On May 31st I attended the Spooky Empire May-Hem Con in Orlando and it was quite a bit of fun.  It's not the largest con, but there were some nice costumes and I got to meet some awesome Once Upon a Time actors. The Dealer's room had some very neat artists and was worth the walk through.  It was nice to go to a convention that was only an hour away and could be experienced in a day.

This lovely gent is Sean Maguire, he played Robin Hood on Once Upon a Time. Not only is he handsome, he is also very kind. It was a pleasure to meet him.

Also, our photo totally got photo-bombed by Jason Burkart -"Little John". I didn't even realize it was happening and so just stood there wondering why my friend was taking so many pictures. It was pretty awesome.

I finished my Winter Soldier cosplay!

This was one of my simpler cosplays. The top was the only self created part of the costume. I purchased the pants from an Army/Navy store and I found the boots at Goodwill. Make-up is a mix of Kat Von D and Clinique.

For the top, I wanted to take the basic design from the movie (and in the Comics) and make it more casual than a true recreation of what is seen on film.  I made it from a cotton sateen rather than leather, because I live in Florida and I want to be able to wear this and not sweat profusely.

I have been busy preparing for my Durin's Day Party and some people have mentioned concerns that, in my encouraging everyone to have a costume, they aren't sure how to dress or put together an outfit. Some people don't sew and so I wanted to offer low-cost alternatives to get the look.

This is the first (of what will hopefully become a series) of Found Cosplay ideas. You may already have some of this in your closet or you can visit a local consignment shop or thrift store to piece it together.

Today we are starting with - HOBBITS

"Hobbits really are amazing creatures, as I have said before. You can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you at a pinch." --The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book I, Chapter 2: "The Shadow of the Past"

So, my friend and I have cosplayed Thor and Loki and occasionally we get into conversations where our inner Asgardian comes out to play.

-------

ArtandRhinos 
[mid-conversation about plans to see movies]…Alas, I cannot. I have other plans on Saturday night.

LottieGraceCosplay  
I HAS A SAD NOW HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO SEE THOR WITHOUT MY BROTHER? I feel like I need to see it again with ArtandRhinos then because she is the Loki to my Thor

ArtandRhinos 
Maybe I could meet you after for dessert and to discuss?

We could discuss it because...um...I have already seen it...twice. I could see it again, though...because Loki.

LottieGraceCosplay
HOW COULD YOU; GO AND SEE A MOVIE

ArtandRhinos 
I DO WHAT I WANT!!!!!!!!

LottieGraceCosplay
THAT'S CAUSE YOU'RE LOKI

AND AS THOR

I SHOULD BE SAD YOU SAW MY MOVIE WITHOUT ME

ArtandRhinos 
You mean I saw MY movie whenever I wanted?

LottieGraceCosplay 
NO BROTHER

IT IS CALLED

THOR: THE DARKWORLD

NOT LOKI: IN JAIL

ArtandRhinos 
I'm far more interesting in that Jail than you with that tiny, fragile Midgardian.

LottieGraceCosplay
LISTEN HERE YOU

I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR SASS

ArtandRhinos 
Besides, how long do you think this Jail cell will hold me...really?

LottieGraceCosplay
I'M STILL CLEANING UP YOUR MESS ON MIDGARD

WHAT DID I SAY?

NO

TIME

FOR

YOUR

SASS

ArtandRhinos
Oh, that'll make a great movie. Mighty Thor and his Broom of cleansing!

LottieGraceCosplay
BROTHER YOU KILLED PEOPLE

YOU'RE ADOPTED OKAY

BUT I LOVE YOU ANYWAYS

EVEN THOUGH YOU KILLED PEOPLE

SO STOP IT

ArtandRhinos 
Right, because you and Odin's hands are clean and you've never taken a life?

(you have NO idea how hard it is to not quote the movie here)

LottieGraceCosplay
(you better not or I will cry hot tears of betrayal)

LISTEN HERE YOU NO TIME

FOR YOU

OR YOUR SASS

ArtandRhinos
(That's why I am not! And that's one of the reasons I kind of had to see it. With Tumblr out there, it's not safe to wait too long to see anything in a fandom.)

