2020 is over!!!!!

I always enjoy writing a year-end wrap up. I wasn’t going to do one this year because, spoiler, 2020 was hot garbage, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I still needed to do it before I could finally close out this stupid year, so here we are...

2020. Twenty fucking twenty. 2020 is definitely a thing that happened. A thing that happened to us all. 2019 was also a thing that happened to me, so I went into this year with my mental health being pretty fragile. And just as I was starting to heal, the world fell apart around us. I spent the majority of this year just trying to stay alive and stay sane. Making stuff felt much less important, it felt hollow.

Warning: This will not be an upbeat, celebratory list of amazing accomplishments. This will be something closer to a eulogy for the life I had in the before-times and a hopeful look forward towards the future.

I ended my commission business this year. I did this for a few reasons - I had been wanting to do fewer commissions, for reasons I laid out in an earlier post, and I wanted to transition into a business based on production-run products. Once in-person events started to cancel because of the pandemic, the costume business kind of fizzled out, and I took that opportunity to re-brand and re-launch as a brand new business.

I made a few cool costumes before that happened, though!

General Hux

I’m so proud of this costume! If you know me you know I’m a sucker for an epic coat, and this was the most epic coat ever! The lapels were huge, the back was so detailed, the fabric was luxe, it was a challenge to make and an absolute joy to look at once it was done! Of all the costumes I’ve made over the years, this is one of my very favorites.

Dread Pirate Roberts

This was a fun one where I learned a new technique! I’d never smocked fabric before, and there was a large smocked panel on each shoulder. It was time consuming and a geometric challenge, but the results are fabulous! I also made the pants, belt sash, and head scarf he’s wearing. This photo was taken at C2E2, which was probably the last big convention before the world shut down. This costume also gave me an excuse to watch the movie again! I’d kind of forgotten how good it was!

Psylocke

The costume was about 90% complete in this picture. I couldn’t put it on the dress form after I sewed up the legs, and I never got pics back from the client, so this is the best I’ve got. This one was just fun to make - the sleeves were insane and the waist cutouts were weird, and I’m sure the client rocked it! This one was also meant for C2E2, so I hope it was worn and seen and appreciated!

Once Emerald City Comic Con (originally scheduled for mid-March) was canceled, it felt like the beginning of the end. I know a lot of people remained optimistic that we’d have a SDCC or a DragonCon, but I was still recovering from the previous year’s depression and nihilism, and the collective fear we felt at the beginning of the pandemic just brought all those feelings back and made me feel like the whole world was canceled forever. It was a tough summer.

Masks

April through July I made masks. A lot of masks. SO MANY MASKS!!!!! I lost count of how many I made, but I was churning out a few dozen every week. (This picture is from the very first batch I made.) This was also the last time I actually left the state. Fabric was in such short supply this summer that in order to get mask making supplies quickly I spent a day doing curbside pickup at three different JoAnns, two out in the suburbs, one about an hour away in Washington! I’m very proud of the masks I made, and that I was able to make a positive contribution to the public health effort! Nothing made me happier this year than seeing pictures of friends out living their lives and wearing one of my masks!

I heard later that even sewing machines were in high demand and hard to find this year! I love sewing, I’m glad that the quarantine gave people an opportunity to find or re-discover it!

Galactic Outsider

In September I launched the new store - Galactic Outsider - selling patches, pins, stickers, and other stuff. I’m designing the products and having them manufactured in smallish runs. This was a gamble - the initial manufacturing comes out of my pocket, and then I just have to hope I get enough sales to cover it - but it’s starting to pay off! I had a successful launch, and a surprisingly great Thanksgiving/Christmas season, and sales are still strong even after Christmas! I feel really good about the direction this is going. And I’m really loving the fact that I can create what I want to create! Commissions were limiting. This gives me the creative freedom I’ve been missing!

So the year ended strong. It was a whole series of nightmares for the most part, but some good did come. And now it feels like we’re finally coming out the other side and we’re on the path to recovery and healing, both physically and mentally, individually and collectively.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this blog. I start every year with big, ambitious plans for it, and then those plans get de-prioritized and this blog gets forgotten about. I would like to make something happen here, but I have no solid plans today. So, I don’t know, stay tuned, we’ll see what happens 😄

Happy new year, friends! May it be infinitely better than the old one 💜