humiliated grape, really...

So... uh... I forgot to make hotel reservations for Fanime.
I'd really rather not stay at the Marriott or Hilton, but has anyone got space in their room? Or know someone with space that I could contact?

So this last weekend was unusually busy, and while there are some things I missed out on, it was a pretty freaking LA-tastic couple of days, and those tend to be kind of delightful.
In looking at my weekend plans, I realized on Friday that that evening was probably my best bet to get out and see The Muppets. I got a friend to come with me to the El Capitan and bum around on Hollywood Blvd for a little bit, and it was quite a lot of fun. In addition to serving as the exterior for the Muppet theater in the movie (which I should have guessed at, but it delighted me to no end to see it on screen and think "I AM THERE RIGHT NOW!!!") the El Capitan provided a neat pre-show, that featured Kermit and Miss Piggy onstage doing a Christmas sing-along, and a selection of costumes, props, and recreations of Kermit's office and Piggy's dressing room downstairs. The audience was mostly older, and super enthusiastic about the film, which is also totally excellent. I plan to see it at least once more before it leaves theaters.

On Saturday, I got my Yuuko costume together and met Ashley in Little Tokyo. We got a room at the Kyoto Grand so we could do photos there the next morning. That put us less than a mile from Jenny & Victoria's party, so we made it over to that bar. I liked that place okay, but it was super noisy. The company was totally fantastic though!

On Sunday, Ashley and I got up early so we could prep our costumes (which involves just a TON of ironing) and I could get into my Yuuko/Disney Villain makeup. Jason met us at the hotel and we got a lot of photos. (Note: The hotel is absurdly cool with the costumes and photography.) The photos I've seen so far are freaking awesome and I'm so looking forward to the rest of the set!
After getting checked out, Ashley and I headed to Disneyland for Part II of Jenny & Victoria's birthday spectacular. The park was INSANELY crowded, easily the most people I've ever seen there (and I have been on several holidays, including multiple 4th of July weekends). The culprit was the Candlelight Procession, which takes over Main Street. It was enough to make us feel a little less Christmas-y until we met up with everyone else and got to skip most of the lines. Then Ashley and I made our way to Electronica, which definitely ended the evening on a high note. It was a huge blast.

So that was my awesome LA weekend. I'll be headed back to Wisconsin for a bit later this month, so that'll probably have to hold me over until 2012.

So in addition to crazy costume work (link to cosplay facebook because I am too lazy right now to upload photos to enough online locations) that has been keeping me pretty occupied and amused, I've been trying to read more again.

After Dark Tower, which I'm becoming a little less angry at with some distance (it helps that I didn't hate the ending, just the afterwards), I read Handmaid's Tale and The Picture of Dorian Gray, and I've just started The City of Dreaming Books.

On the Handmaid's Tale... In general, I really liked this one. It was an interesting world and a relatively interesting lead character, in that I didn't like her but that didn't seem to matter much; I didn't feel like I had to like her or always sympathize with her situations and her actions. Thinking about it, that's kind of refreshing for a female narrator. I may need to check out more from this author.
My one complaint was the very ending, which did introduce some neat ideas, but I'm still not entirely sure it was really necessary. On the other hand, out of everything else in the book, that ending's what I really want to talk about. I'm still just not sure I liked how it was presented.

The Picture of Dorian Gray... I hadn't read this all the way through before. I wasn't able to give it the full focus it deserved, probably, especially toward the end when I started getting impatient for a resolution (something I am very guilty of when it comes to classic stories where I know the bullet points and am just waiting to check them off), but it was pleasant to just go along with it. I imagine it'll be something I go back to again.

City of Dreaming Books... Definitely not far enough into this one to say too much, but it's different and I kind of like going with it. I'll be curious to keep reading, especially when I have a little more free time.

That's it for me for now... I have PMX this weekend, where I'll be doing a skit and a panel with Ashley. Very excited!

Had a total blast at the park on Friday! The costume went over really well, and I'm mostly pleased with it! I don't think there's a lot of changes I'll be making.

I met up with Kristin in her awesome townsperson Belle, and we proceeded to kill it. We were awesome. <3



I'm pretty excited to go back, and to get some pictures of the dress. For a relatively quick and easy project, I'm really pleased with how it all turned out.!

Finally finished with Belle! I hope!
I did go in and add a second pocket, because it was easy enough and I'm sure I'll find a use for it. I freaking love how easy it is to add pockets to ballgowns.



What amuses me a lot is that there are a lot of donations to this costume in the form of scrap fabric and materials from other costumes. Durand, Zero, Howl, Azula and Yuuko are all in there to varying degrees, as well as some bling from a flapper dress I never finished and an Amano costume I will never make. I tried to keep myself from going too nuts in the fabric district. The glittery tulle underskirt is about as much crazy as I allowed myself (and seeing how much that stuff sticks to EVERYTHING, it might have been too much crazy).

Anyway, I'll be giving this a test run tomorrow and I hope it works out! With any luck, I'll be able to get a couple pictures to share.

So I'll get a report up eventually, but in the meantime, I sprang for a pro flickr account so I could put all my Japan stuff online. I think there were a few problems in transferring some files, which I'll have to get in an fix, but otherwise all the pictures I have are here.

Otherwise, my Belle dress is nearing completion. The main portion of the skirt has been done for a while, but I finally got the sash part added last night. It's not as wide as I'd like, but it's stuffed with a couple layers of tulle that give it some volume, which pleases me. (And the tulle was donated to the cause by Karen, so it was free, which pleases me more.)

The base of the bodice still needs bias tape around the bottom, but I got the gold braid sewn on last night. Mainly, I just have that bit around the shoulders left to sew.

