Branching Out - 18th Century Awesomeness Begins!

For as long as I can remember, I have been in love with 18th Century French fashion. Everything was just so very pretty and grand. The elegant dresses that shamelessly walk to the line of gaudiness. The small waist and ginormous hips. It's just all so...so dramatic and romantic in that seriously over the top way. Plus I kind of like looking like a cupcake.

...And I like the cleavage. Neck boobs ftw!

I've been dying to do something with an 18th Century flair for at least 5 years, if not longer. And finally the opportunity has presented itself! I'm so giddy!

I've actually been excited for this project for over a year. I decided to do this about a month before I got pregnant. So as I'm not pregnant anymore, it's time to corset (or rather stay it) up! And obviously I have to make something pretty for Bat to wear as well.

Be prepared for an amazing 18th Century masquerade version of Joker and Harley Quinn!

So. Excited!

Like I'm vibrating with excitement!

Since I'm still waiting for my body to get somewhat back to normalish (i.e. changing boobs and tummies are hard to make corsets for), I started out with Bat's Joker. Ultimately I wanted to go for the regal look, if a little unkempt, because let's face it, Joker is only Joker if he looks a little crazy. But I wanted him to look rich. I'm going for the French court appearance-ish, you know? So I went on the hunt for awesome fabric and I had found the most beautiful purple with gold damask 100% silk...but at $25.00/yd, I couldn't justify that expense. (that was only after I found out I could only order full yards. I promise you, I was ready to shell out the money if I could have gotten exactly what I needed.)

So there went that idea.

But I couldn't get it out of my brain! Awesome things tend to stick with me.

from Renaissance Fabrics - sooooo pretty

So I had to find something better. Or recreate it. And for a second I had it in my head that I would substitute this awesomeness with a purple taffeta with black damask pattern...but I fell too in love with the purple and gold look. It just seemed way more joker to me. So my only other option was stenciling.

Of course.

I have this horrible habit of giving myself a ton of extra work to do for the sake of an amazing looking garment...more on that later, actually.

I had thought about using JP Ryan patterns, however they were about $25 a pattern and I needed at least 2 of them... but then I came across this gem - Butterick 3072 and figured it would work just as well for a fraction of the cost (with the exception of the pants). So I set about finding a nice dusty grape-y purple taffeta, some pretty gold paint, and a fancy damask stencil that I got at hobby lobby for $2.99.

The frock coat was supposed to be unlined but since I didn't use wool/twill/generic heavyweight fabric (I used taffeta), I flat lined all the pieces with cotton to give the garment a little more weight. I lined with just plain black cotton...looking back I think a better choice would have been something of a gold/orange stripe, or anything with a little extra flair. Or even something green. Oh well. We all love those hind sight moments.

To save myself the annoying task of making sure things lined up beautifully, I decided to just stencil a border around the coat, which worked out beautifully mind you. Once the body of the coat was sewn I got to stenciling and it was looking soooo fancy.

ps: that one sleeve really isn't that crazy looking in real life

The stenciling was relatively effortless. I definitely gave it more thought and build up than I needed to. I'm sure it's not perfectly symmetrical and my only major issues were where it bled on the outsides, but you honestly can't tell unless you're looking super close. And as I'm not participating in the mask this year, nobody should be scrutinizing my work that closely. (not that they would scrutinize that closely either, of which you can check out my views on that right here)

This thing needed a ton of buttons, and I would have loved gold...but buttons are EXPENSIVE! Luckily, it's a lot simpler to cover shank buttons that I had originally thought. So I got 2 dozen buttons for about $2.00 (score!) and covered them with the taffeta. But that obviously wasn't enough. I'm a sucker for crazy details that people appreciate, only if they know about them, (odds are nobody sees them anyway...) so I decided to paint them with the same gold paint I used to make the damask pattern. And since I'm making Joker, he obviously need to poke fun at Batman in some way. Naturally I figured the best way to incorporate some Batman drama was by painting the batman symbol on the button!

my cute little Batman stencil - about the size of the tip of my pinky!

