24 Hours!

Dear Delivery Service Customers,
We regret to inform you that today's service is delayed due to playtime.

We are 24 hours out from Gen Con (well, the time we'll be traveling to Gen Con) and I am pleased to report that all costumes are FINISHED!

...as of 8:00 this morning, when I put the final stitches in a belt for the Eighth Doctor that I had completely forgotten about until Sunday afternoon. Whoops!

Kiki is finished, the Doctor is finished, and Elsa (bless her beautiful but difficult soul) is finished.

I'm sorry I didn't post more progress photos, but it has been a mad scramble! If you really really want to see some, here's my Cosplay 2014 tag on Tumblr; there are some photos and quick updates and you don't have to scroll past the Marvel memes and Disney mashups and feminist critique that are on my full feed.

See you on the other side!

Cosplay in Progress: The Eighth Doctor

Yes, I am alive! Since my last post, I ended up finding new homes for two members of Team Modern AG, and used the proceeds to help fund the linchpin piece of my Doctor Who cosplay.

Which means it’s time to introduce you all to someone.

This man? He is My Doctor.

Drive-by post: Selling some AG

Holy socks, two posts in a row! I know, right?

Thanks to the limitations of both space and funds, I am downsizing my AG collection a bit. Sunny (#4) and Merrill (#21) are in need of a new home, along with some odds and ends. You can see the thread on AGPT here. 

To keep this post from being completely shameless shilling, here's a picture of my latest cosplay achievement:

Yes, Pieface is getting her plush Jiji to go with that Kiki costume. A full post detailing how I made Jiji will be forthcoming once Pie's birthday is over (and Jiji is no longer in hiding in a cupboard!).

Thanks for looking!

COSPLAY UPDATE

Popping in for a brief update!

There’s not a whole lot that’s been going on here – my job’s health insurance is all kinds of terrible and I now have back payments cutting into my paychecks, so my fun budget is being reallocated to meet, y’know, actual obligations. Anna and Elsa only made their way here because I was purposely holding back funds for them, and any other new dolls are entirely out of the question at the moment.

I’ve been doing bits and pieces of cosplay work – only bits and pieces, sadly. Like my money, my time is being eaten up as well – I’m in the process of searching for a new new job (my issues with the health insurance are only the tip of the iceberg here) and if I’m not actively working on that, I’m facedown asleep by 9:00 from the stress of it all.

But you don’t come here to hear me whine, you come for amusement!

I’ve been working on two costumes simultaneously – a Fem!Doctor Who and Elsa’s Coronation gown. I do have a post in the works about my Doctor Who costume, so I’m going to talk about Elsa today!

Cosplay ALREADY!

Queen Elsa is FINALLY starting to loosen her icy grip on Cincinnati (Elsa, honey, you got your Oscar. You can stop letting it go now) but my thoughts have already turned to summer, and summer means Gen Con, and Gen Con means cosplay!

And I totally didn’t mean to do this, but I may have finished one costume already. Okay, granted, it’s Pie’s cosplay, and it’s a pretty simple one, at least compared to last year. But still. It was the second day of March, and I had one out of three costumes pretty much done.

Happy Halloween!

Team Modern is prepped and ready for Free Candy Night!

Sunny: Luke Skywalker (poor Sunny - she always gets the thrown-together-at-last-minute costume. I need to do a dedicated costume for her.)

Robin: Astrid (with Trogdor as obligatory dragon)

Nasrin: Ren Faire princess (so pleased to have a costume that's modest enough!)

Lucy: Cinderella

Merrill: Carl Sagan (yes, the late astrophysicist. Merrill is that much of a nerd. :D) That Big Lots corduroy jacket is perfect for the '70's look! All she needs is a tiny copy of Contact.


So, Happy Halloween to those who celebrate it. Brush your teeth after chowing down, kids. And, remember:






HUFFLEPUFF HOUSE IS BEST HOGWARTS HOUSE. Let no chump tell you otherwise.

Have fun!

The Saga of Gen Con 2013

IT IS TIME.

Sit yourselves down and grab something to quaff, for the time has come for the Saga of Gen Con 2013.

24 Hours to Go!

The 24-hour countdown has begun. This time tomorrow, I will be en route to GenCon, and my first foray into cosplaying.

Needless to say, I am terrified.

I was hoping to do a dry run of my costumes this past weekend (as I have not worn costumes + wigs + makeup all together at the same time yet, which is not helping my terror), but it was terribly humid and sticky this weekend. In a house without air conditioning, wearing normal clothing in this weather is barely tolerable - forget putting on five pounds of satin, brocade, and velvet, plus wigs, and a layer of theater makeup.

I did manage to get the Pie into her costume early on Sunday morning, when it was still cool out, and took some photos in the backyard.

So, ladies and gents, I give you The Mighty Pieface as Merida.

That's my little nerd progeny. Kindergarten isn't going to know what hit them.

