In which costume hell week (or fortnight) 2010 begins

After ten years' worth of doing it, you might think I'd know better than to start a costume at the last possible moment. Of course, you might also think the Loch Ness Monster exists. I'm not saying it doesn't, but I am saying that there's not a whole lot of hard evidence for it. The same goes for the evidence that I will ever start sewing a costume before the last possible second.

This tendency, of course, is really a subset of "If I'm making it for me, I can put it off a little longer; oh crap, I don't have any longer." So if I were to sew you a costume, I would be fully capable of starting it in a timely fashion.

Since this costume is for me, however, I was required by the laws of my own reality to wait until I only have two weeks to finish.

What costume, you ask? Oh, it's an answer to my personal steampunk dilemma — to the love/hate relationship I have with this neo-Victorian costume and aesthetic trend that combines two things I love dearly (technology and Victorian-era style) but which somehow manages to offend me the way many people do it.

I know. I'm a terrible person for thinking some people's "steampunk" costuming is a horrible, mutant, self-indulgent, Mary-Sue-ish interpretation of techno-Victorian style. It's terrible of me because there's an attitude, in steampunk culture, that steampunk is a bit about uniqueness, and expressing yourself, and defying convention. I approve of and support all of these things — and yet I still think some people's steampunk costuming is more like visually screaming "LOOK HOW F***ING BADASS I AM!" than it is respectful of the Victorian/technological aesthetic and ideals. And that offends me because I love Victoriana and technology more than I like watching people preen and show off.

Hate me for it if you like. ;)

Anyway, if you do, you may be pleased to know my attitude has presented me with an inescapable conflict: Since the rise of steampunk costuming, I've felt driven to make a steampunk costume that I DO like — nay, that I love! And that requires me to research and confront what I dislike, so that I can fail to do those things.

Aside from starting a frickin' costume on time for once, this is probably the hardest costume-related thing I've ever done. It's taken me a couple of years to get to the point where I can even envision a steampunk costume I can bear to wear.

And so, the costume

One of the Things I Dislike is when a costume or character takes steampunkiness Far Too Damn Seriously. (Note that I am not accusing the people in the costumes of taking steampunk too seriously. I am, however, saying that if they don't, their costumes and characterization utterly fail to show it. ;)) At the steampunk fashion show at Dragon*Con last year, the models I loved best were the ones with a sense of humor.

Thus, I was inspired: Why not do a steampunk costume that inherently has a sense of humor? I could even pack a ton of over-seriousness into it and potentially be a walking piece of satire. A self-contained in-joke. But I don't want to be a standoffish in-joke. I want to be an in-joke that everyone can share. Something so ridiculous that people can glance at me in costume and go "OMG is that what I think it is? That is Hilarious! Take a picture!"

So, you know. I could do something like a steampunk version of the video game character Princess Peach. And what's a Princess Peach costume without a Mario to match it?

Yesssss. This is the light at the end of the brass-goggled tunnel. This I can do. This I will do.

...in the next two weeks.

Yes. Laugh at me. Laugh! Your laughter will fuel my own hysteria, and thus give me energy!

And even though I am doing a tongue-in-cheek, video game steampunk costume, my sense of steampunk (which pretty much matches that described in this blog post on the Steampunk Fashion LJ community) demands that I design using real research into real Victorian clothing.

So! Using the evil power of Amazon Prime, I magically made this book appear on my doorstep today! And there are two more that should show up tomorrow.


And after doing copious Internet research, I came up with this not-entirely-satisfactory preliminary sketch:


Steampunk Princess Peach dress idea. Obviously I still need to figure out the hair. Also: Pardon the fact that this is a photo and not a scan. My scanner is currently indisposed. ;)
It needs more insanity. More Peach. More steampunk. More everything! It needs to be more over-the-top in all ways! And really, this is just a structural idea sketch, not a complete costume sketch; this is basically just an idea for the bits that I would need to literally SEW. Accessories and colors will help transform it. A parasol will help. The Princess Peach crown, and the earrings, and the fabric choices will help.

More money would help, too. Turning the crazy ideas in my head into reality seems even more insane on this month's sadly credit-card-dependent budget. (On the off chance that you have an overabundance of charitable feeling toward me and my geeky costuming, and a bit of money you'd like to donate, feel free to drop me a line. Even a small donation would help, and I'd be happy to give you a big fat "This costume sponsored by" shout-out and a link on the official costume info/documentation page — when one exists, on my Web site and/or here on the blog.)