The gloves are hanging out inside the giant pocket I added to it. I'm sort of considering adding another one to the other side, but I'm not sure it'll be necessary. The second pocket on Ariel was almost solely used for the snarfblatt.



I'm also still fussing with the wig. I used my Durand wig as a base, and it's a bit short for what I need it to do, so that's causing some problems. I think I can get them figured out, though. Hopefully I can just spend the rest of the week fussing with the wig, and debating whether or not add any more embellishment to the bodice. I still have a ton of sequins and a whole stash of gold beads I haven't touched yet.

I am, once again, very dissatisfied with what I'm reading.
I'm about halfway through the last volume of The Dark Tower, but I might be done. Even disregarding the way-off-the-tracks last two books, I think my real issue is that I don't like Stephen King's writing. I honestly remember the final Twilight book being a more pleasant experience, and I don't mean that in any way that endorses Breaking Dawn (which I read while stranded in Detroit overnight on my way to my grandmother's funeral). I am just really hating this book.

I will still probably struggle through the rest of it, just to see how it turns out. I can't help myself.

But then I need something good. And I'm not just talking about story. I need something that was written by someone who gives a damn not only about the story they're telling, but the way they're telling it. Something that reads like it got at least two drafts and an editor. I need to read something where language is used well. And it'll probably need to be something where the story is thought-out and not orchestrated as it goes along. I'd like to avoid pretension if I can, but if the book is pretty enough otherwise, I'll stomach it.
I may be done investing in series of books for a little while, so something standalone is preferred, though if a whole series can meet these criteria, I'll definitely look into it.

I just need something pretty.

So I got some work done on the costume this weekend. I'd been making roses all last week:


I now have about a dozen more of the sparkly yellow ones. I'm still unsure if I'm going to end up using the orange-y ones. I like the color, but they didn't turn out very uniform and I'm not sure I have enough. The original plan was to use the roses to hold up the gold swag thing that runs around the skirt, but... okay, so the skirt.

I'd originally planned for 8-9 panels (art/toys/whathaveyou usually show her with anywhere from 7 to 11 panels, when I've counted). When I got my fabric and the crinoline and did the math, I realized I underestimated how long I'd need to cut each panel to do the gathering, and did not have enough fabric to cut it the way I'd intended. But no problem. I'd just cut 10 panels in an attempt to use as much fabric as possible, that should be fine.

It was not fine. Gathering up the fabric like that makes the widest part of each panel much less wide than I'd counted on, so 10 panels wasn't going to cut it. I went out to the fabric district the next day, thinking I was super lucky that I'd had to charge the skirt fabric and so had a record of which store it was I needed to find, and a quick search on google even gave me the address. In good shape so far!
The store never opened. I went all over the fabric district with a little sample of what I needed to find but found nothing exact. I eventually settled on something close enough (it's the same texture and weight at least, and ALMOST the same color, but the yellow is shot with brown instead of white, which makes a subtle difference in some lights). But I can live with it. Anyway, this now means that I'll have 14 panels on the skirt instead of the 8 I'd originally planned on, so I gotta make way more roses or perhaps alternate between the orange and the yellow. I haven't decided.

It also means I gotta glue on another thousand sequins or something. Maybe I will make it two thousand so you can actually see them.

I have 10 of the panels sequined and gathered, and 5 sewn together so far (and Karen is awesome enough to let me use her dress form to get the length right):


The work actually goes really easy, it's just the sequins that take time. Hoping to get those all glued to the new panels tonight so I can get the skirt finished this week.


Then also hoping the rest of the wig stuff I ordered turns up today so I can get going on that.

I'm hoping the rest will be pretty easy, so I can finish by the end of next weekend with no problems. I'll be wearing this to Disneyland on the 30th and I kind of can't wait!

Okay, so I'm sure there will eventually be pictures, but this is not that post.

Last weekend, Ashe and I did NDK, mostly because we couldn't do Dragon*Con and I wanted to see the awesome Colorado girls I know. I hadn't ever done NDK before and had been curious to check it out for years, so that was cool. With Mandi's help, we did a panel on our WCS experience. It went pretty well, and it's something we may try to do at a few of the upcoming cons this year. Otherwise, we mostly just hung out with people and it was amazing and I look forward to seeing you all again soon!

Now that I'm back, I'm totally ready to work on my Halloween costume, which will be Belle's ballgown because... well... mostly just because. Last night I started by making a bunch of fabric roses that will be going on the wig and the gown. It was an easy enough process to pick up, but I decided to make it go faster, and to make that skirt happen, I definitely needed a ruffling foot for my machine. So I picked up one of those today, and I'm kind of looking forward to playing with it! Should be fun! With luck, I'll be wearing this on the 30th and the 21st for the Disneyland Halloween stuff, and possibly dragging it to some local cons. (I can't help but think it would look really nice in the PMX lobby.)

Then I've got some stuff ordered for my PMX costume. I had to return the shoes I bought and order the next size up, because despite being the most enormous shoes I have ever purchased, they were still too small for my feet. I will be gigantic. When I am done, I am gonna need advice on what else I can use them for, because they're ridiculous.

That's it for now. I'll take some progress pictures of my halloween costume and get those up in the next few days. I'm very excited to make something big and froofy.

I finished this set of books last week and I'm still pissed. I almost feel like I was tricked into reading the Twilight books again.

Some fantastic dystopian ideas in there, but HOLY HELL do I not care to read about another chick who has two boys fawning all over her and risking their lives and which one does she choose?! Especially since the end was less of a choice, more of a copout/last man standing kind of deal.

Just... nurg. I am genuinely holding out hopes that Hollywood will manage to fix this somehow, because the movie could be potentially good if they just cut out the bullshit.

And Japan happens in a week, so... what am I reading on the plane?