Of spiderwebs, ruffles and cosplay

And she returns to the ballroom with an array of long-promised crafting photos, and with thanks to her dear guests who have waited so patiently for an update!

Ah, Real Life. Busy, as usual. But not entirely in a bad way, as evidenced by the photos below of my excursion to Comic Con a couple weekends ago. (Wait...does Comic Con count as "Real Life"? It does for me!) Of course, I can't entirely blame my absence on real life, as various fandoms hold their share of the fault. (Yes, I do admit to writing fanfiction, and I blame that on my obsession with Lady Ursa and most especially Prince Ozai of the Fire Nation.)

Now, onward to a group of sewing photos that have been waiting quite a long time to see the light of day--er, cyberspace. As mentioned in the last post, I have been working on The Endless Ruffle for the lower edge of my first loli skirt. Somehow I feel that last sentence needs a <3 at the end, for maximum whimsicality. Which I am quite in favor of!

At any rate, here is the ruffle all spread out on my floor. It looks a bit shinier than it is, because of the flash. Pretty endless, no?

From what I've read, the hem of one's skirt should be four times the circumference of the waist, and then a ruffle is two to three times that! So you can imagine the fun I had basting, especially with that stiff material. (The fabric is synthetic, but I've been told it resembles taffeta, which I suppose lends a bit of that "richness" I'm looking to include in my coordinates. The next skirt will probably more of a natural fabric--partly because I live in very hot Southern California, after all.)

Despite the sewing tribulations, I persevered, and gained victory over The Endless Ruffle!

Here is a close up of the fabric.

Again, the flash makes it look extremely shiny. I fiddled with it a little in Gimp2, but couldn't seem to do much about it (perhaps when I become more of a Gimp guru). My carpet is a much darker green, for that matter.

The spiderweb design is a raised "fuzzy" material. This skirt will be two layers, and for the top layer I have a variation of the same fabric, with a patter of blossoms instead of spiderwebs.

At this point, I still had the basting thread in the ruffle. I like that shade of blue, though. It made me feel very Moitie, even though the thread's a bit lighter than the Moitie shade of blue (even without the flash).

The skirt still needs quite a bit of work, but I hope to complete it by the third week of August. You see, there is a meetup planned for the 21st, which as it happens...is my birthday! What better way to celebrate turning 20 than to don my first complete coordinate and attend my first meetup? Pictures of all this sewing and meetup-attending will be forthcoming, I assure you.

Now, onto a little bit of non-loli crafting. Last year for Comic Con, my mother and I (mostly my mother) made an Ursa cosplay that I am quite proud of, as it turned out rather gorgeously. So for two years now, I have attended Comic Con as young Ursa from Avatar: the Last Airbender.

At the convention, Ursa found her favorite student from Monster High: Draculaura (at the Mattel booth)! I'm sure you see why a whimsically romantic goth girl such as myself can identify with her.

This year, I made myself a few new accessories for the cosplay--hence the mention of crafting. At Micheal's (a craft store) I found some lovely beads from Blue Moon Beads, specifically their Asian-influenced line of beads, called Orient Express. With these I made two hair clips, a matching ring (looped around my finger with a ribbon), and a necklace. The pendant makes me think of the Fire Palace, or perhaps Avatar Roku's temple!

Young Urzai (UrsaxOzai) has a special place in my heart, so I mainly cosplay young Ursa, specifically during her betrothal to Prince Ozai (i.e. before she became Princess Ursa). I figure His Highness totally decked me out with jewels--do excuse your host's girlish giggle--and said assumption did rather add to the enjoyment of working on my cosplay! To complete the "decked out" look, I bought a few more accessories, from Target as it happens. There I acquired two more hairclips, a hair elastic (for the back of my top knot), and a ring made from a zipper!

I have a few more crafting pictures for you in the near future, which will include the goods from a recent run to Joann's (my favorite fabric store). I hope to post them very soon, but I believe I should end this post before it gets much longer! In the meantime, do look over the long list of tutorials which the marvelous Miss Caro-chan has compiled over at F Yeah Lolita. As a sewing loli, I know that I at least shall find this compilation quite useful!

Now, happy sewing or however it is that my dear guests like to amuse their darkly frilly hearts. <3