Atomic Lollipop 2015

My second year attending Atomic Lollipop, which is my second con this year. I wore my casual Sakura sailorsuit outfit, because it was too bloody hot for anything more complicated. (Was not expecting Otakon weather for APop.)

I enjoyed it greatly because I got to see a good chunk of my con friends and hang out. Much more relaxing for me than Anime North, which is nice. Attending was a last minute decision, and I only went for the sunday. (Blayke came too!)

Good times hanging out in the gaming room (playing Street Fighter), checking out the dealers, and engaging in epic battles on bouncy castles. Once again I enjoyed visiting the Science Center, which I still think is a great venue for this con--which I don't think has outgrown the venue yet. There was a lack of good crafts on sunday though, which was disappointing for me, because that was what I enjoyed most of last year...

One thing I think I should mention that left a bad taste in my mouth was all of the bad stories I heard about the saturday night. I know that APop is generally known as a "rave con" but it sounded more out of hand than normal? Rowdier than normal? I heard from one of the dealers that there were about 30 incidents (unconfirmed) from the previous night, which involved attendees ending up in ambulances --several of which were due to drug overdose--but many were from people knocking each other over on the dance floor. D: This could easily have been exaggeration of rumours, mind you. That being said, it still sounds like something needs to be done about this next year?? Like, for the safety of other attendees? I dunno.

Overall, I personally had a good time. And will most likely attend again next year. :)

Floral Cream Underbust Corset

Hey all! I made another corset this past winter. This is not an obsession I swear... This one is an underbust corset that is going to act as a waist cincher/posture modifier, to be worn under my Phoenix costume (which is currently on hiatus). I also made it with another future steampunk outfit in mind... 

Showcasing here the new pistol prop I bought in Austria last month. Also worn with my Long Pleated Skirt.

I like how the shape of this one turned out much better than my black corset. Instead of using a fashion fabric on the outside, I just used the coutil. Except this time my coutil has a cool floral pattern on it! I picked up this fabric from the Farthingales booth at CostumeCon32 last year. It's super strong and super pretty.

 First I used twill tape to mark out my seam lines on my judy. Then I draped muslin over those sections to get my pattern piece shapes. I used a pen to draw the shapes on the fabric, unpinned the pieces and then cut along the lines I drew.

The pattern I ended up with looked like this. I numbered my pieces from 1-7 (center front to center back).

After making a mockup and tweaking the pattern to reflect the changes I made, I reduced the pattern so that it would have a 2" gap at the back. This means that I divided 2" into 7 parts and shaved off that amount from every seam. I shaved off just slightly more at the waist so that part could cinch even tighter. 

Then I cut my pieces out of my coutil. Remember you need 4 of every piece, a pair for each side.

For the center back panels I first sewed the pairs right sides together along the CB edge, then turned them right way out and pressed them. I flat basted all my pairs together (excluding the center front panels) and top stitched all the boning channels. The 14 panels looked like this.

I added in the busk to the center front, then flat basted it and added the last boning channels. If you want a tutorial on how to insert a busk, go here!

Then I began to sew the panels together. This is done very carefully, lining up the flat basted lines and the waist line. Accuracy is your friend.

Then I cut my spiral bones to length and inserted them.

I made my own piping trim from leftover fabric from my Steampunk Corset. If you want a tutorial on how I make piping trim, go here!

I attached the piping, then hand stitched down all the seams on the inside. Then I put the eyelets/grommets in the center back and added some cord to lace it.

Presto! Another corset! ;D

June Update

Hello all!

I've been a bit distant from blogging for a bit. I've had so much on the go that the semi-hiatus has been regretfully necessary. I'm not going to apologize, because I have been working on many things that I've really enjoyed, but I am going to say that come July I should be back on track.

I've just finished up another chapter in my life: I graduated from university yesterday. It has been a very long 4 years, but I have learned a lot and I am proud of my accomplishments.

Last week was my final week working on a feature film--that I am not allowed to talk about until it comes out next year. Lots of hard work, very long days, but I had a lot of fun and learned a lot. I am excited to  work on more union films/tv shows in the future. I enjoy working in scene shops. In the meantime I want to put in more work practicing my painting skills.

I'm leaving for Prague on the 16th for PQ. I have finished my part of the Totem installation for Ryerson Theatre School. I'm excited to finally take a vacation.

