I admit that I'm more than a little jealous that so many of you on my F-list are crunching to prepare for Costume College. Well, not really jealous of your pain, more the anticipation of so much fun! BUT I feel good about my decision to go help my sister instead. Every time I talk to her she sounds a little more frazzled. Bonus is that I will also ( Read more... )

My sister's husband has had his reserve-military service activated, so my sister will be on her own for the next twelve months with their three kids. Instead of CoCo, I'll be putting that time and money to visit her and help for a bit while the kids are out on summer vacation. It's been so long now since I've been to a CoCo... It used to be a huge ( Read more... )

Meet my new ultra-wide 18th century petticoat! It is step-two in creating my court gown - an under-petticoat to wear over my wide hoops that I posted about previously.

( Read more... )

I'm acting under the assumption that I will be able to make it work to go to Costume College this year, and therefore started working on my court gown for the gala. I wrangled with the logistics of how to travel with an enormous hooped petticoat. Then I remembered that years ago I had taken a GBACG workshop with Deb from Mantua Maker patterns to ( Read more... )

This is crazy! What is all this costume content I've been posting?! Well, that's one of the benefits of finishing UFOs - they ARE already partially complete.

This one has been languishing as long as the others, but the only start to it had been to pair the pattern and fabric. So it's only kind-of a UFO. It's the Folkwear 1930s beach pajamas, but ( Read more... )

I am now quite sure that this dress is going to CoCo with me next year. I'll glam it out 1960s style with a big bouffant and silver shoes! So relieved today to assure myself that it fits. Even after doing a mock-up I was suppressing a fear that something went wrong and it would be too small. :P I have been using dress-making techniques I saw in ( Read more... )

Weeeeeell... demode made a big announcement about needing to push her court dress to Costume College 2015 and a bunch of people jumped on board. That was the clincher for me to wait until CoCo 2015 and skip this year again. My trip to London in mid-July was not originally in my plans, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I also added a few days to it ( Read more... )

It's taken me a week to unwind, unpack, and catch up at home, after the conference at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. I was super focused on writing my paper, plus I had a ten day trip to see family, so it's been nice to putter along this week. My paper on Early Modern needlework pattern books was very well received! I got great ( Read more... )

I'm almost finished with the commissioned dresses, so I've started daydreaming in earnest about what my next major project will be ( Read more... )

It looks like I have enough frequent flyer miles for ONE trip to the US in 2011. I REEEEALLY want to go to the symposium at Williamsburg. More than Costume College, I think more than Costume Con (Boston), more than the CSA symposium... but I also haven't seen my parents in a couple of years or the SF Bay Area and all my friends. Then there's all ( Read more... )