I've only put the buttons on the sleeve so far (in the wrong spot mind you (of which I don't have a picture of yet - next update!)...they should totally be along the bottom, or even in a different spot all together, but who wants to waste awesome batman buttons if you can't see them!) but I think it's going to add that little extra bit of awesome! I can't wait to add them along the....lapel?-for lack of a better term, since it really isn't a lapel. Honestly those would have already been added if I could get the fat plastic shank through the hole my awl makes. I plan on sewing these down with black ribbon through the shanks that run down on the inside of the coat to keep the buttons from flapping around like shank buttons like to do. They're rebellious suckers.

I have tons more progress to tell you crazy peeps about, but I want to keep the few people that read this on the edge of their seats with sewing anticipation...so we'll save that for another day!

PCC 2013 Masquerade or Why Did I Waste My Time?

In the midst of baby prep craziness In the midst of having the child here, I've finally reached the point where I'm okay to finally talk about this year's Phoenix Comicon....like 7 months later.

Honestly, it kind of sucked. You weren't expecting that, were you! Being pregnant, and in that awkward place where people stare with that look on their face...the "are you fat or are you pregnant," I didn't even bother with costumes for myself this year. And it kind of killed me. I'm introverted, but a woman, and therefore vain. It seriously felt weird to not have people randomly stare at me in that environment. Bat dressed up as Kefka on Saturday so I took on the mighty job of being his handler that day. He hammed it up, and I made sure his pants were straight (totally true...he had fake nails on, and he's a guy, so he was essentially helpless, but I love him).

Saturday! The busiest day of con. Bat had his heart set on competing in the Masquerade (a first for us both). I was totally nervous about this. The first time one of my pieces was to be judged on an official scale. Which is completely different than the costuming community silently judging my work. This was a big deal for me! As a costumer the only thing I ever want is pride of a beautifully done job and recognition. For people to know that I did all that. (It's that vanity again...it's killer.) I thrive on the compliments, the "ohmigosh that looks so awesome!" or "Best. Costume. Evah!" and the pictures! It all just makes me glow, beam, float with magical prideful happiness.

And I totally expected to walk out of the Masquerade with this feeling. Spoiler alert! I didn't. I left feeling like crap.

The story!

It took 3 hours to get Bat's makeup done because of an unfortunate misbehaving red lip pencil and hormones.

We finally made it to the convention (2 hours later than Bat hoped) where he preened just as much as I ever would have when tons of people asked for his picture. Totally precious. He even let me take one in between his many poses for fans! I'm so special!

We walked the vendor hall. Crashed a Final Fantasy panel and then headed up to prejudging.

Which brings us to the Masque I will never compete in again unless things are seriously overhauled.

There are 3 ways to enter PCC's Masquerade. You can preregister online, sign up before prejudging starts, or show up on Saturday while prejudging is in progress and hope there is space. We missed preregistration, so we made sure the very first thing we did on preview night was sign up to insure a spot in the competition.

Prejudging was scheduled from 1:30 pm to 5 pm (ish...I can't really remember). We got in this huge line at about 2:30 or so and just sat there....for like 3 hours. We didn't even make it to prejudging til after prejudging was supposed to be over with. I kind of figured there would be a line for the preregistration, and a line for those who registered before the day of the Masque and then a line for people who were hoping to get in the day of. Otherwise, what's the point of preregistering?

Now, let me back up a bit and just say that before even entering into the Masque, I checked the rules about 20 times to make sure we could actually do so, as I made the costume and Bat was modeling. We could. HOWEVER! I had to fight to go into the room for prejudging...like they seriously weren't going to let me in to explain how I made the costume my model was wearing. I was mildly horrified in that "are you kidding me?!" kind of way.

