We Left the Kids at Home and Went to Chicago: Day 3 at the Museum of Science and Industry

I know I said that I vowed to myself that I wouldn't spend my entire time in Chicago in museums (again), but I can't travel someplace with awesome museums and go to none of them!

Matt and I really like Marvel stuff, comics, and costumes, so we were stoked to go to the traveling Marvel exhibit in the Museum of Science and Industry. It was especially apropos since our hotel's TV had randomly been playing a constant stream of Avengers movies on two different channels the entire time we were there--like, if you wanted to turn off one movie because you hate the sad part with Bucky, you could just turn to the other channel with a different movie and enjoy the antics of Thor for a while.

Here are a billion photos of exhibit!

first Marvel comic

Here are the interior pages of the first Marvel comic, including Namor's origin. I LOVE the Sub-Mariner, firstly because I love to pronounce his name wrong, and secondly because his inconsistent plotlines over the decades have turned him into a chaos goblin. When you encounter him, is he going to try to genocide you for the good of the ocean or invite you to his underwater palace to marry him? 

Matt had to be cajoled into taking this photo, but the dudes in line right behind us did the exact same pose so see, it's NOT weird!

Fantastic Four #1

Here's some original cover art. I really like the way that additions were literally pasted onto the page.

Sometimes those additions are ripped from the headlines!

And they got the quote right! I wonder when popular media began to incorrectly quote Armstrong, because it was definitely said the wrong way when I was a kid.

Some more original art. You know how much I love Captain America!

test artwork for Into the Spider-Verse

This is the first Spider-Man cover. They had a really cool display contrasting it with the original cover art, which is very different, and the critiques of Spider-Man's posture in that art that caused the changes.

cover art by Todd McFarlane, who Matt really likes

I, meanwhile, had NO PROBLEM doing the upside-down Spider-Man kiss pose, even though I look like an ass.

This costume was really cool. The sign said that all the little bumps on it were 3D-printed, but it didn't say if the signs of wear were intentional or resulted from literal wear-and-tear during filming. I'm so curious!

Winter Soldier costume! Thanks to the museum lighting plus my phone's camera, I can't get the tone right here. Bucky wears BLACK techwear, not grey!

I'm obsessed with the Bucky/Captain American plotline in the films. I hadn't read any Captain America comics before I watched the first Captain America movie, and I kind of suspect that Matt kept any comic-related spoilers away from me on purpose, because I got SO sucked in! 

I mean, I possibly got sucked in because I kept waiting for Steve and Bucky to kiss at any moment, but whatever. 

Like, I was biting my nails during all the World War 2 fighting scenes, and then Bucky! DIED!!!!! WTF?!?!?!? And Steve was so grief-stricken that he flew a literal plane into the literal ocean! OMG!!! But then he didn't even get to die and be reunited with his One True Love in the afterlife, because he got defrosted a billion years/three days later, and basically sent right back to the fighting that he'd just tried to escape from out of grief! And he's all trying to cope with a whole new world where everything looks different and smells different and tastes different and nothing is familiar and everyone he loves is gone, at the same time as people are, like... making fun of him for it? Like, "Ha, ha! The style of clothes you feel safe and comfortable in aren't stylish anymore! The music that calms you and feels familiar is gross! Go fight some aliens!"

So Steve adapts, because at this point he's pretty much learned that even death isn't an escape, and attempts to move on with his life even while being surveilled and used as a weapon and forced to continue with the dancing monkey act. Did anyone even ask if he maybe wanted to retire and go to art school? Get this guy some GI Bill! And a therapist who's not secretly Hydra!

Anyway, so Matt and I are in the theater watching Steve's Depressing Life 2.0, when up jumps the Big Baddie, the Winter Soldier. And there's a super great chase scene, and some awesome fighting, and the Winter Soldier is all decked out in black techwear head to toe except for his silver Soviet arm and his hair falling in his face. Somebody find this guy a ponytail ring. I'm super into it. 

So in this particular scene that I will never forget until the second I die--like, I will probably be contentedly playing it in my head AS I die--the Winter Soldier is fighting Steve, who's wearing literal khakis and a plain shirt and a kind of windbreaker thing exactly like my Pappa, and Steve's just doggedly fighting on, as he represses all his emotions from his entire life ALSO just like my Pappa.

They're fist-fighting. The Winter Soldier's got a knife. It is GREAT. I am having an amazing time.

