Visiting the Doctor Who Experience

Earlier this month, the Viking and I traveled to the U.K for a particular reason.....the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff was closing and we had delayed going for quite some time.

We had discussed traveling to the U.K and see some friends for quite some time, so this was a perfect opportunity. So, we flew into London stayed with some friends for a few days, then traveled to Wales via train, where the Doctor Who Experience is located in Cardiff.

We had anticipated that Wales would be wet and grey during our trip. However, Cardiff was lovely.  The weather couldn't have been any better....mid-to-high 60 deg F with beautiful skies.

Did you know that Cardiff is a big sports-oriented town? Neither did I, but there were a lot of sports themed stores, art, and banners around.

We visited the Doctor Who Experience (DWE) and spent a good 3-4 hours there.

 There are two parts of the DWE. First, a Timelord guide takes you on an hour-long trip with the 12th Doctor (Capaldi's Doctor) to recover crystals to save the Universe. Amoung many of the Doctor's enemies, you encounter Daleks and Weeping Angels....

Despite it being geared towards kids, I enjoyed it...and the huge room full of Daleks and graveyard full of Angels was a tad bit scary and creepy.

The second half of the DWE is a museum of many of the props and costumes from the show ---from the aliens, to many of the companions, to the Doctors themselves, and the different TARDIS consoles. This museum is where we spent a great deal of time.

 

The Face of Bo

   

Did I forget something??

 

Just a few different props

 

And more aliens

Not to mention a K-9. (Not the original...we saw that one at GallifreyOne, but this one is just a replica.)

And so many TARDI! They had a few from different eras.

And their consoles.

I ended up taking a lot of reference photos of various costumes from the set. (I'll see about posting the others later.)

The one nice thing about the exhibit is that you could really get up close and personal with a lot of the costumes and props. They asked you not to touch anything (totally reasonable), but many things were out in the open where you could seriously inspect types of fabric, accessory choices, etc., without having to second guess through glass.

The whole thing was amazing and we had a blast. We eventually left because we really needed to get food after 4 hours! We heard that the lease might be extended, so we'll wait and see! We'd definitely go again, if just to do more research!

 Afterwards, we visited Cardiff and, of course, the location for Torchwood.

No, we aren't geeks, why do you ask?

We also visited Ianto's shrine on the Cardiff pier.

Because that's the way we roll. :-)

We did do a lot more than just travel to a few geek meccas. We visited parts of Cardiff, spent time around London, and visited Scotland, as well a local yarn shop and some geek areas, but that's another post for another time.

GallifreyOne 2017

It's been a helluva year so far (for many reasons), and I've been keeping myself super busy between work, archery tournaments, and going to Conventions. Consequently, I'm behind on nearly everything, including posting about the various things I've been up to the past month. I'm posting these reports out of order, because I won't get to them otherwise.

In addition, the graphics card on my computer died in the past 3 weeks and Amazon has yet to send the replacement part we ordered, which means I can't actually get to any photos except for those on my mobile phone. If I continue waiting to get the actual photos, these reports won't get posted.

So, back in mid February for Prez Day Weekend (Feb 17-19), my Viking and I drove to Los Angeles to attend the Doctor Who convention, GallifreyOne, that we've been attending for quite a number of years. Unlike most years, I had been travelling non-stop for several weekends, and I went into this convention extremely tired and a big haggard.

How haggard, you might ask? Well, because I didn't have much time to sew any new costumes, I opted to cosplay from my closet. I chose to do one major cosplay outfit for the weekend, and had it all packed and hanging next to the luggage ready to be taken out to the car when it got packed. Can you guess what happened next?

The costume didn't get put into the car.

I didn't realize it until we started unloading our luggage into the hotel! DOH! Ah well.

I did, however, pack a number of Dr. Who themed t-shirts in my regular luggage, so all went well. The whole convention was a nice chance to relax and see a few people, including our beloved co-host ESPAÑA who was there with her hubby! We managed to record a podcast, which I will post soon! (I promise).

I attended quite a few panels, including the Iron Costumer panel that is based on Iron Chef. Two groups of costumers (Team Rassilon and Team Omega) go head to head to sew and create a costume that would fit in the classic Doctor Who series in under 60 minutes!

Both myself and the Viking were on a couple of panels. I sat on a panel of 5 for Doctor Who crafting, as well as a cosplay photography panel. It was quite fun.

