The Masquerade!  We entered the Sci Fi/Fantasy Masquerade and wound up being the last performers, largely because there were 12 of us.  I had approached Lis of DragonFly Designs with the idea of doing a Doctor Who switch with the 4th Doctor and Sarah Jane, but  that quickly turned into wanting to have all of our friends be Doctors as well.  The Cheap Chick is not a Who fan and was not planning on participating until she mentioned that everytime we would say "Whovian" she would think of "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas."  Therefore we decided she would be the 12th Doctor, Cindy Lou Who.  

We draped her pink minky fabric (she likes to say her costume is couture, hee!) over a complicated pillow set-up she devised, and she did all the sewing of scallops and such.  When the outfit was done she could only really shuffle in it, which made it that much funnier.

Everyone else chose a Doctor and set about making a female Victorian era version of him.  Everyone chose very different ideas, and it turned out really great.

I chose the 4th Doctor and immediately knew I wanted to do a knitted bustle.  As I am not the world's greatest knitter, I found two friends who were willing to help out.  When I went to put all the knitted pieces together to finish the bustle, I found that the pieces had stretched to over 80+ inches and were not long enough.

(Stretched out on my king size bed...)


( More knitting behind the cut. )

I had a really wonderful time this past weekend at Costume Con.  I participated in the Sci Fi Masquerade, my group won Judge's Choice, and I won Best in Class for Worksmanship in Journeyman.  I also learned that in the future I will ALWAYS stay at the host hotel.  What a hassle that turned out to be.  I missed tons of stuff waiting for the shuttle....

On Friday night I again wore my orange saloon girl costume that I wore at Teslacon:



( More silliness behind the cut... )

In preparation for Costume Con my little group decided to wear some themed costumes.  Crazy 18th century style was decided for Sunday AM, and so I started thinking about what to wear.  Since I had several other outfits to make and didn't really want to make another one off outfit, I decided to repurpose one.

I took my Valentine's Day Courtesan from Bristol Ren Fair's Day of Wrong from last year and converted it into an 18th century Redingtote.  Or someone's crazy cartoon idea of a Redingote.  I have yet to try the entire thing on all at once, but am a little concerned that I will not get big enough hair....

Why big enough hair?  Because I need something HUGE to balance out my fabulous hat!!!



I started with a pink straw hat (brim only) as the base and sewed wire along the edges.  Then I sewed on lace on the top and bottom and threaded in the ribbon.  I took a 10 inch metal cake pan and spray painted it pink.  Most importantly, I drilled a series of holes along the edges of the pan before I hot glued it to the straw.  After the glue dried I went back and stitched the pan to the hat. Everything from here on out is hot glued on.  I covered the stitched edge with some stretch lace and a Happy Valentine's Ribbon.  I put braided trim that I had in my stash along the top edges, and made a bow out of the trim ribbon.  I found a heart shaped metal button and that is in the center of the bow.  Since this is supposed to look like a box of chocolates and all old fashioned boxes of chocolate come with fake flowers on them, I glued on some leaves and a clump of fake flowers I had in my hat decorations bin.  Some combs and a hair elastic underneath complete the effect,  

I can't tell you how much I LOVE this hat.  It is so over the top and crazy, and I can't wait to wear it. I will post photos of the entire outfit after Con this coming weekend.

Although I got nothing else listed for sale (i.e. fabrics, costumes...), I did actually sew something yesterday.  It might just have been hems on shirts and pants and adjusting waistbands on jeans, but it was actual honest to goodness sewing in my CLEAN sewing room.

I flew to Cary, NC today to visit the lovely Artemisia of Dress Diary of a Renaissance Seamstress.  We are going to sew and drape and enable each other for 3 days (as well as touring the Spoonflower factory!) and then are heading up to DC to visit with Saharazara and Susie and Terry and have dinner in costume at a restaurant in Alexandria.  Arte and I are also going to visit the Smithsonian.  

After several days there, Glynnis and I are winging our way to New York City to deprive the Garment District of all their fabric.  I have packed an extra bag in anticipation of the excitement of it all.

The nice thing about visiting with other costumers is that it definitely gets your costuming juices flowing.  I have been in a complete costume funk lately, and just talking about various options with someone else is SO helpful.  I have drawn out my costume designs (each design getting steadily worse till it was practically Stickman wearing 18th century...), listed what needed to be done, and made a shopping list.  

And the best part?  I am EXCITED about it.  I can't wait to see what I can find!

I have the books up (finally) for sale on eBay.  It took a bit longer to finish cleaning my sewing room than I thought it would.  I will have fabrics, shoes, etc. up in the next several days.  I am SO glad my sewing room is FINALLY clean....