We're all up close in the fight, and they're punching each other hard and the Winter Soldier keeps just barely almost knifing Steve in the face and they're tossing each other around, etc. And then Steve throws the Winter Soldier, who hits the pavement and rolls, and in the process his mask gets knocked off and is just lying there on the street. So when the Winter Soldier turns around to face Steve again, we can finally see his face.

And Steve stops, stunned, and is all, "Bucky?"

And from the middle of the packed theater, surrounded by a crowd of strangers, I'm all, "BUCKY?!?!?!?" with my fists to my mouth and my brain on pause and Matt snickering in the seat next to me. It is the absolute only time in my life that I have ever been sucker-punched by a movie twist like that. History's greatest moment of cinema, in my opinion. 

Not gonna lie, though: they really missed out by not staging a display that mimicked the Smithsonian Captain America uniform display in the movie.

Also this reminds me of the Marvel Zombies comics.

Mark 1 from Iron Man

Loki! Don't spoil me for the Disney+ series, because I haven't seen it yet. 

That's me, just trying to fit the reflection of my head into Loki's helmet!

Original cover art for the Vision's first comic appearance. I DID watch WandaVision on Disney+, and I'd be happy to natter on endlessly about it with you!

Mock-ups for the credit sequence in the Winter Soldier movie.

costume for Luke Cage, whose show I have not seen, but I like the idea of creating rips/holes in a hoodie this way. Perhaps with another fabric reverse appliqued underneath?

Eye of Agamotto from the Dr. Strange movie

Wolverine #1

Groot is so realistic!

I really love all the details on his jacket. Those pins!

Check out all the lines of stitching. That's a really interesting way to embellish something, and I'm going to try it!

After Marveling ourselves out, Matt and I checked out the rest of the Museum of Science and Industry--

--and then drove four hours back home to the kiddos. Syd had planned to make us a special lasagna soup as a homecoming dinner, but we all realized around Indianapolis, when she texted me asking where the ground beef was, and I replied that it was in the... wait, where was it?!?... that Kroger hadn't given us the ground beef that we'd paid for in our ClickList order (and that's how I learned the basic skill of actually double-checking your pick-up receipt when you get home from the grocery store!), so we picked up a pizza instead.

Syd made us lasagna soup the next day, don't worry. Tastes just like lasagna in a bowl, 10/10, highly recommend.

Here's the first day of our trip at Indiana Dunes National Park.

Here's our second day on Chicago's Lakefront Trail.

Here's our haunted Chicago hotel.

Here's how to find me on Facebook!

How to Sew an Upcycled Denim Skirt from Your Old Blue Jeans

This tutorial was originally published on Crafting a Green World in 2017.

 If you sew, and especially if you love to upcycle, the upcycled denim skirt is a rite of passage. Here's how to make one! 

 You will need: 

  well-fitting pair of blue jeans. Maybe they have holes in the knees that you don't want to patch. Maybe they're too short, and you don't want to sew on a cuff or a ruffle. Whatever the reason for converting them into a skirt, they should fit well in the waist. 

  thread and sewing needle for denim. I like using the extra-strong thread made especially for denim, and you'll need an extra-sharp needle for your sewing machine. 

  decorative fabric scrap (optional). You can piece together the front and back panels of your skirt using the legs from your jeans, but it's also possible, as I did in the photo above, to use a contrasting fabric. Flannel is a good choice to better match the weight of the denim, but anything will work.

  double-fold bias tape (optional). In the image above, you'll also see that I bound the bottom hem with scrap bias tape. It's optional, as you can also simply hem the bottom. 

 1. Measure and cut off the legs of your jeans. Measure from your waist to your desired hemline, then add a couple of inches for hem allowance and shaping. Place your jeans flat onto a cutting mat (iron them first if you need to), with the front and back waistband aligned and the crotch seam centered. See the image above for what that should look like. Cut the legs of the jeans straight across at your measurement, and set them aside for later. 

 2. Pick apart the inseam. You can use a seam ripper for this step, but I actually prefer a sharp pair of thread scissors. Either way, don't be surprised if it makes your hands sore--this step can be a lot of work! 