Of course, there was plenty of cosplay at the Convention. There was plenty of new Dr. Who characters, including this wonderful 4-year old who cosplayed one of the Weeping Angel Cherubs. And a wonderful Cleopatra

And there were plenty of old Dr. Who characters. Some of them were quite as hokey as you'd imagine!

I wish I had more photos to share, but as mentioned above, they are on my main camera body but my computer is unavailable for me to download. I shall share them as I am able.

Legos

I love Legos. I never had them as a kid, but I discovered them in college. A former roommate was a Lego representative for our area, so he managed to get us a bunch of Lego sets. My nieces and nephews have a ton of Legos and I enjoy building those things with them.

This past weekend, my in-laws gave me a belated holiday gift -- A Doctor Who Lego set!!

What's not to love? I'm a total geek over Doctor Who, and Legos definitely falls into "making and crafting".

A friend was over, so we decided to break it out. Her OCD nature organized the pieces by color and size.

There's over 600 pieces! The first order of the day was to put together the actual figures, as they are the easiest things to create.

However, it was interesting to note that Clara, the 11th Doctor (Matt Smith), and the Weeping Angel had two different faces on a single head  -- one smiley face and one serious face --- or in the case of the Weeping Angel --- one SCARY face and one not-so-scarey-face.

Whereas the 12th Doctor (Peter Capaldi) only had the single serious face.  I think there's a definite resemblance there!

We had to keep the cats from playing with the Lego pieces. We finally hit on a compromise and set up a "distraction" fabric away from the Legos. Pharaoh was very put out that we wouldn't let him bat around the pieces.

It took an hour to complete the control room. Then another hour for just the TARDIS portion.

There were 129 pages of instructions! But I'm amazed at how well it came together. The Daleks look like Daleks.

Unfortunately at one point, we had to deconstruct a good chunk of the control room, because we realized that we had misused two pieces that we needed for something else -- there was a couple of pieces that looked exactly like each other except for a cut-out opening. Then there were the weird leftover / extra pieces; we were afraid that we had done something wrong, but everything seemed okay.

Overall, it was a blast building it. The TARDIS detached from the control room as a separate individual piece, so we could just play with the TARDIS if we wanted. I love the Daleks and Weeping Angel.

I think I need more Legos.

Rosie the TARDIS

I've always wanted to do a TARDIS-inspired outfit, but unfortunately, there are a bajillion versions of the TARDIS outfit, including a lot of commercially available TARDIS dresses and patterns, which are pretty cool-looking, but not unique to me.

From Her Universe.com	From Simplicity Patterns

I wanted a different take on my TARDIS outfit. The idea finally came to me while I was prepping for the  world-record for a thousand Rosies that was being held in Richmond, CA. 

I was unable to actually attend the event, BUT, the idea stuck with me. Rosie wears a dark blue work coverall, which are close enough to TARDIS blue; the official Pantone color is 295CC (despite there being a number of different hues of the TARDIS over 50 years). I knew it'd be an easy costume to create. I could use the coveralls that I had purchased online for the event and re-purpose them into a most comfortable hall costume.

Red Kap Button-front Cotton Coverall

I took the extra POLICE BOX sign that I had created for my TARDIS messenger bag.

And sewed it to the back of the coveralls. I also made some "windows" for the back. I made different versions of the windows to see which one would work well.

First, I thought about just using fabric paint, but ended up using an applique stitch. (I ended up using the 3rd from the left.)

I took some of the patches that I had purchased previously and added them to the front -- because who doesn't have Doctor Who patches lying around? ;-)

Also, to simulate the Union pin on Rosie's collar, I added a Gallifreyean pin that I had purchased while at the convention.

Luckily, I already had a Dr. Who themed bandana to wear with it! I had made it back in August 2015. I just love being able to re-use the things I make into different costumes.

The result? One Rosie the TARDIS...although it's probably closer to Idris the TARDIS.

From one TARDIS to another

Rosie wears workboots in her poster, and I thought it appropo to wear the 10th Doctor's Converse shoes as a contrasting point for the outfit.

The outfit was utterly comfortable to wear around all day. AND, it had POCKETS so I could stick a plethora of Con-gear into them -- hotel key, wallet, phone, small knitting bag, fan, etc., Plus, it was a big hit amoung the other costumers as it was a completely different take on the entire TARDIS costume. I got stopped for photos quite frequently. My Dear Viking joked that next year at Gallifrey, we would see more Rosies.