Sketches

Belladone sketches

I’m having one of those days where if my body had its way, I would’ve taken a two hour nap every three hours or so. Even so, I did manage to get some work done, but eventually decided to be productive in a more fun and relaxing way: sketching!

I bought Deer and Doe‘s Belladone pattern a few weeks ago and even though I’m not totally sold on my first version of it, I absolutely love the pattern itself. It fits me perfectly. Like, no seam adjustments or anything required. And it’s very flattering! I did take the neckline down a bit and shortened the skirt as usual, but the bust and waist fit perfectly. I love it!

What I didn’t love so much was the fabric I used. It’s some sort of gabardine blend that just doesn’t like me much and won’t behave so parts of it look a bit wonky. I also prefer a fully skirt, so I think next time I’ll do something pleated or gathered, but that’s just personal preference. I also want to do a two-tone dress where the top is lace and the skirt is a springy color like rose or mint (I drew it in pink because I happen to have a cotton sateen in that color). I also think a peplum top version would be super cute and springy! Maybe in a subtle floral? I haven’t decided on that one.

I’ve been doing a lot of copycat projects lately, it’s been nice exercising the designing part of my brain!

And now I’m going to go curl up with some ice cream and watch more Dr Who. And try to ignore the tinny voice in my brain that’s telling me to drop everything and knit a 12 foot scarf.

PAX East 2013

PAX was so much fun! I only went for one day but I’m still recovering. I feel old. In my defense, 14 hours in a corset is not the most comfortable thing in the world.

We had a great time checking out some games I’d never heard of and talking to tons of game developers, and then we got to play some awesome tabletop games! I played my first deck-building game called Ascension and then played another awesome and hilarious card game called Flame Wars.

I’m still exhausted and have to get ready for school so I’ll leave you with some photos, not in order.

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Codex and Dr Who. 

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Boyfriend was a zombie magnet.

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My friend (the one with the 3D glasses) organized his own photo op of all the Drs Who!

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I got to meet VGO!!

I’m already thinking of costumes for next year! I still want to do Zoe Castillo at some point. And Dovahkiin from Skyrim. And maybe something a little more ridiculous like Kaylee’s poofy dress from Shindig.

Make ALL the costume!

Prepping

Codex

Codex

PAX East is this weekend so I am a busy bee.

I was originally going to go as Zoe Castillo, but then my lovely dear kind seester who I now owe my firstborn child trekked home and mailed me this lovely costume that I made a few years ago.

Except I was quite the impatient slob about seams back then, so I get to take apart quite a few seams (re: most of them) and redo a lot of this.

But yay PAX!

Floppy donuts

Bust cut-out dress

Bust cut-out dress

Bust cut-out dress

Bust cut-out dress
dress: self-made // tights: Modcloth // shoes: Nine West (thrifted) // scarf: French flea market

Birthday dress was a success! It’s slightly difficult to type though because my fingers are frozen. Cannot wait for warmer weather!

I used this pattern along with a self-drafted circle skirt. I was going to include the sleeve caps but a combination of having nearly run out of time and deciding it looked better without them led to my leaving them off.

For the skirt, I folded a square piece of fabric over halfwise twice, and then measured a 10″ curve at the waistline. My waistline is 24″ so I wanted the skirt to be about 1.5″ wider than my actual waist so there would be pleating. Then I measured from the curve down to various points about 20″ (skirt length + hem) and cut both curves so that I was left with a large floppy donut shaped piece.

Sorry if that’s absolutely incomprehensible. I’m terrible at explaining things.

And yes, I totally caved and dyed my hair. Eek!

Shimmer

Gold linen skirt

Gold linen skirt

Gold linen skirt

Gold linen skirt

Gold linen skirt
top: h&m // skirt: self-made // tights: F21 // shoes: Chelsea Crew // sweater: Modcloth

This might seem surprising but a year ago I owned about three dresses (like appropriate-for-public dresses, not counting the ones only appropriate in Middle Earth) and one skirt. And exactly one of those three dresses was not club-wear.

Then I bought a few patterns and started learning how to make dresses and pretty soon I had a whole closet-ful. But I still only had one skirt!

Anyway, this skirt was my first experiment with pattern-less skirt-making. To be fair, I made a few in high school but they were such ruffled low-rised monstrosities that it’s best to forget their existence and just back away quietly.

I think I might do a tutorial on this one, if anyone’s interested. It’s really simple and only involves the tiniest bit of math. Or, if you’re math-phobic like me, some minor trial and error. I used some kind of gold linen that has bits of sparkly gold woven in. It’s not the easiest thing to iron but it definitely creates a cool shimmery effect.

In other news, I just saw this video over at Maidae and I’m just itching to dye my hair red again.

In other other news, I finally figured out how to use my vintage non-auto-focusing lens for taking outfit pictures! It was actually stupidly easy and now I feel dumb for not having tried it before.

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