 3. Sew up the crotch overlap. Iron the jeans again, flattening them and adjusting them so that the outside leg seams are straight. This should shape the jeans into a natural A-line, but there should also be a triangle-shaped flap of fabric at the crotch that you'll have to overlap. You can pick apart the seam there to overlap it more smoothly, but with these thin, child-sized jeans, I just folded the flap over, pinned, then sewed it down. Here's what it looks like from the inside, with contrasting thread so you can see it: 

 Repeat for the back side of the jeans. 

  4. Add a panel of fabric to the front and back. Again shape and flatten the jeans as you did in step 3, then place a panel of fabric behind the legs, to cover the large, triangular-shaped hole in the front of the jeans. Pin it in place-- 

 --then sew around the raw edges of the jeans legs. Turn the jeans inside out and cut away the excess fabric on the outside of that stitching line. The visible raw edges of the jeans legs will fray slightly with washing, but won't fray past your stitching line. It'll look pretty! 

 Repeat for the other side of the jeans.

  5. Shape the skirt. Once again flatten, shape, and align your denim skirt on top of a cutting mat. Use a piece of chalk to shape the bottom edge of the skirt into a more pleasing curve, then trim it to that shape. 

  6. Hem or bind the bottom edge of the skirt. There are a few ways to do this. If your skirt is all denim, you can again stitch around the bottom hem, leaving it to fray up to but not past that stitching line. If you prefer a neat edge, you can fold the entire bottom edge up to the back twice, then sew it to make a traditional hem. 

 I got my daughter's approval to use up a couple of leftover pieces of bias tape to bind around the bottom of the skirt. She likes the extra pop of color, and I think that a bias tape hem is easier to do than folding denim over twice and trying to sew it. 

 Once you've got this method down, you'll find that there are a lot of fun ways to alter, embellish, and otherwise play with this simple design.

We Left the Kids at Home and Went to Chicago: We Low-Key Loved Our Haunted Hotel

 

To be fair, though, we didn't know it was meant to be haunted when we booked it... or even while we were staying there, dang it, or, not gonna lie, I'd have been searching out those sealed-up rooms and hallways populated with ghosts.

The Congress Plaza is now, however, my favorite hotel. The price was excellent for our excellent location just a couple of blocks from the Art Institute of Chicago, Millennium Park, Grant Park, and the Lakefront Trail. And look at the view from our window!

That's Lake Michigan in the distance, with the Buckingham Fountain show in front of it.

Beyond the price, though, I was super into the Congress Plaza mostly because it's this charmingly weird combination of luxurious and decrepit. Like, you can definitely tell that everything about it used to be super nice, but that time was probably when it was first built for the 1893 World's Fair, and it probably hasn't been updated since.

Instead, any further amenities seem to have just been weirdly tacked on, and it makes them all look hella creepy.

Here, for instance, is the entrance to the exercise room, down a couple of abandoned staircases and a completely empty narrow hallway with vast, dark, empty rooms on one side and locked, unlabeled doors on the other:

And here's the room itself!

At the other end of that room is another hallway, this one even more decrepit and abandoned and seemingly not for guest access, but who knows because the door to it wasn't even closed?

Go down another couple of flights of stairs--

--and there is a seemingly totally empty entire floor to the hotel, just a single still escalator from the noisy lobby.

And it is MIRRORED:

The doors leading away from this giant, mirrored space are all closed but unlocked, and if you go through the ones on the right, you enter this huge, abandoned, two-story auditorium:

Matt and I wandered the hotel for quite a while one evening, discovering silent pianos, bay windows overlooking the busy street, leaky ceilings, gilded bits of finery, and then we went back to our room, turned on an Avengers movie, and ate delicious takeout pizza:

It was the first Saturday after Independence Day, an unusual but not unheard-of time, I suppose, to look out one's hotel window later that evening and see that there was a fireworks show going on over Navy Pier:

And guess who had the perfect view?!?

I've been keeping an eye on Congress Plaza Hotel prices out of curiosity, because it's also across the street from my favorite music festival, which is happening next weekend. Unsurprisingly, it's now sold out for that weekend, but before it sold out, reservations were about a hundred dollars more per night than we'd paid, which honestly isn't unreasonable considering its excellent location.

Does that fact that it's haunted keep the prices down?

Here's the first day of our trip at Indiana Dunes National Park.

Here's the second day of our trip on the Lakefront Trail.

The last day of our trip will be at the Museum of Science and Industry to see their Marvel exhibit!

Psst! Come find me on Facebook!