You know, while you're in here yelling at me, you're not cleaning up, which is it going to be? Though, by all means stay, I so love these little talks.

LottieGraceCosplay
(I've somehow managed to steer clear of most major spoilers! I have no idea how that happened at all... )

ArtandRhinos
*Continues on in grand style.* Might Thor and his Hoover of Destiny!

*Quirks a smile.*

I ship it.

LottieGraceCosplay 
I ship it

I ship it so hard

I just had a most excellent day. Long story short, I won grand prize in the Otto and Victoria Cosplay Contest and I am so thrilled I have been smiling all day. The other cosplayers rocked their costumes and we celebrated our love of Otto and Victoria, together.

Who is Otto and Victoria you might ask? The awesome creation of Brian Kesinger. I may have mentioned him before, and if you haven't checked out his work, go, do it now, I'll wait. Here's his Deviant Art page. Here's some of his art:

DragonCon 2013 started as all past DragonCon's have for me ...at 3am on a Thursday morning.  I drive to my group's meeting place, we pack all of our stuff into one van and then begin our trek north from Tampa to Atlanta.

A decent number of con-goers have started costuming on Thursday night now. My group just gets settled into our room in the Hilton, relaxes and meets up with our other friends there, but we still walk the atrium level of the Marriott checking out the cosplay.

I am currently hip deep in all of my photos and memories from DragonCon this year. It was the best one yet and here's a few pictures as teasers for my posts to come.

First things first - here's her first self portrait.

Then she got to leave the house for the first time. She had a 4th of July adventure (that oddly doesn't actually contain any fireworks pics.)  I met up with my costuming group and we worked on DragonCon costumes, other dresses and I might have mostly just took pictures - but that last part is all about getting to know Beatrice on a deeper, more personal level.

I will, sadly, admit to a lost opportunity. We ran to JoAnns for some supplies (because it's what you do) and while we were there this nasty storm came through and knocked out the power. The lighting was really neat in the store and I wished I'd brought Beatrice along. I now know for next time.

But, all in all, it was a lovely afternoon. DragonCon costuming has begun!

Stay Tuned for Beatrice's next Adventure!

DragonCon 2012 was amazing this year!  The Avengers costumes went over extremely well and when we finally made it to the Georgia Aquarium we were able to take some amazing shots.

Arriving by Thursday afternoon allowed us to get our rooms and badges in record time. (Walked right up to pre-registration booths, took less than 5 minutes! It was awesome.) We ended up back in our room wondering what we were going to do for the rest of the afternoon. We decided to go on an adventure - we fought demons, wandered lonely streets, climbed unimaginable heights, traveled to the end of the universe and, of course, saved the world, twice.

Dragon*Con Officially kicked off Friday at 10am - when the first panels started.
For celebrities I was able to make it to a Jason Momoa and a LOTR Panel and watched a Stargate and BSG panel on DCTV. I also made a few SF literature and writing panels. A good mix of the fun and the cerebral.

To complete the Loki Costume I needed a few finishing touches. The main one of course was the Helm.

The Helm is made out of a product called wonderflex. What is wonderflex, you ask?...WONDERFLEX is an extruded thermoplastic composite sheet. It is comprised of a unique synthetic polymer that when heated in the range of 150-170 degrees F (70-80 degrees C), will soften and activate a built in adhesive for molding and forming. A layer of polyester open weave scrim is located on both the top and bottom surface for strength, reinforcement and stability. 
Got that? great, moving on....

Note: I was guided and GREATLY assisted in this project by my wonderful professional seamstress/costumer extraordinaire Regina. She is awesome and this costume would not have happened without her. (Follow her at @Wyldehills on twitter)

We started with the circlet piece that became the base of the helm. I cut two strips measured to fit around my head, heated them in boiling water and then once heated the strips adhered to themselves.

Here's the final post for the Loki Dress itself. Where we last left off I had just cut into the fashion fabric and pinned it together. I had also created the green skirt. And you, of course, remember the Petticoat of Despair.

Well, I sat at my trusty Singer sewing machine (I inherited from my grandfather, I still need to name it...hmm...) and began to sew. I used a needle made for leather and heavier fabrics since the coat material is a leather-ish fabric.

