I’m going to Maker Faire Bay Area this weekend.
Normally, that sentence would be immediately followed by some version of: obviously I’m wearing a costume.
Maker Faire has become weirdly important to me in that way. A couple years ago I wrote about how going there helped kickstart a lot of what I ended up doing with cosplay. Last year I wore League Ashe. There usually aren’t that many cosplayers there, which honestly makes it more fun. At PAX or Comic Con, cosplay is everywhere. At Maker Faire, you’re one of maybe a handful of people wandering around dressed like a video game character.
Apparently the only picture I have of myself is of Ashe holding a sword.
I like that.
So this year I decided I should wear Overwatch Ashe.
And then reality started filing paperwork.
The biggest problem was the gun.
The gun is 42” long. Alaska Airlines says it must fit in a box 62 linear inches max. Possible? Sure. But will it get there in one piece?
Ashe without her gun is not exactly unheard of. I wore League Ashe last year without the bow and somehow survived the indignity. I’ve even seen Ashe cosplayers in the wild without a gun. But if I wanted to bring the gun this time, I would have to check it.
That meant figuring out whether it fit within the airline’s size limits, making a box for it, paying around $90 in baggage fees, and still worrying about whether Maker Faire would actually let me in with it.
I emailed them with a photo. I was told it should probably be okay, but I never got the nice official confirmation my anxiety wanted.
Then there were the grenades.
Trust me, they’re fake!
Those come apart, but TSA does not particularly care about the emotional context behind why you are flying with objects shaped like grenades.
At some point I realized I was seriously considering paying $90 to check a giant fake gun while also trying to determine how grenade-like my fake grenades looked when disassembled.
A normal person would probably have reached the conclusion much earlier:
Just wear clothes.
Unfortunately, I had also decided that if I was going to wear Ashe, I should finally repair the pants.
The old brown vinyl sections were falling apart. I had already unstitched them. I redesigned and printed one of the knee pieces, which was actually fun. I could have kept going. I could have printed the other parts, sanded things, cut new fabric, rebuilt everything.
I actually used AI to generate the file for this print.
This defintiely needed to be replaced.
But I didn’t really want to.
That was harder to admit than it probably should have been.
It wasn’t that I suddenly stopped caring about the costume. I still want to repair it. I still want to make the new pieces. I still want to wear Ashe again.
I just did not want to do it this week.
And I think part of the problem was that my apartment still felt like the aftermath of the last month.
WTF was I thinking hoarding all this?
I had boxes everywhere because I thought I might need them to ship or pack the gun. My big suitcase was still sitting out because I’m waiting until after Maker Faire to make a trip to the self storage place. My craft area was still being reorganized. I had moved a bunch of stuff into the loft, filled out my Kallax, and spent an unreasonable amount of time wrapping fabric onto tiny bolts because apparently I enjoy creating extremely specific forms of suffering for myself.
The customization options with this shelf are fantastic. 10/10 would buy again.
I hate it.
It looks nice, though.
The important thing is that I noticed something.
I wasn’t avoiding making things.
I printed the knee piece. I took apart the pants. I reorganized supplies. I built out storage.
What I was avoiding was sewing.
And sewing, in my apartment right now, was not one task.
It was:
Clear space.
Move boxes.
Find the fabric.
Find the tools.
Find replacement notions.
Figure out where everything goes.
Cut things.
Then finally sew.
The repair had quietly turned into “finish reorganizing the apartment, then fix the costume.”
The photo looks alright because I pushed everything out of the way here.
And here I insisted on a shelf instead of boxes of scraps.
And maybe this is where I should mention that I just did PAX and BlizzCon.
I have not even written those posts yet.
The month before them involved a frankly stupid amount of sleep deprivation, last-minute fabrication, broken parts, electronics, body paint, travel, Disneyland, hotel room repairs, and trying to finish things right up until I physically ran out of time.
Then I came home.
For one week.
Apparently I expected myself to immediately have my apartment clean, my craft room functional, Ashe repaired, and another cosplay weekend ready to go.
Very reasonable.
Very sustainable.
No notes.
The truth is that I think I am still coming down from all of it.
And the annoying part is that Maker Faire feels special enough that not cosplaying there feels wrong.
I wrote before about how much the event meant to me when I was getting into cosplay. It became one of those places where wearing something I made felt like part of the experience.
2024 Bay Area Maker Faire Trip
So when I started thinking about going in regular clothes, it weirdly felt like I was breaking a tradition.
Not wearing a costume felt like giving something up.
Which is dramatic.
But also apparently true.
The thing I had to remind myself is that I am still going as a maker.
I made clothes.
I have a knit dress I made. And I also have a cute lacy top.
Those are not cosplay, but they are still things I made with my own hands.
That feels like a much better compromise than turning this weekend into another deadline.
Because I know how this goes.
“I just need to fix the pants” becomes “I might as well print the other pieces.”
Then “I should probably sand them.”
Then “I should really bring the gun.”
Then I’m building a rifle-sized box at midnight, paying $90 in baggage fees, wondering whether airport security is going to confiscate my fake grenades, and getting up for a 7:18 AM flight.
At some point you have to recognize that you are creating your own problem.
So I am officially not cosplaying at Maker Faire this year.
I’m saying that firmly because otherwise my brain will leave the door open and suddenly decide at 10 PM the night before the flight that actually, if I just work efficiently, I can totally finish everything.
No.
The costume is not going anywhere.
The pants can sit there unfinished. The gun can stay home. TSA can go one entire weekend without having to contemplate my fake grenades.
I’m going to wear clothes, drink something caffeinated, look at cool shit people made, and let that be enough.
I’ll still be there.
Just in regular clothes.
Well, regular clothes I made.