After finally getting into the prejudging room, things went as expected. We sat there. I fussed over makeup, made sure there was absolutely no loose threads and everything was completely acceptable to be scrutinized by a panel of judges I expected to be as harsh as Micheal Kors. I am serious...I totally strolled into this thing thinking the judges would be on par with the Project Runway judges.... But we survived and really all I had to do was explain how I did what I did, the materials I used and gave them my reference pictures. The end. Totally worked up over nothing.

We had to line up about an hour and a half earlier than the actual event, for who knows what reason. We just sat there....doing nothing....but waiting...and getting irritated. It was at this time my role in all this was reduced to handler. I was no longer the creator, I was no longer the seamstress; I was only there to make sure Bat didn't let his seriously awesome feathered headpiece get on the big screen. He was introduced and did a fabulous job walking regally across the stage, laughing like the maniac he was portraying and then regally walking off the stage to sit and watch the people we were competing against.

Now. The costume was entered in the novice category, and the way convention masques work, is your competing level depends on how many times you've competed and/or won before. I thought we had this locked up. Kefka was extravagant, and royal, and blingy, and just plain awesome. The others in that category were admirably good for that skill level, because in my brain this costume was not being judged at the novice level.

But anyway. Long story short: We walked away with 3rd place in the novice category. Which, quite honestly, I think is fantastic for the first time any of my work has been entered in a contest to be seriously judged. And after this already lengthy post, I can get to my issues.

The absolute biggest problem I have with this Masquerade is this: When our place was announced, I stupidly walked up on stage with Bat expecting some sort of acknowledgment for my work in all this. Instead there was only mention of blending textiles and that was it. I looked like a huge tool, all fat and half pregnant, mindlessly searching and hoping for just a little inkling that I did something to make Bat look totally awesome.

But no.

 (Bat looking totally awesome, me looking totally dumb >.<)

My name was not mentioned ANYWHERE or ANYTIME during this event. And that killed me. Why would you open a competition to people who are going to create beautiful things and have somebody else model them, if you are not going to properly give credit where credit is due. Yes, Bat did an excellent job bringing this all to life, but he wouldn't have been able to do it without the actual costume. I costume because it's fun and I like the challenge. But I love the pride I feel when people admire my work and tell me I did a super awesome job. And for the judges to just blatantly over look this one huge detail of the actual costume creator....it's kind of unprofessional. And I realize I'm asking a lot right there, since this is a convention masque, not a reality TV show. If you're not going to take the time to publicly acknowledge the costume creator when a prize is won, don't put it in your rules that it's allowed. All it does is makes you feel like poop.

My second issue: I, and quite a few other of the contestants were under the impression that this Masquerade was basically a costume contest (i.e. not a talent show). Reading through those nifty rules again, all rules are centered around costume making, construction, and judging with one little bitty rule about how long your skit should be and what can not be included in said skit. Next thing I know, I find out we would have placed way higher had our skit been longer than it was and Bat had done more things.

Um....what?

Dearest Masquerade judges that will never read this. In the future, it would help a ton of people out if you were more clear with what you want in your rules and/or description. Might I suggest a list of judging criteria? Or maybe even subcategories for judging?

I left the Masquerade severely depressed and in tears. I know a ton of people would like to blame it on hormones...and maybe it amplified things a bit, but I completely believe that I would have felt that way even if I weren't pregnant at the time. 

 

Sigh. 7 months later and I'm still seriously jaded about this thing. 

I can't shake my head enough.

The Almighty Kefka Palazzo

Behold! I give you Kefka Palazzo!

Kefka Palazzo FFVI Wiki

My husband (you can call him Bat) and I are new-ish to the cosplay scene. I've been kind of actively doing it  since 2009ish, he's been kind of getting into it since 2012. The first major costume he wanted me to make for him was what you see above. The villain from Final Fantasy VI that I knew nothing about. However, one of my favorite parts of cosplaying is research, so I went a-researchin' and got down to business. 

Version 1 was made primarily from poly/cotton broadcloth due to a late start and some budget constraints. Cotton Kefka turned out rather well for how quickly it was pulled together - 2 weekends and 1 all nighter! 