Put it all together and...

In the process of making a Loki dress, I felt the odd compulsion to accessorize. And when you're talking Loki, what better than the scepter used in the Avengers movie?

I decided I wanted to make the walking stick version of the scepter seen in the German opera house scene. (When Loki is in that scrumptious suit.)

It started with a trip to Lowes (only reason I went to Lowes instead of Home Depot is because Lowes is on my side of the street.) I wandered through with the image of the walking stick on my phone and wondered how I was going to make it happen.

The final piece of the puzzle, since I had acquired clear quartz crystals, was to make them blue. I didn't get a blue LED so I decided to go with a blue gel (filter) made for professional stage lighting. The lovely people at Bay Stage Lighting were incredibly helpful. I secured the squares of blue plastic around the flashlights and Voila-

A few months ago my Dragon*Con peeps came across a pic of a beautiful dress made from old Star Wars sheets. Here's the site. The dress is to the left.

We all adored the dress and decided then and there to each make a dress from Star Wars fabric. Each dress is of a different style.  Here is the Saga of my dress...

My dress was made from Return of the Jedi sheets. I did a quick mock up of the top of the dress out of muslin and then I moved quickly to cutting into the sheets. I fussy cut to get the parts of the sheet I wanted for the top portion of the dress.

Cause who doesn't want Darth Vader front and center?

Again, my lovely assistant was there to assist in any way...like, getting as much hair on my fabric as possible.

So, in the process of making a Star Wars dress out of vintage sheet fabric (that process in a post to come) I decided I wanted a petticoat to give the dress some "pouf." I then remembered the last petticoat and momentarily entertained the idea that I had gone insane. "Not at all" the voices in my head answered and I set about to make another petticoat.
But this time I had a different plan of attack.

Oh, here's a pic of my cat helping me.

Me: Sure, show up when this petticoat is relatively easy to make.

Him: I'm Parker, the helpful but shy one. I'm always ready to be of assistance, except, um, last time... I had a thing.

Me: Oh, right, thanks, then where's Sylvana?

Him: Chewing on your other petticoat.

Me: GAA!!!!....

And so, about an hour and a half later, here we go.

As a part of my Loki costume I needed to make a petticoat to go under the green skirt.  I wanted it to have some decent "pouf" - that's totally a technical term - and so I used a pattern intended to go under a 60s poodle skirt.  I used the same pattern to make the skirt as the base of the petticoat. See here it is, innocuous, quick, easy, but I should have listened to Admiral Ackbar because the simple beginnings of the petticoat... wait for it... It's a TRAP!!! 

For the next step I began to cut strips of tulle (the "pouf" of almost every petticoat.) I cut 36 strips 6 1/4" wide and as long as the normal bolt length they come in, so 54" in in this case. Again, very simple, even my cat and Duncan were helping. I then sewed the strips together (using a piece of the cotton skirt material to bind the tulle netting together at the seams.)   In order to accommodate the difference in circumference in skirt as it narrows to the hips I sewed 14, 12 and then 8 strips together to make giant loops of tulle. All the while being careful not to make mobius strips of tulle.)

Here is where our tale takes a darker turn.
For, in order to gather all of this light and airy tulle, you have to sew two line of thread into the tulle along one of the edges and then hold the string and pull, thus gathering one edge of the fabric together, where you then sew it to the base skirt.  So I started to do just that. Sew one line 1/4" from the edge, sew another 1/2" from the edge. OK, one piece done...sew one line, then sew another. I hadn't really thought through just how much thread and time it would take to sew essentially 54" x 36 strips x 2 lines of thread per individual piece = 50 miles of tulle, okay, maybe not that much, but that was what it felt like. Time flowed past like both water and sticky, hot tar as I sewed 324 feet (or 107 meters) of straight lines into the tulle. TV shows passed, I swear I could feel myself aging as I sat at my steadily growing warmer sewing machine for hours just sewing straight lines. The only punctuation to this activity would be when my bobbin would run out of thread and I'd have to stop, un-thread my machine, reload the bobbin, re-thread the machine and start back up on the endless desert of grey lines in the black tulle.