I am still finishing up all my final projects for my fabric painting and dye class (that I took with the Ryerson Continuing Education program). I have to recreate a textile from an existing character design/film. I picked one of the fabulous kimono designed by CLAMP for the character Yuuko from xxxHolic. Excited to get working on this this week. (I have no intention of building the whole costume, but I thought doing an elaborate textile by CLAMP would be a fun challenge for this project!)

As I said in my Anime North report, more costume posts are coming up soon. Hopefully I can get one out before I leave the country.

That's all for now folks!

Anime North 2015

Wow! Anime North is already over, my 11th time attending. This month has just flown by. I'm a little sad it's done already...

AN was a really weird/very different experience for me this year. Starting with the fact that my sister Alex--who took me to my very first AN 11 years ago--and her boyfriend Mike (aka EleventhPhotograph) both moved to Japan in the last year and did not attend the con with me. They were missed! D,: But I get the pleasure of taking my boyfriend Blayke to his very first Anime North! He had fun I think!

My other big regret is that due to issues getting Vaporeon (Pokémon--Cowslip's Gijinkadex) finished, I was unable to compete in the Masquerade this year--the first time in many years!

To explain; I suddenly gained full time employment working on a feature film (as a scenic painter) starting at the end of April, which took up the vast majority of my time this month. The course I took on fabric painting and dyeing took up the rest of my minimal free time. With all the interruptions, I am amazed I managed to finish 2/3 costumes. (Though admittedly they were the easy ones!) I am happy that I finally got to debut Toph (Avatar: The Last Airbender), and that I was able to throw together a Tomoyo Daidouji (Cardcaptor Sakura) outfit at the last minute.

An overview of my con weekend:

Friday: I arrived around 7, wearing my Toothless onesie because it was pretty cold/windy out and I was super tired from work. Wearing Toothless takes less than 5 minutes to get ready, so it's a pretty great casual costume. It's also very comfy.

 We had luckily gotten our badges through a group purchase and they had been shipped to our group leader--long story short, we already picked up our badges from a friend a week before the con and didn't have to line up when we got there. I recommend this method of getting badges, because not lining up rocks. I ran into several friends at the con, and got to hang out and chat for a bit. I got to look at 80% of the Artist Alley/Crafters Corner before leaving to get some much deserved rest. Not a bad night, all things considered.

Saturday: Perhaps this should go down in family history as the earliest I have ever managed to make it to AN on a Saturday. We were at the con by 10:30. Probably because my costume wasn't super complicated to wear, I wasn't prepping to compete in Masq, and I only had 1 minor costume piece to fix. I wore my Toph (Fire Nation Disguise) costume. I won't go into detail here, but the shoes I made for that costume are the comfiest cosplay shoes I have ever had the pleasure of wearing. Ever. No sarcasm.

Blayke and I toured the dealers room and Artist Alley, then went to a panel called Stupid Comics-- which was hilarious--before meeting the rest of the family for lunch at Swiss Chalet. We hung around for a bit more before heading over to the Masq to get our seats. I photographed the Masq, if you are interested in checking out the pictures go here! If you want to watch all the Masq entries go here! Or if you just want to watch the Masq highlights, go here! It was a bit weird for me being on the audience side of the Masq, but I enjoyed it anyway. Inspired to compete again next year. I really have to up my game! Was surprised by the change in MC this year. The new "Hawaiian shirt guy" wasn't bad, but I miss Gravely...

Sunday: We got to the con a bit later (noon), as I had 3 full costumes to iron, and I needed a bit of a sleep in (super burnt out). My sister Elanne and I were dressed up in our Sakura and Tomoyo pair! Super cute together! We had a photoshoot in the afternoon with Kevin Chan Photography which went really smoothly (except for the part where I stupidly dropped the Clow wand and chipped the paintjob...). Very excited to see the pictures from that shoot and look forward to possibly shooting again with him in the future! The rest of the day was spent hanging around and making a few last purchases. And being super over-heated. It was really unpleasantly hot. I left a bit early, as I had 2 major projects to finish and I had to get up at 4:30 for work the next morning.

Overall, a great con, if a bit unusual. Was glad to see all my cosplay friends, and some unexpected other friends! Good times were had!

Coming soon: detailed posts on Sakura (FINALLY), Tomoyo and Toph! (Not necessarily in that order.)