If you can spare the money (I want to say it's around 1k? But I can't remember, it was definitely top of my budget when I got it) I have a Bernina 350 and it's a beauty. It's due a servicing so it's being a bit cranky right now, but I've put it through corset-making and multiple layers of denim backed on calico and it behaved fine. I've even done some leather work with it, it's a good study beast.
In the workroom we use the B 435 instead I think? It's mostly the same but computerised, and I can only recommend it if you're a millionaire or something, they are pricey.
I've worked with a couple of Janomes (no idea about the specific models tho) and they were nice to work with as well. One of them warned me when the bobbin ran out, it felt magical. Not knowing the models I'm not sure what they cost, sorry.
I've also had a cheap Singer M2605, and... there's a reason I splurged and got the Bernina, but it also was during the denim and calico project, so if you promise to never use it on heavy fabrics it might work. Every sewing machine has a limit for how much bulk it can handle, and the Singer M2605 seems to have a very low limit. But also I do this professionally, I needed to get a very good machine.
Hope this helps someone somewhere!
Thanks! Because I lean towards leatherwork and making bags, I'll likely save up for a Cobra Class 26 before deciding what I want to do on the fabric end of things.
"Andorians, yes. I've been reading about them in the Vulcan database. Militaristic, blue-skinned?"
"That's them."
– Malcolm Reed and Trip Tucker, 2151
Mehron Paradise Makeup Aq Light Blue: a few coats, with hairdryer in between to dry it
Ben Nye Twilight Blue, Celestial Bleu, and White Pressed Eye Shadow: to shade
ColourPop Blue Ya Mind mascara
Tater Rounds Beauty Blue Spirit translucent interference powder: just a little bit on the lips and around the eyes to set the paint
Ben Nye Final Seal: to seal
The Rimmel matte primer and the Ben Nye Final Seal are key; everything in the middle is up to personal preference. I used a little Ben Nye Cinderella Blue Pressed Eyeshadow throughout the day for touchups, but the makeup held up quite well overall from 9:15 AM when the convention started, to after 4:00 PM, when we headed off to dinner. The makeup all came off nicely in the shower.
Top row is my recreation; bottom row is the original prop.
Autographed Ushaan-tor shown for scale.
I was unable to find the same bottle type that was shown on ENT. The closest bottle that I could find was a Morey limoncello bottle, which is wider and has a shorter neck than the original. If anyone knows where I can buy a bottle more similar to the original, please tell me.
I used 1/4 in gold tape to the do the striping. As near as I can tell from the auction photos of the bottle, the vertical gold stripe is only on one side of the bottle, but the auction photos make it look like the stripe is on the opposite side from the ENT photos?
Because the bottle I used has a shorter neck, I couldn't fit in two gold stripes below the neck sticker. I suppose I could have made my neck sticker smaller, but I would need to make it much smaller to fit in two stripes. So I went with what I could fit that still seemed to look good. I made the necker sticker on Redbubble.
I had to change the cap on the bottle, and the Morey limoncello cap was glued on rather hard. I think I used the cap from a bottle of Atomik.
To fill it, I used Gatorade G Zero Powder Glacier Freeze and some blue food safe glitter.
The ushaan-tor is made of rubber-like (MJF) thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) material. It was primed with Flexbond, under-painted with Rust-Oleum hammer black, glossed with Pledge Floor Care Finish, chromed with Spaz Stix Ultimate Mirror Chrome, and the black handle was painted with Blk 3.0 and then coated with a 50/50 mixture of Flexbond and Pledge Floor Care Finish to make it safer to handle. This ushaan-tor, being made of rubber-like, should be safe at cons. It's not sharp at all.
I made the STL design myself using Inventor, based off various canon designs.
We arrived. Met up with the Public Eye, who had already set up. Pitched the tent. Slept.
Wednesday
I checked in at the Command Center. I checked in at Medical. I sent vintage advertisements as mail to a small, select group of my friends. I did Public Eye Barter. I watched the ceremonial opening of the gates, and I realised that I am not tall enough to actually watch the ceremonial opening of the gates. The Rabid Asylum actively recruited me to attend the execution of Captain Finn. I have to admit, I sort of wanted to attend the execution on the side of Skofield’s Drifters, but a general rule of Wasteland is, if someone walks up to you and asks you to do something, if it seems at all reasonable and doesn’t hugely conflict with something else you are doing, you just do it. So I attended the execution of Captain Finn on the side of the Rabid Asylum. >_>; Later on, I watched a bit of the Wreck Room variety show.