(Back to packing now. HOW do cosplayers travel anywhere, ever? SO MUCH STUFF. I can't imagine doing this with wings and armor and swords and all the other stuff.)

SEE YOU MONDAY!

Racing the Clock to GenCon!

So, I was going to post all about my trip to AG Easton last Friday. BUT, I wrote out the post and edited the photos during breaks at work, and I keep forgetting to throw the files onto Google Drive so I can access them at home.

With that, you lot get a costume update instead, because there are only 20 - 20! - days to go!

Behold, the Elinor dress:

Gratuitous Squee Post: Rapunzel Edition

Who's got two thumbs and is really really for true a princess now?

THIS GIRL.

fweeeee this dress is awesome.

VICTORY SCREECH!

We interrupt your Friday evening to request a VICTORY SCREECH!




(I love that I have a family where I can run out of the Dollcave into the hallway, yell "VICTORY SCREECH!", and everyone else in this house will throw their hands in the air and yell OLOLOLOLOLOLOLO.

Yes, I am in fact 12 years old, and always will be.)

Anyway. IT IS FINISHED.

Sorry for the awkward photo - the back of the Cave door is literally the only clean place in the room.

Quickie Update

Just popping in with a few items of note:

First, I'm clearing out a few doll-related odds and ends on AGPT, to help free up space and finance costume stuff. Sale thread is here. 

Next, the Rapunzel dress is 95% complete. I am now in the arduous process of attaching the lace appliques to the skirt, which means that every night this past week, I have been sitting in front of the Dollcave's closet door (where the dress is hanging), hand-stitching away while listening to Pandora.

(Pandora likes to rickroll me while I'm trying to untangle knots. It's slightly evil.)

This is a shot from earlier this week:

The lace now extends about 1/3 of the way around on each side. I'm nervously eyeing my stock of appliques and hoping I have enough!

And, just so I can say "I knew these skills would come in handy", I have successfully worked on office clothing. See, a while back I bought this skirt from the Prabal Gurung for Target line:

It is the cutest skirt, but just a wee bit too short for my liking. I can get away with wearing it at work, but I find myself smoothing it down constantly to make sure it covers enough. So today at Hancock Fabrics, I took advantage of a 50%-off sale on trims and bought some wide lace to attach to the underskirt:

Cute, and adds just that smidgen of length I've been wanting!

NEXT TIME: I have just begun work on the Elinor dress from Brave. Let's see how this goes!

Doll Stuff, For Once

Well now, I'm posting about doll stuff. I...honestly wasn't expecting that.

For those who haven't seen it, Doll Diaries posted a lot of photos from the soft opening of the new American Girl store in Columbus, over here:

http://dolldiaries.com/more-new-ag-items-at-columbus-store/

I live about 2 hours away from Columbus, so I've obviously been looking forward to the store opening. And some of the new stuff? I am dangerously close to having a SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY moment, and I honestly can't remember the last time I had that reaction to an AG release. SCIENCE KIT. BENTO LUNCH. GREY STRIPE HOODIE. Robin wants it ALL. :D

I'm just about ready to walk into AG Columbus and walk out without a doll, which is a thing that seemed unthinkable a year ago. The truth is, I'm at a point where AG is my lowest priority when it comes to fun-money spending (costumes are #1 right now, lol), and I'm quickly running out of space for new dolls. (I really want to get another shelf up on the wall, so the Small Dolls can have their own space, Team Historical can be properly displayed, and I can rotate the dolls in the Team Modern display.) Right now, it seems like a far better idea to just get accessories and clothes!

 In costume news, the Rapunzel dress is frighteningly close to finished:

PRINCESS? PRINCESS.

WHO'S GOT TWO THUMBS AND IS A PRINCESS?




THIS GIRL.



fweeeeeeeeeeee.



Just doing an extremely silly drive-by post to let you know that work continues on Project Rapunzel 3.0. That jacket is almost finished!

Side Quests in Cosplay: Prop Making!

Over Memorial Day weekend, I was going insane - I had all my costume pieces cut and ready to go. But the lilac thread, the same thread I'd used for Pie and which has been hanging around uselessly for the last two years, was nowhere to be found. I was dying to work on the outfit, and had no way to do so!

So I went off on a side project - making my prop frying pan. Now, the easiest and most accurate thing to do would be to buy a cast-iron skillet and carry it around, but cast-iron is heavy, and excess weight gets very old very fast in a crowded convention center. So I started thinking of ways I could have a frying pan to carry that wouldn't add a lot of extra weight, and would pass muster with convention security.

Costumes, Costumes, Costumes!

My poor dolls! They’re feeling so lonely and neglected nowadays. Why? Because summer is coming, the warm weather is here, and that means CONVENTION SEASON is nigh.

And THAT means that all my creative energy is going into costuming.

The Pieface’s Merida dress is finished!: