3rdragon | Entries tagged with costumes

Hello all.

Yesterday I got fabric to be Keladry of Mindelan for ConBust.

Fabric and sketches are here, because I'm too lazy to embed them and you don't want them cluttering up your flists, anyway. The colors on the fabric are all off and the picture quality is bad, but the scanner isn't working and I don't know where the bit of hardware to connect my camera to the computer is.

Basically I'm going to do a tunic (dark dusty-blue), a shirt (cream, by which I mean as close to true white as I can argue it, because I don't look good in cream/ivory/ecru), and breeches (grey). The tunic will be belted at the waist, possibly with a sword or dagger for good measure, and the breeches will be stuffed into boots if I can find any that suit me.

So - which pattern do you recommend? 1? 2? 3 is basically 1 with quilting (I'm thinking it's a tunic that one might wear with armor (even though internet research says historic quilting was vertical; I like diagonal better)). 4 is a design my neighbor suggested, with pleats starting up high; she says it was her softball tunic, but I'm a bit dubious.
Should I mix and match or do something different?

I'm not sure about fitting; I think that 1 is fitted but I'm not sure how (that is, how I'll get it on and off if it is). Maybe it's fitted but so slightly that I can still pull it over my head.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or things learned through trial and error are appreciated.

Edit: #2 is based on this picture; aside from the sleeves and the different neckline, it has more of an a-line tunic skirt and the shirt is less floufy.

#1 is based on the standard Kel bookjacket outfit.

Current Location: On my way to the Naked Chocolate Cafe!

Stella's 1920's costume exhibition

If you're wondering, Stella \neq Miriam. She doesn't even look like me.
And furthermore, that's not a 1920s dress; it's from 1860, latest.
I guess it's time to send them an e-mail.

And I was so proud of them that they'd spelled my name correctly in both the newspaper and the alumni news about the workshop where that picture was taken. (Not that it's a hard name, but still.)

ETA: They fixed it. There isn't a picture anymore.

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: Casa de Pepi, sitting on my bed

I wasn't planning on making a Halloween costume this year. While I love costumes, they don't celebrate Halloween in Spain, so it seemed like it would be a bit of a wasted effort, not to mention difficult since I don't have anything to make a costume out of. And then I discovered that the program is hosting a Greek and Roman themed Halloween party. And between Greek and Roman and the need for an affordable costume, I was reminded of the costume that Gentian wore in Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, which I had decided was cool, but which I probably wouldn't ever actually use: she dressed up as one of Sappho's poems. White garment with the poem written on it, and rents in the fabric for the missing bits of the poem.

Since I don't speak Greek, I decided to do a bi- or tri-lingual poem. I found a translation I liked by a Middlebury prof, and since his translation is technically his intellectual property, I figured that I'd ask before using it in my costume.

( Here's our interaction so far. )

Please note: I didn't actually mention anything about Multimedia or tech stuff in the first e-mail; the only semi-logical explanation I can think of is that he missed the bit about it being a Halloween costume and thought it was for a class.
Or maybe that he has an axe to grind.

So what I'm wondering is:
-Is he this weird in person?
-Is he actually on drugs, or does it just sound like he is?
-How long can we keep up this mercurial conversation that seems to be leaping from conversational topic to conversational topic in a manner similar to that of a flying fox in a forest?

Current Mood: amused and pleased
Current Location: Casa de Pepi

I had a dream last night. This isn't too surprising; I had two dreams the night before, and at least one the night before that - I believe that this is a function of getting nine or ten hours of sleep a night and lazing when I wake up, rather than becoming awake at seven and getting up more-or-less immediately (more immediately if it's a day when I think I'm in danger of falling right back asleep again). I tend to do a lot of dreaming when I regularly sleep in a bit-but-not-lots.
So.

( The Dream )

Wow, I'm tired. And I'm willing to bet that a third of those sentences are odd in terms of grammar (if not outright wrong) or completely unintelligible in terms of content, but it's getting late. I'll probably edit it in the morning. And I'll tell you about the puppet theater, too.

Edit: So. Dream. While I've had weirder dreams, I don't recall ever having invented anything quite like the Three Post-It Note System before. Unless you want to count the mountain-climbing Rescue Nuns. Which were just as weird, but not nearly as complex, so I'm not going to count them.

And the theater. Last night Mom, Isaac and I went to see A Christmas Carol at the Mum Puppet Theater. I wasn't sure how much I was going to enjoy it, but was playing the part of the thrilled, cultured daughter because Isaac was doing The Teenager Thing where he wasn't interested in anything and had to be bribed by the offer of dinner at a restaurant of his choice (he picked Mama's - home of the unhealthiest cheese steaks in the Greater Philadelphia Area. The sandwiches are huge, and greasy (by which I mean considerably more greasy than most cheese steaks), and absolutely delicious. It was lovely having a cheese steak with the meat done properly and actual cheese and the real kind of bread - even if the Mama's cheese steaks are smaller than the ones I remember when I was a child. Isaac's memories concur, but I'm still not sure if this is a function of the changing size of the cheese steaks or a function of growing up). Have I mentioned that Isaac is really, truly a teenager now? He acquired the Teenager Attitude years ago - actually, it's a family joke that I turned 13 and he became a teenager - so he would have been eight or nine, but now he looks the part, too. His sweatshirts have been getting baggier and baggier over the past several years, and I was surprised to notice that he now has the Hooded Teenager Slouch as well. Ever since he claimed the mp3 player mom got me for Christmas (I'm not going to go into the story of my mother being lied to by salespeople, but suffice it to say that I wanted an mp3 recorder, and despite blithe assurances that all mp3 players record, this one doesn't.) he's even had earbuds glued to his ears. And his voice changed over this past fall.

