New squares!

I got some new squares over the past few months. Here is a belated update:

Maude Forbid screen printed a Boston B Party shirt to represent our B Team:

EZ Bake Shovin' retired this year, but she donated a square because she's just that fabulous:

This is a square-in-progress made up entirely of used track tape from one of our summer bouts:

Death by Roxy sent this from Vermont. It's made up entirely of used skate laces. Brilliant idea:

This is a uniform piece by the lovely ladies of NHRD:

And finally, a shot of the quilt as it is right now in its safety-pinned-together state:

I may have created a monster.

How have things been going in quilt-land, you ask? Since my decision to base my MSAE thesis project on roller derby has been approved, it's been going almost freakishly well. The panel that reviewed my benchmark presentation was pretty gung-ho about the quilt, and I've been given the go-ahead to go bat-shit crazy with this until my thesis show next year. Ever since last week it's been a quilt-o-rama at the Dread household, and then I got the crazy idea to email everyone I could possibly think of who's life has been touched by roller derby.

I spent the better part of three hours on Monday emailing every single league on the western half of the US in the hopes of getting a few more squares for the quilt. Over the past three days I have received over a hundred responses. Many are "I'll post this to my league and hopefully someone will contact you", which is simply fabulous. However, quite a few have been significantly more awesome. Thanks to everyone who has responded, but special thanks go to these three anonymous leagues:

"... can I have your mailing address and I'll send it out this week!!!"

"Oh, you're so lucky the crafter on our league also maintains the MySpace!"

"I can easilly put together a few squares to send off for you to add, but what I would really like to do is contribute a whole panel..."

I've simply taken to squealing every time I hear the little "ping" of my inbox getting another email. Tonight I'll hit the eastern half of the country, and I'll use this weekend to work on contacting international leagues. In my fantasy world, every state and every country will be represented on the quilt. That might be too much to ask, but a girl can dream...

Yay for my new skater bio!

Since I was teamed this summer (HOORAY FOREVER YAAAAAAY NUTS OUT!!!!) I thought it would be a good idea to rewrite my bio. Ruby was kind enough to throw it on the site super-quickly, and this is the result.

Now, I need a photo of me looking all badass in a tutu and I'm all set.

Feelin' good.

Things are pretty nice. I like my life. :D

Arlington to Bedford and back.

Daaaaaaamn that's a long trip on skates. I think I'll collapse for a while before I have to work on school stuff.

Derby girls are everywhere.

This morning we skated with Twisted Pixie, a skater from a new league in NY. We had a great time skating around in the basketball court and talking about derby. She skates in an OSDA league (they're working on building a guy team, girl team, and a co-ed team), and she cross dresses, so our derby experiences have been very different. We talked about derby names, and different ways of blocking, and drills we've done. We're planning to skate again tomorrow too, and I'm psyched.

I love how easy it is to make connections like this through roller derby. If I had been walking down the street in bondage pants and purple synth dreads and I passed another person dressed similarly, I'd be as likely to get a snotty look as a smile. If I see another person on roller skates with a jersey carrying a derby-esque name, we geek out for a while and make plans to practice together and have breakfast. 

Derby can be as cliquish as any goth club, but it's funny how that mainly seems to apply to one's own league. Meeting people from other leagues has always come with an almost creepy level of acceptance. I don't get it. Still, I really like it. :D

I love skating.

Today has been AWESOME. Highlights include:

1. Watching a bunch of morons in a car get trapped in the throng of drag queens going to drag bingo. One real beast of a woman in said car yelled "get off, faggot!" when a drag queen tried to pose for a photo next to the car, and even hit the drag queen when she walked over to the car window. This is obviously a colossally bad idea when in Provincetown, surrounded by about a hundred gay people. The drag queen returned the favor by nailing the bigot pretty hard in her torso, and the crowd cheered. I half expected the crowd to flip over the car!

2. Speaking of fierce, one shop in Ptown bought a bunch of Project Runway gowns! We saw them on display the other day, but two drag queens wore two of them to drag bingo tonight. One was in the Christian Siriano prom gown (it really is hideous) and the other was in the Stella trash bag gown (so, so, so bad). I got to see both up close and see how jacked up they are inside. Crazy stitching everywhere! It's a good thing the judges don't see what's inside them...

3. We met another derby girl! Well, she skates as a woman, and does OSDA as opposed to WFTDA. We're meeting "Twisted Pixie" tomorrow at the basketball court for some skating. So awesome.

4. Steve looked hella handsome in his cowboy hat and huge stompy boots. It's fun to walk around with such a hot cowboy during the cowboy-themed Carnival week.*

5. Skating around in a frilly pink thing while eating fried dough made me feel oddly like a little girl in a fairy princess costume. I can't describe how much fun that was. I want to do this all the time.  I definitely get a lot of fun attention this way. Lots of photos of me will surface on the flickr pages of total strangers later in the week. Hopefully my ass looks good, because you could definitely see it.

6. I'm very aware of how much better I've gotten as a skater since I tried street skating here last year. I'm not as terrified of the hills and potholes as I was before. Sometimes I need reminders that I've improved so much. It feels pretty great.

*No one has openly mistaken him for a drag king yet. I'm sure it's only a matter of time.