Costume-Con 33 Roundup, Monday et al

Wrapping up the last of my Costume-Con 33 posts.  Monday was a pretty low key day, with only a half day of programming and no competitions.  My crew did an Archer cosplay group, including Bethany's mom in on the fun as Mallory, complete with a drink tumbler full (of iced tea).  We commandeered an unused boardroom for a quick a photo shoot.  I played Pam, which was fun simply for the excuse to run around with a hand puppet and nosh on pastries.

I also took down my quilt show entries, the 18th century quilted petticoat and waistcoat.  The stays got an award for best wearable art.

Costume-Con 33 Roundup, Sunday

Still playing catch up from Costume-Con 33.  On Sunday, they had the "Miss Ellen's Portieres” competition, where entrants made costumes out of curtains.  I entered wearing my shower curtain short gown, paired with a teal cotton petticoat and my perpetual work in progress, the whitework apron.

Showing off my grandmother's sewers union pin from when she worked at a men's pants factory in the 70s. 

Sunday night was the Historical Masquerade, to which I wore Maria Carolina's court gown.  Kristen was kind enough to help me with my presentation, wearing her own jacket and petticoat combo to serve as a chamber maid.

Our presentation was a comical nonsense number that was basically me getting my maid to help me find my dog.

A portrait of Maria Carolina of Austria, Queen of Naples and Sicily, by Giuseppe Bonito, c. 1770s.

I still have a few yards of this red silk left, as well as some fur.  I'm thinking that one of these days I'm going to make myself a court train to hook onto the dress, even through one wasn't present in the source painting.

I'm particularly proud of my wig, which I carted onto the plane in a gift bag as my carry on.  Well, it made it!

Ridiculous staged costume portraits.  It's was friends are for.

Kristen and I with our roadies, Bethany and Lauren.
(the gals pulling the strings to make our dog move on stage).

No awards for this one, which just goes to show how hit or miss this kind of thing can be.  Ah well.  We had a hell of a lot of fun back stage and I'm proud of how the costume turned out.  Now I just need to figure out where on earth I'll ever wear the thing again.

Costume-Con 33 Roundup, Saturday

Opps!  Going back through the drafts, I've found a few posts that really should have happened before now.  For a bit of a throwback, here is the roundup from Costume-Con 33 (LAST year) for Saturday day, which I found sitting around waiting for captions to photographs, but otherwise ready to post.

I pretty much spent the entirety of Saturday running around without a bra on.  It was AWESOME!  I started the day in my black and brown sideless surcoat with the linen kirtle, then lost the surcoat in the afternoon for rehearsals (so I was pretty much running around in my underwear.  Yay for historical costuming!)  Then put on the white overdress at the absolute last possible moment because white and me, we make messes together.  There's just something about a white dress that makes me want coffee and spaghetti sauce.

I was a part of a group for the Sci-Fi/Fantasy Masquerade that was based on the fantasy novels by Garth Nix.  Super fun costumes, but I was only able to make myself read far enough into the books to be introduced to the group of characters that my costume was to represent.    We did well, too.  A presentation award for best literary adaptation and Best in Show for Workmanship.  I'm not even going to pretend here, the BiS was about 95% earned by the crazy people molding leather, printing tartan and smithing their own jewelry.  My outfit was fairly simple by comparison, with nothing terribly special beyond a bit of dye work and embroidery.  But I think it was well made and Bethany came up with an awesome design for the overdress that we worked together to make, so there you go.  I'm happy with 5% of that ribbon.

The white characters in the back row were all representations of various vocations
of Clayr, a sort of academic and future-reading sort of group.  I was personally set
to represent a merchant, with my money pouch and key.

Blonde, lol!  I am totally digging the way that light green pairs with my skin tone, though.

Stay classy, people.