I have a couple of Janet Arnold books, the Tudor Tailor, etc.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/rockthefrock/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

I have re-booted the blog a bit with a new design and changed the title somewhat.  (Since poor Eleonora has been languishing in a pile of dust in my sewing room....)

I have a post up on my trip to Teslacon, the Steampunk Immersion Con in Madison, WI and all the festive things I wore there, as well as a post on my plans for Eleonora and a Virtual Garage Sale I am going to have to get rid of stuff I am no longer using nor need, from costumes to patterns to books to FABRIC.  

And my post on the Steampunk Christmas Carol/Fezziwig's Party that MNSOC had in December will be up shortly.  (The photo below is from Teslacon with their green screen.  Love that thing.)

All posts are here:  http://theeleonoraproject.wordpress.com/

I had heard about Operation Glass Slipper (http://operationglassslipper.org/OGS/Welcome.html) a year or so ago, but only this year did I finally feel like I had the time and resources to get involved.  And to get the entire MNSOC guild involved.

Operation Glass Slipper is exactly what it sounds like - it helps girls who otherwise could not afford it to go to their local proms to do so.  It provides dresses, shoes, bags, jewelry, etc.  They have fundraisers several times a year where they sell older dresses and wedding dresses (some of which were amazing vintage finds for $20 and some of which were just INCREDIBLE works of confection for $50!) to raise money for the event.  In late March the actual Princess/Fairy Godmother event is held, and they get 70 girls an hour!  About 1400 girls get outfits that weekend.  

I got to go and see the warehouse where the dresses are kept, as well as the rejects, dresses that are too dated, or missing zippers, etc.  The racks of prom ready dresses were so colorful and sparkly and fun to look at.  What a wonderful and fun thing to be involved in!

I am working on finding fitters, hand-sewers and folks who can do alterations via machine.  You can work as many 2 hour shifts as you like, and I have been told repeatedly by folks who are involved with the program how very rewarding it is.  

I am very excited to participate and hope to help out as long as I can.  If you are in the MN area and would like to be a Fairy Godmother for a day, send me an email and I'll put you on the list!

I have the last post up of the final 33 days of the 40 days of Laura at The Eleonora Project here:  http://theeleonoraproject.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/the-40-days-of-laura-the-finale/

I haven't posted in a long while because A)waiting on the Eleonora pattern outline which takes time (thanks to the lovely Arte!!) and B)I have been busy writing blog posts for the MNSOC blog and running MNSOC events.  Which takes a surprising amount of time.

And then Tuesday rolled around and my Mom sent me a text:  "How do you like the pink flamingos on your front lawn?" and I knew that the 40 days had begun.

Five years ago my husband turned 40 and I played a very long practical joke on him.  My sister in law had first told me about the idea, as it had happened to a friend of hers.  Starting at 40 days from the person's 40th birthday, you do something silly, crazy, funny, etc. every day in countdown to the birthday.  Everyone signs up for a day.  It started with my Mom having 40 pink flamingos on the front lawn of our house.  Of course he was very confused, saying, "Uh, my birthday isn't till September.  What the?"  Then when he woke up each day to find things like an inflatable walker in his office, or a big cut-out of MN Twins catcher Joe Mauer wishing him a "Great 19 days till your birthday!" and 800 balloons in his office, he picked up on the idea very quickly.  It causes the person to be slightly paranoid for 40 days, as you never know what you are going to find when you wake up.

Other things we did for Albert were 12 plastic monkeys on a tree, an AARP magazine cover with his photo and "Albert and other things older than dirt," and my personal favorite, songs from musicals played on the flute outside our window at 6:30am.  Hee.  His request?  "Do you know 'They Call the Wind Mariah?' from 'Paint Your Wagon?'"    

It culminated in a party at a local pub with whiskey tasting and good food.  

I did not think Albert was going to do the 40 days for me.  I suspected there might be payback of some kind, but he seemed so vehemently against it that I assumed I would have a small party and that would be it.  

Um, NO.

When my Mom texted me about the pink flamingos I found Albert and showed him the text and he started laughing and said, "Let's go take your picture!!"  (I was on the way to Physical Therapy and looking stunning, of course.)  Then he laughed evilly, very "Mwa ha ha!" and said, "I hope you enjoy the next 39 days!"  

And only when the next day started did I realize just how much the 40 days of Laura could mess with a person's mind.  Since Tuesday I have inspected my car every day for signs, cans, etc.  I have gingerly peeked into my closet, my sewing space, the bathroom and the laundry room.  Whereas I had a calendar and the help of Albert's friend at work, he has a spreadsheet and a "Circle of Trust."  Hee.  

I must say that I have enjoyed my 40 days so far much more than he did his.  He has made mine more fun, to be honest.  So every few days or so I am going to post the results of the 40 days in the hopes that someone might see this and plan something as fun for someone they love.  

( Photos of the insanity behind the cut. )