And because my life is meant to be overly complicated — the Quicksilver Crafter reality is driven by stuffing too much productivity into short spans of time — this is not the only costume I'm working on. A collaboration with the lovely Robot, Monster & Ghost Co. will be unveiled at Dragon*Con this year, too.

Imagine me surrounded by sketches, coffee cups, fabric, newsprint-turned-pattern-pieces, and vintage accessories, wherein two fluffy cats and a long-haired boyfriend are trapped, and you have a decent estimation of what my next two weeks will be like.

Halloween doings: a craft show and some piratical sewing

We spent Halloween in Daytona Beach this year, doing our first "real" show as Star and Crossbones. A few months ago we had a table at an antique shop's "flea market," because a friend of mine who works there asked us a couple of days before it to fill a spot — but we didn't have a banner or business cards or a Web site or ... yeah. We had us, some homemade displays, and whatever we happened to have in stock at the time.

The Daytona Beach Hallowgreen event was the first event at which we set up a tent, had a banner, and passed out business cards. We even had a receipt book ... OooOOoooo. Here I am sitting in our booth (and knitting):


And for good measure, here's a photo with Brian and a close-up of our table — I took this one early in the morning, as soon as there was enough light, so I couldn't forget to take a picture:



It was a fun show. The organizer has told us we'll be welcome back next year if we're interested, we met fellow Etsy FEST member Cory from Aquarian Bath, whose lead we followed in order to get into the show, we got to visit Brian's family in the area, and we gave out all but I think three of our business cards — so even though we only sold a couple of things, I think it was a pretty successful show. (I do wish I had gotten the fabric labels done in time to sew them into the scarves, though. Oh, well. Next time.)

And actually, we're doing the antique shop's "flea market" again this Sunday. We still won't have our normal business cards, since the new batch hasn't arrived yet from the printer (alas...), but I'll just have to whip some up and print them out myself, because we can't just have nothing. ;) And this time, we'll have a table. And chairs. And more of a clue about what we're doing. And the all-important receipt book. Wahaha. (Come see us at Memory Lane Antique Mall in St. Petersburg, if you're in the area.)

Oh, and the other thing I had to do for Halloween was sew a pirate shirt for a guy Brian works with. In the last entry, I was going to try cleaning my sewing machine with Citra-Solv, so that, you know, it would actually work so I could sew the shirt. I should have documented the battle, but sitting on a tile floor for four hours unscrewing tiny screws and using two billion paper towels and a pair of tweezers to remove 10 years' worth of gunk from a bunch of metal gears didn't inspire me to take photos. Suffice to say, the machine now runs. Not perfectly, mind you, but I didn't kill it, and it didn't kill me. I declare this: A WIN!

And look, I was a good girl and sewed the placket facing on the commissioned pirate shirt before I sewed the front piece of the shirt to the back piece:



Wins all around. Except for the fact that I've been suffering from post-craft-show out-of-it-ness — or maybe I'm catching a wee bit of something. But I can't let that stop me, as Star and Crossbones must sail on...

Chinese pirate costume stuffage

All right, I gave in and ordered the hakama/kataginu pattern from Folkwear. I could almost certainly have figured out how to make the things just from photo references and the line drawings some web sites show with the pattern information, but that requires thinking, and if I get stressed out with waiting till the last second for fabric, or something else, which seems likely, then I won't want to think too hard, and a nice, safe pattern will bail me out. So I dropped the $15 plus shipping.

For my own reference, I shall now list some resources I'm likely to want to look at while designing the bottom layer of the costume.

*Oriental Costumes, Their Designs and Colors, by Max Tilke - scans of the book
*Articles on Costuming, including a section on Asia

And I even requested a book from the library, on sewing Japanese clothing. For all I know, it'll contain instructions for making a hakama and kataginu, but the Folkwear pattern got ordered in case the interlibrary loan doesn't come through in time.

Oh, and in case anyone happens to read this and wonder why on earth I'm ordering Japanese stuff for a Chinese pirate costume, she's a bit of a fusion character, and anyway, note the pirate part. She can commandeer other people's clothing if she likes. ;)