Costume Con 34 in Madison, WI

*le flop*  We got back this evening from driving up to Madison, WI for Costume Con 34.  By far, one of the most fun Costume Cons I've been yet.  Major kudos to the team that put it together.  The overall con theme was "The Wonders of Nature," which I didn't personally find super inspirational, but meh.  I hardly had time to put together much of anything new this spring, so it worked out just fine.  I had a lot of costumes that were completed in time to wear to Costume College last summer, so that's mostly what I brought out here.

Friday morning I wore the 1950s Avengers wrap-around dress, minus a lot of the accessories.  I kept it simple and comfortable, since I was going to be spending the majority of my morning in ICG board meetings.  That afternoon, my costume bestie and I teamed up to present Practical Considerations for Costumers," which I thought worked quite well.  We're a good team, B and I, not the least of which because we are so damned different in the way that we go about things.  But it was funny and informative and the audience had good participation.

Friday evening was the social and Single Pattern competition.  I had picked up the pattern in time to use as a basis for my Chambord Fairy from the booze fairies group at CoCo last year, so the Honey and I worked on putting together a nicer set of wings to take along.  I brought a bottle of Chambord along to judging as my documentation.  And then found several nice people to help me drink it after the show.  

A better picture of the wings.  Each is a layer of silk gauze over habotai, spray painted in two
shades and sewn together to make a channel along the tops, through which the wires run.

Saturday was a busy day. I started in stage blacks to help with the run through for my costume bestie's entry for the Science Fiction and Fantasy masquerade that night. Tech rehearsal accomplished, I changed into the 1890s seamstress to wear for a spin around the vendor room. I picked up a hall costume award for this one, as well as a ton of compliments. People were really digging on the vintage sewing accessories I had dangling from my belt. Ooh! And there was a vendor selling vintage and damaged kimonos and kimono materials for $10/lb. That was a dangerous booth. I ended up with three little bolts of indigo and white cotton intended for yukata, as well as one damaged silk kimono with a small gold ivy leaf motif on a read background that I'm thinking of turning into an 18th century jacket of some sort. With my wallet lighter and luggage heavier, I hit a workshop on costume rendering.

I'll keep working on it.

Then it was up to the room to help the bestie paint herself black from the waist up.  A good time was had by all who got to witness her getting slathered in cold paint, and it paid off for her when her Lolth took an award for Best Group.

I'm totally in this picture.  Those are my feet as I stand in the back and hold up her giant spider butt!
See what I said about being the polar opposites of costuming?

Sunday was a fun day, with the theme for hall costuming being "peasants", I put together an 18th century costume from all the odd bits that I'd been working on over the last couple of years.  Several old Historical Sew Fortnightly challenges that hadn't really worked into anything, such as the petticoat made from poorly dyed linen and a shift with sleeves too long to fit under my other gowns.  I also got to wear the quilted waistcoat for the first time and it was SUPER COMFORTABLE!  Also, hella boosting for the bust, which was a bonus.  While packing, I realized that I couldn't find my simpler rough linen cap, so I ended up cobbling one together utilizing the extra bit of ruffle that I had cut out of the neckline of my chemise a la reine.  Since that bit was already hemmed, all I had to do was cut a crown and gather the two together, sewing them on the machine on the underside.  Quick and easy like that.  Then I realized that my only apron was the one I've been doing white work embroidery on, so probably a touch too dressy for a peasant.  I hacked up the skirt of a Regency petticoat that was made out of a bed sheet, so a super thin cotton apron was achieved.

