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Monday 24 September 2012

Weekend at the Asylum - Part 3

Matt and I were at our posts for most of the event, but I did manage to have a little wander round and chat to various participants. In so doing, I gathered a fair posy of calling cards, the links of which I shall display below for your delectation.

Please follow whichever you are drawn to. If one of these links is yours, send me a couple of pictures, if you have them, and I will Edit them in.

Firstly, our lovely neighbours: Curious Fashion who also have a shop on Etsy . The creatrix also has another venture: Alice's Night Circus I can't wait to hear more!

Our other neighbour sold (out of) beautiful parasols and various things, including the squeaky hamsters. They made me smile :) Templarcraft 

'Second Coming, Ms D-.'s Costuming Empire is so often gadding about at events that she hasn't tethered her shop to the aetherweb. Instead, contact her (Second Coming) at hotmail.com. Type it as you would a normal email address (hopefully we'll spare her from spam).

A talented chap by the names of John / London Jack creates multi-period, hand crafted, custom built leatherwork. He does such a splendid job and is just reaching out into the realm of Steampunk, having mainly focussed on the Wild West re-enactment scene. He can be found at: www.londonjack1880.etsy.com 

More lovely costume pieces were to be found at Designer Rags. Contact June Cragg at hotmail.com for details. 

 I got chatting to a pleasant author fellow called Craig Hallam. His purpose at the convivial was to invite people to purchase his new book, Greaveburn. He can be found on Twitter as @craighallam84. Alternatively, visit his blog: www.craighallam.wordpress.com 

Tom and Nimue Brown's stall, covered in beautiful graphic art, made me stop and goggle. Their Gothic webcomic looks interesting and I'll be paying them a call when I can. 

Dr Geof's page has an assortment of sciency, tea related, Steampunky and occassionally gothy things. Another one I need to explore more! 

If you are interested in the 1940's, do take a look at The Anderson's page: www.1940s.info

ESPTV were wandering around filming and caught ArcaneArmoury and TheNavigatrix on film, briefly. They are officially launching their internet TV channel in October. 

Also in attendance was a photographer from the Lincolnshire Echo. I'll be checking out www.thisisphotosales.co.uk/lincolnshire to find my portrait :) She did like my mirror..

When you follow these links, do take a moment to let them know that The Navigatrix sent you, many thanks.

Feel free to share these around, backlink to this page and to The Navigatrix and Arcane Armoury's Etsy shops. Your help is much appreciated. I do hope these links prove both useful and amusing. Thankyou to everyone who gave their card for giving permission for me to share.



Weekend at the Asylum Part 2


I have a stack of cards in front of me from various other traders and participants, so many goodies for you to take a look at! You will find a list of links later on but first, some more pictures from the event:

A new friend
One happy customer :)


Arcane Armoury


Matt and 'Magdalena' 
Snow White



I am The Navigatrix!
The Bustle Balloon Skirt 
 The standard of costume was very high, with so much attention to detail. There were a fair few nods to existing characters and creations. I particularly liked the wheelchair done up as a Time Machine, the family dressed as Steampunk versions of Batman, Robin and Catwoman, The Invisible Man (hats off to you sir, to walk around in that heat completely covered by long, heavy dark coat, black fez, sunglasses and bandages!), Lady Cottington from Brian Froud's book of pressed faeries, Judge Dredd...you all gave us much amusement, thankyou!

If you see yourself or someone you know, please leave a comment below, thanks! I'll add captions if you ask. 

Castle Square, full of bemused tourists!




Silhouette Brooch. Does she look like someone you know?
 Well, there were so many photos I'm going to have to do a Part Three! Thankyou for looking. Do Follow and share this Blog, many thanks.

Sunday 23 September 2012

Welcome to the Asylum - The VSS Steampunk Event, Lincoln, Sept 2012

We set off early, squeezed into the car with two stalls worth of stock, my hubby driving and our daughter snug in her carseat, excited to be off to see Grandma and Grandad. Matt could hardly be seen underneath two large packages. (Oh how I wish I'd taken that picture!)

We sat through the trip, which took the best part of an hour, in full Steampunk costume. It is not an easy matter to sit corseted in a low automobile seat! We arrived in good time and met Trevor of the impressive moustache and deerstalker, a very nice chap and in charge of the market stalls.


Sister shop and brother shop, side by side. We were both happy with the way that our styles and colour schemes complemented one another's. The damask patterned taffeta cloth that I found from eBay, one on brown, the other black, really worked to tie our two stalls together and helped show off our wares admirably. 


The Navigatrix
Arcane Armoury
The Navigatrix and..


Matt's display
The display
Almost half of the stock I took was made for this event along with a few pieces that had not been listed from a local Steam and Vintage Fair during the summer. Of those pieces that came home with me, I only have about ten left to add to my Etsy shop.

The gloves (both now sold) that you can see at the front of the stall attracted a lot of attention. I could have sold 12 pairs easily, had they been a little larger. 

It is very interesting to see what people are most interested in. Having a market stall gave me some good ideas as to what to make next - more gloves, for one!

The atmosphere at this event was lovely. So relaxed and welcoming. We were both quite happy to sit and watch people passing by as there were some wonderful costumes, the overall standard of which was very impressive. I'll show you some later!  

Lovely weather for it!












THE Steampunk Guitar

Matt's original design Steampunk Electric Guitar attracted a lot of attention. It is still waiting to find its rightful owner, though a few were sorely tempted. It was allowed down from its place of suspension on the Sunday, plugged into a mini amp and played. There was a lot of music in Castle Square on the Saturday! Matt has, however, recently received a music-related commission. Have a look at his Facebook page for updates on his work:

ArcaneArmoury on Facebook

I'll leave you with a few more pictures. In part two of this blog article, I will introduce you to some of the people at the event and share lots of great links...I went round collecting cards from all sorts of  creative Steampunk types.











Do take one!



Sunday 2 September 2012

Shop Announcement and Intentions

The Navigatrix's Etsy shop will be set to 'Vacation' mode on Friday evening, in preparation for next weekend's upcoming event (8th & 9th September). Basically, it's because I'm taking all of my current stock with me. 

When I return, I will relist any remaining items and begin putting up any surviving new goodies that I have recently made. I intend to begin featuring other sellers, relevant, somehow to what I produce, so if you have any good suggestions of Bloggers who make Steampunk/Neo-Victorian items, who upcycle or are related in some way to the feel of The Navigatrix, do please let me know. Post your comments and suggestions aplenty below.

Let's build this Blog together. Share it on your Twitter, Facebook, Etsy Team, Google or other social media. Imagine this as the midpoint of the compass with lots of interesting stuff to point to! I'm learning as I go and I really appreciate all the help you'd like to offer.

My motto, at the moment, is 'do what I can with what I've got' and that includes time. However, I reckon that if I can help a few people get some exposure for their work, then that will help The Navigatrix in turn. Which means a decent sized business to provide my family with a good second income. (Hubby is a Careworker, they deserve a lot more reward than they receive).

So, how could I, in my own small way, help you out? 



Ooh, I've been Bloggered! 

I was surprised to find that I've been featured here:

Studio Stories

Thanks to Suzanna. You're on my list *to be featured*.

Do you think it would be possible to get 100 followers by the end of the year? What would you like to see here? Any improvements I could make? What do you like about this blog? I'm hoping to start running competitions here. Do you have any ideas about that? What sort of thing would you like to win?

These Lacy Rivet gloves are size S/M. Available soon - remember, everything is a One Of A Kind (OOAK)

The Gizmoidus....available from 8th September
Over to you...comments please :)