Thursday
I did the Public Eye Games, picked up my trading cards, showed Nutz how to pick up his trading cards (he was delighted; he didn't realize that he was going to be holographic), did the cimotA Field Notes, did my talk on Medicinal Plants about four times in a row because people just kept showing up at random times, and did the Hot Shots spicy guessing game.
Friday
I did a medical volunteer shift from midnight to 8 am. I did Public Eye Barter. I think this was the day that a guy came in looking to barter a Red Rocket jumpsuit that looked like it would fit Butler and/or Kodama... and then he revealed that he wanted to bounty hunt me. He mentioned that he had asked at Medical what my medical shifts are and that he would have looked for me at medical, but my shift was too late at night. This is a huge no no. You do not hunt volunteers while they are working. Anyway, so I played him at a game of World's Smallest Operation, and I beat him, but I still gave him an etched glass bottle as a consolation prize. Then this was the day Riot decided to do the Faceless Merchants Trading route, if I remember correctly? Things became chaotic and weird.
Riot signed up as a merchant. Kodama, Brother Red, and I acted as their guards, because raiders sometimes attack merchants. I gave Riot my map, and they plotted their trade route, but they had one location listed on their route that none of us recognized: the Black Market. Riot did most of their route without trouble, and at the end, we decided to ask the Baron of the Skullduggers if he knew where the Black Market was. He did not. He told us to ask Bang Bang Micky. Micky did not, but he talked the party into watching a magic show at the Skullduggers. As we were waiting for the show, we tried to brainstorm where to find information on the Black Market. I decided to go ask at the Wasteland Communications Corps, the WCC, and Brother Red wanted me to buy him a newspaper, anyway.
I bought the newspapers, and I asked Lady Tequila at the WCC. She didn't know and asked me to ask inside. I asked Kasper from Weights and Measures at the WCC if he knew where it was. He did not, but he noticed that I was a sleeper agent, and he was able to recite my code phrase to activate me. He told me to talk to the people in the board room.
[Name Redacted] (going to not name this person, unless they find me and say they are okay with being named) from the Skofield's Drifters was engaged in some deal with one of the Swedish lawyers. [Name] said that they would tell me where the Black Market was if I paid their bill for the Swedish lawyer. They were breaking out wax seals and all. They had a bill of 6000 caps to the Swedish lawyer. At some point, Captain Digits, who is [Name]'s boss, and some other Skofield's Drifters wandered in to check on [Name], looked very confused about what was happening, and wandered out. I had a whole bunch of random types of Wasteland currency, including Pochteca currency, Caution Tape Carnival currency, Jugger currency, contraband stickers, some patches, and some pins. The Swedish lawyer was not the one in the WCC who does the currency exchanges; this was apparently the Tour Guide, so we had to wait for the Tour Guide to finish the tour to evaluate my barter.
The Tour Guide came over, commented sotto voce to one of the other WCC folks that this was definitely enough barter to pay for [Name]'s bill and what should he do. The other WCC guy told him to ask for more and haggle. So the Tour Guide asked for 91 liters of petrol.
I said - did I look like one of the Farlanders? We don't do petrol where I come from.
The Tour Guide asked for 4 liters of petrol. I said again that we don't do petrol - we do murd3rs (fake theatrical LARP ass&ss!nations, which results in the v!ct!m getting a free iron-on patch), and I offered, did the Tour Guide need any murd3rs done? He looked visibly concerned. The other WCC guy told him to ask for 5 murd3rs. The Tour Guide insisted that he didn't want any murd3rs. The other WCC guy suggested 1 murd3r. The Tour Guide asked if I could just... not do murd3rs. We settled on 5 not-murd3rs credited to the WCC, plus the rest of the barter.
[Name] then explained how to find the Black Market to me, and this was incredibly cursed and eldritch lore involving having a sigil that represents your inedible deed, knocking thrice after sundown, finding Valik the Madlands Dreamer, being gentle to Valik because he has suffered much, explaining your indelible deed and why you wish to enter the Black Market… (Not going to go into too many details, because I don’t want to ruin this questline for anyone else who does it.)
