It feels a little odd to make a blog post about a virtual convention, but it's still my first event of the year and I made an event of it, so here we go!

Panels!
I had other obligations going on all weekend so I couldn't watch all day every day, and there were several panels that I only caught about half of, but they all had something interesting to offer. I'll link to each of the videos where available. On Friday I caught the Opening Ceremonies, part of FMV Chaos, most of Surviving Capitalism, my BF and I performed shockingly poorly in the Name That Tune game, and had a lot of laughs in the Monsters I'd like to F--- late-night panel. Saturday daytime was busy with party prep (more on that below) but we did make sure to catch our friends panels There's An Indie for That V and Secret Lessons of Video Games. Sunday was the hardest to manage since it's sleep-in day plus we had tickets to a hockey game, but did watch Neurodivergent Strategies as well as Kon's Mystery Conclusion and Closing Ceremonies.

Masquerade (and more) watch party!
It's always more fun watching a masquerade with friends, so we invited a bunch or people over for an evening watch party/drinks and dancing. Also because it was my Birthday LOL. I threw on an even simpler version of the Team Rocket grunt cosplay I wore at Yeti last year and settled in to hang with friends. We watched Con-G the rest of the night: the Masquerade, Warning: Incoming Drinks (while madly mixing beverages for the party), FMV dance party (with lots of dancing along), and finally more late-night content with Intro to Kink for the last partiers.

I submitted TWO entries into the masquerade this year - one "serious" entry (below), though the content of my presentation was not - and one just for funsies since I had the video already recorded. I ended up winning Best Master Workmanship for Mario NasKart which was so exciting! Considering the win, and how much effort I accidentally put into the workmanship judging video, I'm sharing that below as well

I definitely don't want to call Anime North "routine", but I've been going since 2004 and being on staff yearly now, there is a definite pattern to my weekends. I'll try not to say "as usual" too often here LOL.

For Friday of Anime North this year I decided to bring out Megara again! She needs to be seen more while she still fits! It was a pretty typical AN Friday: I met up with my friends and roomies, picked up badges, and sat in on a couple of cosplay competition-related panels by Kurumasha and Hatless_Sheep. I managed to snag Kameraninja for some fantastic parking lot photos of Meg before wrapping up the night with Ninja hangouts.

​Sunday was the Canadian debut of Kart Rosalina! Nice and comfy for check-out, shopping, and watching the Masquerade awards ceremony before hitting the the road for home. I picked up some super cute luma earrings from Krafty Ninja's Hobby Shack which I had to put on IMMEDIATELY lol. I was also super pleased to grab a photo with Witchy Rosalina and Witchy Peach (CottageCosplay and Witch.cos respectively) at the masq awards - I loved their costumes!

OK, so neither of these events is really "small" but they're not cons with tens of thousands of attendees either so they're pairing up today.

​SPCS (Sarnia Pop Culture Show) was in April, and coincided with Cherry Blossom season! So we went to the con, did some shopping, said hi to friends, had a catch-up with RayGreyCosplay before heading out to the park for photos! I wore my Mario Kart Rosalina (because it's new and shiny so of course), and Karen (Kiki) and I had fun posing with the trees. Park photos from WCES, and convention backdrop photos from D.Groombridge photography

Meagan's Hug is an annual fundraiser for pediatric brain tumors, and every year they invite cosplayers to entertain the kids and families who are participating. I went in 2022 but had to skip it last year, so I was happy to get to be there again! I brought out good old Holtzmann and once again had a great time with the group! Small group photo is from Guelph Spiderman, and the full photo in front of Sick Kids Hospital is from The Last Son Cosplay.
If I am invited back next year, maybe I'll actually wear shoes that won't destroy my feet after a 5km walk, because I need to break this streak! lol

Time for the reveal of my Single Pattern design for Costume-Con 42: it's a take on Rosalina's Mario Kart outfit, but a more realistic racer-inspired design, with lots of sponsorship deals! I think what I ended up with is a very solid combination of the  design elements of the canon outfit and the Flight Suit pattern.

The Costume-Con trip  was really a 2-in-1 cosplay holiday - a group of 5 of us all flew down from Canada to Denver, rented a cabin in the mountains, and spent a couple days taking photos of our costumes in the Rocky Mountains (and putting finishing touches on our convention outfits). I had a lot of fun being a tourist and hanging with the girls who I don't get to see much now that I'm not in Toronto any more.

After all that, we headed back to Denver for the convention itself. I entered the Single Pattern contest with Rosalina as planned on Friday night, and ended up winning the award for Best in Pattern (that is, the judges liked my costume the best of all the entries who used the Flight Suit pattern). I am thrilled with the win and couldn't be prouder of all the work I put in to what appears to be a fairly simple costume. Then again, clean construction is my forte.

I didn't enter any other contests, but I did end up volunteering for both the Saturday night and Sunday night contests, which for me is the next-best thing, no question (even though some of the other volunteers could not believe I would travel as far as I did to "work" over the weekend LOL).  I love being in the greenroom and helping costumers however needed, and anyone who has run into me at local masquerades knows.

I did the thing I usually do and neglected to take many hall photos, but I still have a fair sized gallery of photos to share from the various events.