cardboard!

Still lots of work to go, but we made some significant dents already.

Free Comic Book Day

That might be a bit of a misleading title, as we didn't actually get any comic books. But a lot of places around here were celebrating, and a LOT of people showed up...

Despite the clouds in the photo, it was bright out, so I couldn't really tell that you can't see much in this photo until I got home and out of the glare... But what you're supposed to be seeing is a line that extends around the building at one of our comic shops, Trilogy. Since Stella and I hadn't eaten lunch yet, we didn't really have that kind of time, so we didn't wait around. But it was still cool to see that many people excited about Free Comic Book Day!

Star Wars Day

Stella celebrated Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you!) by watching The Force Awakens with us.