- it was at this stage, after it had been 8 hours of work and I still had miles of tulle to sew that I almost gave up. I almost went to Etsy or eBay and just ordered a damn petticoat. But I dug deep, like a marathon runner or that moment in action movies where the hero is down and has to make the choice to get back up just one more time, yeah, that was totally me. I ranted, raged and then returned to the sewing machine (who, I think, was getting close to forming a union against me) and I labored on. -

And as I was languishing away on the petticoat of despair...I ask you, where was my cat then, she who had been so eager to play in the tulle earlier?

Trying to catch lizards, that's where.

Me: "It's on the other side of the     window, you fluffy little deserter."
   
Her: "Then my actions are as futile as yours!" she quipped back.   

                                                          Me: "Touche"

To break the monotony, once finished with a full strip of tulle, I would stop and gather it into the smaller circles of pouf which were then ready to be sewed to the base skirt. This was only slightly less monotonous than the sewing. But I was starting to see some shape and form to my actions, I felt hope for the first time in days, and once gathered I began to sew the now puffy tulle to the skirt.

And then, all of a sudden, after 12 hours of work, like sunlight breaking through after a storm, it was done. All I had to do was trim the excess thread from the gathering process and I was done...and my evil little petticoat was even standing up on it's own tulle feet...they grow up so fast...*sniff*

To get some good pics I paired it with a black corset, which ends up looking a little Black Swan-ish, but still cool.  And when I am done hemming the skirt and jacket of my Loki outfit I will post the rest of the process "On the road to Dragon*Con 2012."

30 days left, holy God, OK, I'm going back to sewing now...

Here's proof that blood, sweat and tears is going into this thing. First blood goes to the costume; one of the pins got me as I tried it on.

See, isn't this as exciting as Hunger Games?

That's right Ladies and Gentlemen, you are getting a bonus edition to today's blog!  And it is rife with excitement. Not only did I cut out the pattern pieces and pin them to the fashion fabric of the skirt (the ones that goes with the Loki costume), I also cut out the fabric pieces and sewed that sum-of-a-beech together! 

The skirt is a basic circle skirt, in that is makes a full circle when you lay it out.  This will give lots of nice waviness and fullness to the skirt.

Cost: $18 top/coat fabric, $14 skirt fabric, $8 in zippers, $4 in thread

Time: 6hrs (for top and skirt)

Back at it for stage 2 of the Loki Dress.  Using the muslin pattern I created last time, I cut out another mock up, making the necessary adjustments to this one so that it can become my official pattern for the Loki Dress. 

Side note: NSA stands for No Seam Allowance, which means when you cut out the fabric from the pattern you are supposed to add in seam allowance so that you can sew it together correctly.  I'm just saying this, for no particular reason, it's not like I cut out my pattern for mock-up 2 without adding in the seam allowance and then had to re-cut it or anything...   /sigh. 

above: The lovely Madeline is working on a dress made out of Star Wars fabric. You can follow her sewing escapades on her Not Another Geek Girl Blog. The other pattern laid out is the wonderful Regina's pattern for her Star Wars fabric dress. She has a blog too... *looks pointedly at her* We sewed and ate cookies and had an awesome time. 

Once cut out, I pinned it together and then sat at the sewing machine for the first time in years. With the correctly cut fabric (adding in 3/8" for seam allowance) it didn't take me long to get it sewn together. I didn't even run over any pins. The bobbin went empty, though, and I had to get another.

Ta-Da! Mock-up 2 complete. Next I have to seam rip this apart and use it as my permanent pattern.  Now I get to to purchase my fashion fabric (the actual fabric that will make up the dress) and get down to making this thing for realz!

Once I had conquered the pattern (with the aid and guidance of my awesome friends) all that remained was a lonely pile of discarded muslin...

Total time worked on dress so far: ~8 hrs
Money spent so far: Patterns $15, Fabric $4, new pins $5, Socks/sleeves $15
Items still to get: Fashion fabric for Top, Skirt and underskirt, wonderflex for headband/necklace, gold shoes, 2 zippers (and I'm sure I'm missing something.)