Anyway. The puppet theater. The show was performed with two actors, one of whom played scrooge and the other of whom acted some characters and manipulated puppets or props for the others. It was really well done. The theater was necessarily small, so it was very intimate, and when they were making it scary prior to the ghost's arrival, it was quite scary. Isaac said that it wasn't scary, and mom said that she didn't feel the arrival of the ghost made it any less scary, but I find the idea of being alone in an old house with noises that you can't identify and that aren't there when you go and look to be much scarier than a well-done papier-mache mask (particularly if the mask's hair is made with a scraggly ostrich feather). The candle blowing out was a nice touch, but I anticipated it (it occurred to me that it would be good for the candle to go out right about now, and I was just wondering how that could be arranged when it did). The Ghost of Christmas Past was excellent - it was essentially a lighted head on a stick with long flowing gauze, which was manipulated by the second actor. He could stick his free hand through the layers of gauze of the spirit needed to be more material, or waft the head around the room if it needed to be more ethereal, and the lighting was just right so that it was mostly impossible to see the actor doing it. The lighting was really good for the whole show, actually.
I quite recommend it if any of you happen to be in Philadelphia over Christmas.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: mom's house

For those of you who are not aware, I am going to be Ms. Frizzle for Halloween. This means that I need some sort of wig, since my hair is not red, not curly, and no longer long enough (I might have been able to wangle it last year, though. Possibly. Anyway, I can't anymore).
As of today, I had been to five different stores (I think it was five. It might have been six) looking for a wig that was red, but a reasonably natural red, longish, and curly.
And I had been drawing blanks. Most stores have a decent-looking red wig that's chin-length (if they have anything in red at all), but completely straight. I did manage to find a vaguely wavy-but-not-very-realistic-red longer wig in Faces, and a short fire-engine red curly one at Ultra Gal. I found a longer wavy one with '50s big-hair poof bangs in Past and Present (for confused Smithies, that's in Philadelphia). But I hadn't found anything decent.
So today I took my bike and rode along King Street again, looking for the mythical party store (I was out that way last week, walked a while, and eventually turned around because I needed to be at work at 12:30). I got to where the sidewalk ends and had turned around and given up. Then, as I was riding past the athletic association, I noticed a pirate-y sign in the window of a store removed from the street, so I turned into the driveway and inspected further. And lo and behold, it was the party store! (It was only a block further on from where I'd stopped walking, but I'm not entirely sure that I would even have seen it.) And they had a whole wall of wigs. They didn't have the exact marmelade-red sort of shade I was looking for; the one I got is more of a strawberry blonde. But it's actually strawberry blonde, instead of white-blonde with brown streaks, unlike one supposedly strawberry-blonde wig I saw. And Mrs. Frizzle's hair changes color from book to book anyway, so it's not as if I have to make an exact match.

My costume preparations are currently thus:
Wig (yay-check!)
Dress (mostly there; I still need to finish the front bit and sew 13 buttonholes).
Shoes (probably won't happen)
Liz, the iguana (certainly won't happen)
Earrings (I have the clip-on fastenings . . .)

Attitude: Take Chances, Make Mistakes, Get Messy!
Voice (I got one of the tv show videocassetts from Forbes. I still need to watch it and decide if I actually want to use it.)

In other news, I got a pair of knee-socks at Faces. They aren't as exciting as I'd been hoping for my fencing socks, but they are better than just plain red or plain white. If knee socks are currently in, maybe I should get Karla to take me sock-shopping for Christmas. She'd know where to go.

Once again I found myself manufacturing a silly hat for the Ziskind House picture. The worst thing is, I did remember over the summer that I wanted to pack a silly hat - I just forgot to do so.

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: Ziskind
Current Music: Someone singing down the hall

The chess match was this afternoon. After so frantic costuming and scurrying around, and a few very worried minutes in which pulsebeat and I were unsure if we were going to be able to get the chessboard to untangle (N.B. don't try to untangle it - instead, try to spead it out as much as possible. When you get to an edge, work along it until you can pull out a corner or two, then go along to the next edge, etc. Also, we rolled it when we put it away, so try unrolling first, if you can find something to unroll.

The chess games were a lot of fun. The computer-generated game was nice and bloody, but if we do that again I think that the kings should sit down and play the game sometime before, just so that they have an idea of what happens. I think that having the computer-played game first took a lot of pressure off of the players, so that it was easier to do a speed-chess game after.

I took many pictures, which I'm sure will be awesome. However, 260 megs of photos is far more than my photobucket account can handle, so I'll put them on facebook instead, and people can e-mail me if they want the nice big originals.

All of the costumes were amazing. I just have to put that out there.

And from Ellirpa: Pay It Forward: I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment here on my blog. I don’t know what that gift will be yet, but you will receive it within 365 days. The only thing you have to do in return is "pay it forward" by making a similar agreement on your blog.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Ziskind
Current Music: Wind in trees and blowing leaves