At least that was what I thought last year. It looked so drab! So drab! (and my craft room was a complete mess!)

Looking back on it, I'm appalled I let him walk out of that hotel room. But Bat loved it, and that's all that mattered right?)

Kefka is rich. Kefka is hauty. Kefka is a haute couture jester who looks like a full-of-himself royal pain in the ass and I wanted to kick myself for not properly capturing that the first time. So I tore most of it apart and revamped it with silks, taffetas, beads, brooches, gold trim and I am soooo much happier with the end result. (Even if I still have to redo the pants and the boots.)

I was given the wonderful gift of some creative liberties on this redo. So I looked at different Amano drawings and various fan artworks that had some really good costume design incorporated into them. The extra collars and the big puffy white sleeve were my main additions, outside of some extra baubles and jewels.

I took the whole week of Comicon off from work, so I did a bulk of all this sewing the week leading up. I must have gone to Hobby Lobby and JoAnn's every single day for something different, or something I saw the day before and debated on picking up, but didn't, only to sleep on it and realize that whatever I was going to get was worth it in the end. 

We splurged a lot on fabrics and such for this. The feathers for his head piece were like $11.00 each...but totally worth it! We used silk for the sleeves, and cotton voile for the puffy sleeve and extra color. The brocade I had lying around. It was actually a dress someone bought me that had been too small since the beginning. I decided it was time to give it some new life. Satin was used for the cape and collar, taffeta and chiffon for some of the scarves. A lot of the tassel was made by hand from crochet thread. Totally time consuming. Small silk flowers were sewn onto the blue fabric in place of polka dots to richen the look up a ton.

EVERYTHING was essential. Kefka is the gaudiest villian alive. 

I obsessed like crazy over this costume (the second time around). We were going to enter it into the Masque, so everything had to be beyond perfect. We had details all the way down to some sweet glitterfied press on nails. 

The amount of attention we got meant I pretty much did my job. Bat was such a ham that day.

I can't say it enough. 

SO. MUCH. BETTER.

Peace!

A Monster Wedding Dress

Once upon a time, about 2 years ago, a friend of mine approached me with a request to make her wedding dress.

No big.

Well that's a lie. It was a big deal. I mean  it's a wedding dress. THE most important garment a lady ever wears. And I had a ton of confidence and people's opinions riding on this. So yeah. Big Deal. The biggest.

I went into this project a little nervous. After my friend asked me to do this we sort of put it on the back burner for a little while. And then one day she told me what she wanted. I knew what she wanted before she even asked me, so I was kind of mentally prepared when she decided that her dream wedding dress was Mina's Red Dress from Bram Stoker's Dracula.

From Costumers Guide

This dress is a beast, and completely unlike anything I had created up until that point. But I love challenges. Love. Them. So I got started on the research and spent about 8 or 9 months preparing to start what would be the most awesome thing I had made to date. 

I made nearly everything needed to pull off the Victorian silhouette. Corset and bustle...I didn't have time to make a petticoat or chemise (shame on me). I would have loved to make the bustle that was designed to go under this gown, as it's terribly fantastic, but time constraints became a serious issue. All in all it took about 4 straight months of working solely on this, plus a few super late nights a few weekends leading up to and an all nighter the day of/before the wedding to get it done in time to walk down the aisle.

But I think all that effort was worth it. Especially when you see the groom cry when he saw this walking down the aisle towards him. Mission accomplished.

It's not nearly as grand as the original, but I think it's still a pretty decent recreation in comparison.

Patterns Used:

Laughing Moon Dore Corset
TV108 - Grand Bustle
TV202 - Grand Parlor Skirt
TV382 - Asymmetrical Drapery Add-on
TV460 - Cuirass Bodice

This was my very first costume resembling any sort of historical accuracy. I had plans long ago of doing some historical costumes, but only went so far as making a corset for myself for a steampunk costume. I was in new territory. Fun territory! Crazy amounts of fabric territory!