Sunday night was the Historical Masquerade.  I waffled about entering this right up until the last minute.  What sold it for me was that, in ten years together, the Honey and I have never entered a masquerade together, outside of large groups.  So I cobbled together  close enough for stage outfit for him that he then proceeded to distress the hell out of.  Not gonna lie, I got a little weepy when I first saw that waistcoat covered in black smudges.  I wrote up the documentation in the hotel room on Thursday night and away we went.  It must have been worth it, because we took home a Best in Show for Workmanship.  TOTALLY didn't see that coming.  I expected maybe a lesser award for presentation, since it was kinda funny and I thought we did a good job of showing off the costumes without feeling like we were just spinning in a circle on stage.  I tried to make fun of the ridiculous poses you see in some some fashion plates, but then only sorta serious presentation gets 'interrupted' by a zombie shambling across the stage.  I guess all of the meticulous hand-stitching on the bodice of the dress, as well as the cap and chemisette paid off.  I *cough*  did not take the Honey's outfit in for workmanship judging, not only because it was filthy, but because the shirt and waistcoat were made on the fly out of non-period-appropriate materials, sewn almost entirely by machine and with tons of short cuts, such as unfinished button holes, non-functional buttoned bits half-assed finishings throughout.  The trousers were an older pair that was made with the intent of serious wear, but that he hates the fit of.

*sigh*  How could I refuse that face anything?
Also, am totally digging on the red shoes with this outfit.

Emo zombie.  Only historically accurate in the impression,
but I'm still submitting it for the HSM April Challenge.

Monday's theme was pijamas, and I won a hall costume award for my 1930s Lounge PJs.  SO comfortable.  I think these are going to be the go to hall costume for every con from here on out.  I did a lecture on 18th century fashion terminology, which was surprisingly well-attended for first thing on Monday morning.  I promised the class that I'll put some of the information from those slides up here, and I'll do that just as soon as I figure out a somewhat easy way to get that info off of the power point slides and onto the blog. Then all of the sudden, con was over.  I picked up a video of the masquerade, then spent the afternoon being a tourist.  We hit up Gayfeather fabrics while she was unloading from the con, then the Mustard Museum, a chocolatier, a coffee house, and I got hooked up with some Laotian food hot enough to make me cry.  It was a good day.

Costume-Con Roundup, Friday

Wow, have I been lax about blogging this summer/fall!  Life, work, blah, blah, blah.  Time to play some catch up.  Costume Con 33 was held in Charleston, SC this year.  Through some sort of cosmic frippery, I ended up having an entry in pretty much every contest over the course of the weekend.  So I was hella busy doing pretty much nothing but over the course of the four day event.  But I got the chance to show off a lot of stuff that I'm really proud of, and I got to work with some of my bestest costuming besties throughout, so it was worth it.  I did have to leave my Honey at home, though, since he had classes he couldn't get out of.  Also meant that I didn't have a companion's luggage for spillover, so I had to get super conservative on the packing.  My year's as a Girl Scout served me well here.  I can pack like a boss, and I had to do like I've never done before.

There are eight, count 'em, EIGHT costumes packed into those four bags.
(there's a black check bag at the back of the stack, blending in with the sofa)

I spent much of the day on Friday running about, turning in paperwork and entries and doing all of that last minute BS that always eats the day away.  So I went with something more comfortable to wear: the chemise a la reine.  It's nice and cool, even with the stays.  And it's easy to sit in.  Plus the hedgehog wig just sorta plops on the head and requires very little prodding before getting covered with a cap and hat.  I got a lot of very flattering comment on the dress, including one from Sandy about how I 'always look so lovely and put together' at con.  Which just about made my weekend right there.  While I love Love LOVE to make pretty things, I always get a bit weird when it's time to put them on.  So yeah, total confidence boost there and a great way to start the weekend.  Sandy spent a lot of the con hanging out in the con suite, seeing the rest of us parade through.  And his smiles over the weekend always made me feel like it was worth getting all dressed up just for that.  Unfortunately, I was so busy that I never caught a picture of myself in this outfit.  But not so dire, as I've gotten some good photos in it before.