[Name] asked if I was doing this for a Faceless Merchants trade route, and they told me all of this as if I was the person who would be completing the route - which I allowed them to believe, even though really, I was just obtaining this information for Riot.
Anyway. I went and found Riot and explained all of this.
We borrowed a working Sharpie from Kodama to forge a fake eldritch sigil to try to get Riot into the Black Market.
I went for a nap, because I had a medical shift later.
While I was napping, a bounty hunter came to the Public Eye, looking for me. My tribe told him, "He's sleeping, and also, we don't know who that is." They sent the bounty hunter on a quest to deliver a bomb to Canes Machina.
I woke up, came back, and I was doing something administrative on the Public Eye chalk board, when the bounty hunter came back. I heard him, and I just vaguely sauntered off out the kitchen and down towards town.
My tribe actually told the bounty hunter which direction I had gone, but he didn't believe them because Canes Machina had given him Coors.
Riot went to watch Smashbots. I went to the mead tasting. While I was waiting in line for the mead tasting, a bounty hunter came up and declared at he was looking for "that slippery bastard, Doc Seven". I thought he had me. I was wearing the same outfit I was wearing in the Wanted Poster! He asked us what we were doing. I nonchalantly said we were waiting for the mead tasting. He... walked off without realizing I was me. He straight up did not recognize me. Then, we did the mead tasting. I won an award for the bochet? Met up with Riot. Captain Finn kindly tried to help us out with the Black Market, but we could not do the Black Market because the Faceless Merchants were too busy with Bardic Night. They told us to come back later.
We went to the Last Chance Casino. Spun the wheel. Had to do a trick. Ripped off my wig and ran away. Confused them so much that they gave me a cap. Noticed that Butler was winning at gambling and gave him most of my casino caps. Went to Uncle Zeke's. Had delicious rose earl grey tea. Lost most of the party. Eventually found them.
As it turned out, the eldritch entity that was running the Black Market was out partying and would not be back all night???
But he had left a sigil out on his door? So Riot photographed the sigil and explained what [Name] had told me to Brass from the Faceless Merchants, who was very confused and wanted to know how we knew all that?
To which I admitted that I had essentially paid off one of Skofield's Drifters.
So Brass relented, and Riot completed their trade route, and they let us in the [secret quest reward].
I asked if Nutz could be my plus one, and Brass was just like :/ fine. (Nutz was a bit injured, and he couldn’t really be questing out on his own much.)
Then I had a medical shift. It was a cold full moon. I was barfed on by a patient. It got worse from there. Enough said.
Someone tried to come bounty hunt me while I was at Medical. This is a no-no.
Saturday
Went to the swimsuit contest. Went to the Apocs for their fermented foods event. Watched the Cell Block Cabaret. Did the Public Eye raffle. Slept.
Sunday
Helped with tear down. Almost lost a sandal in a sink hole. Helped Nutz and Sugar escort away a spider that looked suspicious for being a male black widow. Lost my car keys. Checked the info tire, the Command Centre, Medical and Security. No luck. Rechecked the info tire. Found my keys. Another medical provider also found their lost keys at the same time. A small miracle. Car would not start. The first jumpstart did not work. The second jumpstart, which was done by a trained automobile mechanic from Canes Machina, did work. The tire air pressure sensor malfunction light came on mid-trip. Made it as far as Winslow, Arizona, and paused for the night.
Monday
About 45 minutes out from Albuquerque, everything that could go from with the car’s electrical system, did. We tried to pull over to a small town. The small town was closed to outsiders due to Covid 19? So we decided to just drive the Prius to a Toyota dealer in Albuquerque. It started to rain. At this point, the Prius was basically functioning as a manual, because the electrical systems were down, so it was a pretty rough ride, didn’t turn well, and didn’t brake well, but we made it there safely. We had to stay overnight for repairs.
Tuesday
Made it home. We originally didn’t think we’d be able to make it to Wasteland Weekend 2024, but now, we’re looking into options.
origamiaround
vaporwave
gummygunk
romaincrisis
dailybridgerton
snowghoul