I used about 25 yards total of a red/black taffeta. This includes all the little petals and the pleats on the hem. I used about 5 yards of cotton for the bustle. I would have loved to use more to really build it up, as I couldn't get the exact silhouette with the one I used. But the bride, was happy, so that's all that really matters. For the most part. The whole dress still looked good.

And I even tried to make the bum bigger, but my lady was all, no.

In the movie version of the dress, the entirety of the underskirt is pleated; from waist to hem...that's a lot of pleating. Luckily, my lady wanted to keep things simple and a little more cost effective. I ended up doing a pleated trim, about 12 inches high along the hem on the underskirt. Much easier for me to handle. I can't even begin to think how I would pleat an entire underskirt and not want to kill myself.

A bit melodramatic, I know....But pleats are time consuming! Especially since I don't have a fancy pleater like all those fancy dressmakers did back in the day. (oh how I wish I did T_T)

I'll need a find a better way to do pleats. Part of the problem may very well be my impatience at certain methods. As I was making the pleat trim, I couldn't get the pleats to stay pleated at all. And it wasn't a fabric issue. I used a poly blend Taffeta, so it irons beautifully. I think I just didn't let it cool enough before touching them. So I decided on this seriously long way of making pleats that meant sewing 3 yard long panels together, marking the pleats, pinning the pleats, ironing the pleats, sewing underneath the pleats to make sure they stay pleated, ironing again to set the stitches, and then sewing the panels together. HOLY CRAP. It took me FOREVER to do this.

The pick ups on the back of the skirt are actually attached to the bodice. I wanted to create the look of no seaming to match the look of the movie dress. The petals are sewn over any seams to hide everything. Each of the petals were hand sewn together and then hand sewn onto the bodice all along the neckline and around the hem. I loved my thimble.

This was a grand dress and perfect for the personality of the bride, and probably the greatest thing I had made at that point. But luckily, I have this habit of making everything else after my latest project way better. My expectation bars for myself are pretty freakin' high.

I'm pretty proud of this thing, though it is, entirely a monster a dress. It's opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me. I was able to figure out period understructures and how much I wish women's dress was as fantastic and dramatic as it used to be in the past. Sure it's a bit difficult to drive a car in a corset, but what's a little pain to look grand?

On a slightly unrelated note...I desperately need a new camera.

Peace!

Geekster's Whimsy: A History

Once upon a time there was a girl who totally kept to herself. She had a terribly active imagination but very little available to her to engage it. Until one fateful day, in 2002, when she saw a friend playing the most beautiful game she had ever seen....Final Fantasy X.

So amazing. So gorgeous. So. Life. Changing.

I'm totally serious.

I'm a geek anomaly. Zelda: A Link to the Past and Mario Bros. were the first video games I remember playing. I never approached the end of Mario and I only watched dear old Dad beat Zelda. I think at the ripe age of 9 I managed to make it to Turtle Rock in the Dark World before I relinquished the controller to him.

And that's where it ended.

For some reason the video game fairy missed our abode after the Super Nintendo. I lived in a video game-less abyss until my senior year in high school. That was like....10 long years of severe childhood normalcy! (Looking back, I think that's why I barely remember my childhood.) I had no idea that this wonderful, colorful, magical world still existed. To this day, I still mourn the loss of what potentially could have been this great nerdtastic relationship I could have had with my imagination back when it was in its prime of imagining. Before it got bogged down with bills, and hurricanes, and betrayal. But I digress.

It was just before winter break in my Senior year when I saw Final Fantasy X being played for the first time. It was the beginning of the ending and I was sworn to secrecy because I was seeing it before my friends girlfriend. I had no clue, whatsoever, what was going on....but something inside of me clicked. Like I knew I had to somehow form this unbreakable bond with this video game.

It spoke to me.

And like some chance encounter with the love of your life before you know them at the train station, I didn't see it again for 2 years.

