Monthly Archives: April 2016

Ding, Dong, Ditch and the Dress Form

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Stephanie and I had a sewing night on Friday.  She brought all her stuff to my house; including her dress form.  Because sometimes you just need one of those.  Girl carrying a dressform

For the record, cartoon Angela is not feeling bad at all about the tiny scratch that she helped put in Stephanie’s brand new car with the dress form.  Real Angela was feeling kind of bad, and kind of like people should not hand her large, unwieldy objects because she has the coordination of a confused monkey.  Real Angela, like real Stephanie, got over it real quick.  Really.

So then, halfway up my driveway, handling the massive dress form, an idea hits me.  What if we left the dress form in front of the door, rang the doorbell, and ran away.  You know, good old ding, dong, ditch?  Stephanie thought it was just as funny as I did (we had to pause for 5 minutes before actually doing it because we couldn’t stop laughing).

Dressform sitting in front of a doorI sat the dress form down right in front of the door, rang the doorbell, and ran back to the garage–trying hard not to squeal the whole while.  We fully intended for my mom to open the door.

Except she didn’t.

Laughing girls

Of course, we’re laughing silently to ourselves because we happen to think we’re hilarious.  Even if sometimes we’re more of a hypothetical sort of funny.

My Dad sticks his head out of the front door (I’m assuming…I wasn’t looking) and exclaims “Hey, it’s a dummy!”  That’s it.  Didn’t question it.  Nothing.  And before we knew it:

Front door

He took it inside.  And thus our joke was RUINED.

Yep…I can hear those crickets…

But we have been sewing.  I took some really excellent pictures of how I made the lightning bolt for Ms. Marvel…on my camera…with no memory card.  So you’ll have to trust me that they were REALLY GOOD.  And understand why I didn’t manage to post last week…because I prepared to and then found out that I had no photos.  Go me!

Costume pics will come soon!

And lastly, there will be new bookmarks by the end of the week because Casey said I could send them to the Hightower bookfair and we all know that I am overenthusiastic once I have a deadline…thanks, btw, to everyone who voted on flowers.  I’ll announce the “winners” next post when I show off the new bookmarks! (And by winners, I mean which flowers I picked…there are no prizes unless you count getting to go to Etsy or Once and Again Books to buy some spectacular art made by yours truly…which should totally count.)

 

 

 

Ms. Marvel: Just Getting Started

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Blue and gold fabric, Ms. Marvel Comics, Butterick Pattern

With only a month and a half left until Momocon,  I decided to finally break down and buy (part of) the fabric that I need for Ms. Marvel.  I went with the Ya-Ya Han fabric from Joann, not because I really wanted to buy her fabric, but because I really liked the gold and the blue matched the texture of the gold where the other blue that I liked better looked kind of funny next to it.  The Ya-Ya fabrics are very smooth, and it looks odd when you put a fabric where you can clearly see the grain next to one where you really cant…so…decision made.

No idea yet what I’m going to use for the red, but the dress itself needs to be completed before I bother with the scarf/undershirt/leggings.  so I’ll deal with that later.  Plus, I’d like to see if I actually like the Ya-Ya fabric before I invest in more of it.

The shirt patterns are for the dress.  I’m going to use a combo of the A body and C sleeves, and lengthen them to make the dress. (Though technically it’s a burkini! It’s a swimsuit! That’s a real thing, I Googled!)  Pretty excited about this one; I’ve been seriously fangirl-ing over this character recently.  Issues 3 and 4 just showed up at my door yester-afternoon and I’m slowly savoring them as #5 wont be out till the summer.

In other news, Appen News finally published the article–> here

It isn’t what I’d call good, but it does exist.

If you popped by my website thanks to the article, thank you for stopping by!  We haven’t gotten the print version on our driveway yet, but it should land in the next day or two.

And now, to clarify about the article: the title of it is such a great exaggeration that I can’t even call it an exaggeration.  It’s more of a I don’t know…mistruth?  I am a pretty good cosplayer(not to toot my own horn, but hoooonk!), and my current cosplays will go up on my blog which is my “business.” But somehow when I told the journalist that I was an a blogger/preschool music teacher/tutor/bookseller with two English degrees and a 50,000 word manuscript in the works, she interpreted that to mean that I actually ran a “Successful Cosplay Business.”  No idea.  I’m honestly sitting here looking at the word document I sent her in response to her questions, trying to figure it out; however, she seems to have made that leap on her own.  Since the original article (the one that started all this nonsense) was on the costumes Stephanie and I made for the GNFCC Expo (which we made to get a little publicity), maybe she thought that I was making costumes because I ran a business?  I really have no idea.  Stealing is still wrong, though, Appen News.  Period.

I apologize for anyone sorely disappointed to find out that I do not run a “Successful Cosplay Business”, but I do run a really nice blog and have a really nice Etsy shop with a brand new banner that everyone should go check out right now!  And then you should all buy my coloring bookmarks because they’re cute.

 

Secret Project E and Other News

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I just got done being an insanely brave person: yes, dear readers…I had to get a blood test done.  For those of you who don’t know, I’m terrified of needles (let’s not sugar coat it), but I cope.  And I’m feeling insanely brave right now.  The only thing that could’ve made the experience better would be if the nurse had stopped asking me if I was going to pass out.

Which, in his defense, is probably a legit question.  I’m sure a lot of people that are afraid of needles actually do pass out whilst claiming they’re not going to pass out and so he really does need to ask that about twenty times to make certain the answer he’s getting is actually the correct answer.  Lest I lie to him and then promptly flop to the floor like a fish.

In my case, one of the many coping mechanisms that I use to get through this horrible experience that essentially turns my innards to jello, is to tell myself that I’m some herculean warrior princess (think Xena) and that herculean warrior princesses get through things they’re afraid of all the time.  Herculean warrior princesses do not pass out.  They just don’t. Continue reading →

The Ren Fest Vest

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I had another fit of insanity on Friday.  It wasn’t the worst one I’ve ever had, but Becky and Mike encouraged me.  I’ll take that to mean they have a whole lot of faith in my abilities.

You see, I have a Renaissance Festival costume–but Michael doesn’t.  And every time we go he laments the fact that he gets to be plain clothes Mike while I’m all fancy schmancy (except for that one time when he got mistaken for Shaggy from Scooby Doo).  This time we weren’t going to Ren Fest, we were actually going to a Renaissance themed wedding for our friends David and Veronica.

Becky actually showed me the pattern and, as it didn’t look that hard, I decided to see if I couldn’t whip out a Medieval looking vest before the wedding the next day at 6.

Pattern Pieces Continue reading →