The Friday Night Social had a 1920s Speakeasy them this year.  And the Single Pattern Contest included two Folkwear patterns that I've made use of in recent years: le Smoking Jacket and the Monte Carlo Dress.  Both were used in the making of our big 1920s Batman Villains group from Arisia the year before, but neither had gotten any recognition on their own (our Best in Show for that group was in Presentation, and the only Workmanship award went to the Joker's suit).  Plus, this Poison Ivy dress is one of my all time favorite costumes, yet not something that I could ever personally wear.  Luckily, Lauren was a doll and agreed to play dress up for me.  A few minor adjustments for fit and a new bob wig and she was ready to go!  I'm no sport a shaved head, so I made up a house cap to match the smoking jacket and cover my hair.

Lauren being a life saver and donning the dress for me.  She must have been having fun,
because I'm pretty sure she sashayed those hips and made the skirts swish all night long.

Silver buddies at the Social.  So Much SHINY!

Not gonna lie.  I totally had Maral's Cyd Charisse in the back of my mind when I was designing Poison Ivy.
I was tickled to get to see the two of them back-t-back like this.

I was going to link to the project summary for these two, but it looks like I only ever got around to posting the one about Poison Ivy.  Note to self: get on with that.  The judges split the awards up, giving a Best in Show for each of the four featured patterns, and the two of us each took home that honor.  And amazing start to the weekend.

Life catching up with you

So... apparently, I haven't published anything since mid-September.  Opps.  I'd say, how did that happen, but I think I already know.  I got side-tracked from historical projects when I scrapped my initial plans for Halloween.  And then work got the way work tends to do, sometimes, with looming inspections and an unimaginable quantity of new responsibilites.  Stress means that I started spending my free time immersed in my preferred avoidance technique, reading fanfiction.  Combine that with a shiny new fandom obsession (hellooooo, Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Where have you been all my life?)  Then there was Arisia coming up and my responsibilities there were more focused on the planning of programming than the making of anything new.  So, yeah.  A creative dry spell and falling off the face of the blogosphere was bound to happen, as I always feel like I have nothing to say if I've got nothing to show.  But things have sorta kinda settled down with work a bit, and I'm ready to stop avoiding the craft room and get back to work.  So I share with you an overview of what I've been working on.

Scrapped Halloween Plans
My original idea for Halloween fit into the Alternate History challenge for the Historical Sew Fortnightly.  The spousal unit and myself were going as 'Victorian Spiders', inspired by some of the fantastical fancy dress costumes of the late Victorian era.  I already had the black underskirt, but I was able to bang out a black widow themed over-skirt and most of a brown gentleman's vest that was due to have an inverted fiddle applique on the back.  But this was the project that just stalled out on me and ended up getting shelved.  Nice part is that when I come up with another event needing something along these lines, it shouldn't take too much effort to polish them off.

Halloween 2.0: Marvel Superheroes
When the motivation to work on the Victorian spiders dried up, I decided to pursue a wild hair inspired by my current fandom obsession.  I made the Captain Marvel on the left for my bff (well, cannibalized a zentai suit and attached the mantle, hip scarf and accessorized), and my fem Captain America on the right (in which I Frankensteined a dress set out of a pair of stretch, textured tube skirts off the rack).  Wolverine in front and Star Lord in the center back completed our haphazard team.

Quilted Jumps
They were originally plotted out as an entry for the HSF challenge #16, Terminology.  Then they took a little while to get from drafted out to cutting and so got pushed back to #17, Yellow.  Then I found a funny reference in a poem while I was doing some research and they were totally going to be done in time for the challenge #18, Poetry in Motion.  But even on the machine, the quilting took FOREVER and I was like, that's it.  I know I've seen SOMEBODY do jumps in the last 18 months of HSF, I'll just write it in for inspiration and call it good.  Well, yeah.  They're still a work in progress.  I'm just about done with the binding, having left a few gaps to put in the boning that I ordered the other tnight.  So there's really very little left to do at this point.  I wanted a set of jumps to use as an alternative to stays worn under my chemise a la reine.  The yellow should be light enough to not be TOO obvious under the thin white cotton (or at least less obvious than my current gray and navy stays).

And what's coming next?

- Well, I've given myself permission to set aside the HSF challenges for now.  As much fun as they were, I was stressing myself out about getting to every single one of them and screwing myself over when it came to prioritizing projects.

- Figments & Filaments (a costuming convention here in Kansas City) is coming up and I've gotten a few panel ideas in for that.  I've not let myself be in charge of anything big, but I've found lots of little ways to get involved and hopefully make the experience a better thing for all involved.

- the deadline for getting in class proposals for Costume College came too soon after Arisia for me to be able to devote a lot of energy to them, but I was able to get one proposal in at the last minute for a workshop that would be uber fun to do, should it get selected.  Plotting for costumes for that, however, will just have to wait.  Before that is...

- Costume Con, which I had to miss last year and I was totally missing it.  Costume Con has a strong competition element to it (among a lot of other things), but as I'm one of those people that thrive on competition, it's totally my thing.  I find that having a hard deadline and knowing that someone is going to be looking at my costumes VERY closely really spurs me on.  I do more research, make my work neater and really put the extra umph into it, which results in a better finished project.  I've lucked out in that I have only one new 'from scratch' project in mind for this year, and that was being an extra in someone else's big group project, so I don't really have to do the stressful plotting and planning for it.  Just make a dress and show up for rehearsals, which is oddly relaxing.  I have a couple of pieces that were long languishing works in progress that I've brought out to finish up for this.  And a finished costume that totally fits a theme.  And my historical masquerade entry was 'finished enough to wear' but totally needs more work and the collation of all of my documentation.

So I've got enough to be getting on with, me thinks.  Mostly I wanted to get all of this down to swing myself back into this blogging thing.  As I wrap projects up, hopefully I'll remember to do the show-and-tell part that should come after them.

Project Summary: Bilbo's Dressing Gown from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

I have a Honey, and my Honey has a particular affinity with Hobbits. So, when the first of the Hobbit movies came out, of COURSE he needed to have himself a new costume. We collectively latched onto the idea of the dressing gown. Him because it was quircky and awesome, me becaue I could turn my head to the side and go "How the f*** did they make that?" One of the things that I love about this hobby is figuring things out bit. I've not seen a lot of people attempt this particular project, so I really wanted to put what I learned out into the world. Hopefully, it'll help someone else.

In one of the early sequences of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, we Bilbo settling down in his tidy dining room to eat his dinner in peace. As Tolkien fans know, Bilbo’s dinner (and his life) are interrupted by a company of dwarves. During this key sequence of the movie, Bilbo is seen wearing a quaint and cozy patchwork dressing gown.

The dressing gown appears to have been made out of a patchwork of velvets in a variety of solids colors and prints. The patchwork appears to have a random pattern. It has a solid burgundy velvet collar, cuffs and belt with piping on terminal edges that is light (but not white or ivory) in color and appears to have a very small pattern on it. Looking at the screen caps from the back, it appears that the back of the dressing gown could possibly be from three pieces with princess-style seams, which would give the garment a bit more of a fitted look. However, I could just as easily reason in my head that those were folds in the fabric. Seeing as how working with the quilting was going to be a challenge enough in it's own right, I went with the easier interpretation and went ahead and made the back a flat piece with a straight line seam down the center. Any fitting was then done at the side seams.

The pattern I used as a launching point was Butterick 3648 Making History: Dickens St. Nicholas/Ghost of Christmas Past. I chose this for simplicity's sake: I already had it on hand and it was 'close enough". I figured a bathrobe couldn't be that hard to cobble together. So I adjusted the sleeves to be a bit more tube-like and the robes shorter and less full.

I made a muslin mock up out of an unremarkable cotton print from my stash. It was important to keep in mind that heavy fabrics will stand out more and this was taken into account in the fitting. Hem allowances for collar, cuff and bottom hem were taken into account. Grain lines were marked onto the mock up pieces, which was critically important for matching the patchwork layer.

The muslin mock up was disassembled and laid out as a guide for assembling the patchwork layer so that I wouldn't have to quilt any more of the velvet than absolutely necessary. It appears that the dressing gown is made of quilted velvet, sewn together in squares and rectangles to form a completely randomized pattern. The next step was to sort out what, if any, sort of pattern was used in the organization of the quilting. A couple of black and white prints of the costume helped me focus. I used the base of Bilbo's ear as a size reference and then outlined all of the places where I could identify the shape, then extrapolated from there.

This is what I could come up with as far as a recognizable pattern.  A few of the 8-square blocks had a repeated pattern and I could identify four distinct arrangements.  For each block, I penciled in what color/pattern arrangements were present.

While it was impossible to find the exact fabric patterns that were used in the movie, we compiled a set of fabrics to give the same impression of texture and color in the original. Some fabrics were used in the form in which they were purchased; other pieces of fabric were dyed into one or more colors to create more variety in the final piece.

When choosing fabrics, I wanted to stick to natural fibers. This gave the benefit of breathability, and also the opportunity to adjust the colors of some basic light colored solids to increase variety. Choices were further weeded down by systematically ignoring all stretch or panne velvets that were available. I was left with the choice between cotton and silk, and went with cotton because of the appropriate prints I could find and relative affordability. While a few of the patches in the final garment are presented in the exact color in which they came, many more were dyed to that color by Michelle and I. I purchased large quantities of solid colored velvet in light blue and ivory, then cut them into 1/8 yard pieces and dyed them in small batches using Dharma Fiber Reactive dyes to yield a stunning array of blues, greens, golds, reds and browns.

All of the velvets and lining material for this costume were purchased online from Denver Discount fabrics. They did not have the appropriate color of burgundy for the trims, so that was also dyed by hand using the Buttercream velvet and Dharma Fiber Reactive dye in Burgundy. The 100% cotton chambray lining was originally purchased in peach, but the fabric was a poor match for the velvets and was also thrown into the burgundy dye bath. The cotton print for the piping was pulled from my stash and was originally a pale lavender. To help it blend in with the earthier tones of the velvet patchwork, the print was dyed with a mix of maroon and brown Rit dye, giving it a much more muted color.

My honey was conscripted to help with the cutting and labeling of squares, in addition to doing much of the ironing which had to happen to every seam. Trying to keep the nap going in the same direction for all pieces was a pain in the rump. What we ended up doing was to use chalk arrows drawn on the back of each piece.

SO many little squares and rectangles.

A plain cotton muslin was dyed a dusty rose and used as lining.  Once each of the body and sleeve pieces were fully quilted, I used the lining pieces to cut out the pattern piece from the quilting.  The lapel is made from two 3" wide strips of velvet that were tappered to 2" at their terminal ends, then attached to a cotton backing with piping along the seam.  The cuffs have velvet on the inside and out, with piping along the terminal seam.  The belt is simply two long strips of velvet sewn right sides together, then turned right side out.  The hem was turned up and sewn by hand to avoid obvious stitch lines on the velvet.

Photo by official CC30 photographer, Richard Man.

Photo by official CC30 photographer, Richard Man.

Photo by official CC30 photographer, Richard Man.

The hairy feet, Honey did all by himself.  I had nothing to do with that, beyond the generous tip left for the housekeeping staff for cleaning up the dusting of curly dark hairs off of our bathroom floor.  We entered the Sci-Fi/Fantasy Masquerade at Costume Con 31 (May, 2013) where it received a Workmanship Award for Best Journeyman. Such a well dressed hobbit.

As a fun side project, I made up a small quilt to use up the leftover materials.  The quilt is made exactly like the robe, with lining and piping scraps pieced together for the backing, and rows of piping along both edges of the burgundy velvet border.  It's too small to be a lap blanket, but it should look lovely hanging on the guest room wall.