In between those 2 long years I was reintroduced to this super awesome world of crazy awesome stories. I played bits of Final Fantasy VIII (which I still need to beat) and most of Final Fantasy IX (I couldn't beat this one yet cause it had to go back to major video...but I eventually did!). And I was completely enamored with this series. The amount of time and effort that went into creating these stories and the depth of the main characters. I mean whoa.

I had finally managed to get a hold of Final Fantasy X again and I played it non stop. NON STOP. Like I dove in head first, with no strategy guide (I finally got a hold of one by the time I got to the Cloister of Ice-thank goodness...those Cloisters were killer), and went until I could no more. The FMV's were beautiful....I totally cried like a baby when Yuna and Tidus kissed at Lake Macalania...seriously my favorite part....and that video was stunning.

epicness via Final Fantasy Wikia

And the ending.....I STILL watch the ending of that game. 11 years (holy crap....old....) later.

Imposhibble! No seriously. It's true.

The amazing part? I'm just as excited to play the HD remake as I was the original. I get to experience that magic all over again and retreat back to a happy time when video game developers still believed in an awesome story line with the perfect soul wrenching music to go along with it.

But seriously. All things considered, I'm still super new to this geeky world I've rightfully immersed myself in. I may have been late to the game, and I might be totally going backwards as far as video games go. (comic books are another story...I'm having trouble latching onto those...) But here I am. I have the cosplays to prove it!

(trying and failing to find the original to link back to....blarg)

(PS: Shame on you for no watermark!)

(PPS: That's totally me. And that wig weighed a ton. Another blog post!)

The Madness Needs To Start Somewhere

Good day!

This intro is seriously a year and a half in the making. I'm so horrible at introductions. Whether it's been introducing myself, writing the first few pages of a novel, or even the first paragraph of a term paper....I've always sucked at them. I'll sit and stare at the screen and completely agonize over every single syllable. I'll write, erase, rewrite, erase, and then pull my hair out. Case in point: I've written about 4 different introductions for this blog, and each has been deleted.

I know. Crazy. Well I am a little absurd. 

I have also changed the topic of this blog at least 2 or 3 different times. At first it was going to be just costuming....building, researching, show off-ing, etc. Then as I realized I do a ton of other crafty things, so I should probably include that as well! That was a big delete again. I decided that if I can't keep a topic around for a few months, then it wasn't what this cyber thought bubble was supposed to be about. 

Then there was nothing. For like 7 months this thing sat all alone. Forgotten. Poor wittle bloggy.

But, with the help of my man and the little nerdy thing growing in my belly, I've made a decision. 

Being pregnant, with a girl no less, terrifies me. There, I've admitted it. I was a horribly completely un-confident girl growing up, thusly turning into a horribly completely un-confident woman, and I'm terrified our daughter will go down the same path because I don't know any better. I want her to grow up comfortable in her own skin, with positively strong female role models to look up to. I even went so far as to searching on Pinterest "how to raise Hermione Granger", though nothing came up. Sad, I know.

We want to make sure we expose her to all the gloriously awesome nerdy things the world has to offer, without her feeling like an outcast. We want her to experience comic books, cosplay, really awesome video games, and amazing novels that leave you with the biggest book hangovers ever. 

So here I'll keep it all, and stuff for me, too. As she continues to grow in my belly, you'll know about her. You'll know about my projects, the costumes I just finished making and the ones I'm getting ready to start. All of my other geeky projects and just some general geek stuff (like the Sony Press Conference at E3 OMG!). You'll ride along with me as we try to raise a strong, confident, intelligent, geeky daughter in a world that still puts so much emphasis on body shape and  beauty. 

I need to put it all down somewhere and old school journaling just never did it for me. I like to know that people are out there reading and caring...if only in my imagination.

I admit I'm vain. Moving on. 

.....

I'm just as bad at ending things as I am starting them....

I'm off to eat ice cream and cookie dough! <3 div="">