Edwardian Ball in San Francisco - Circus and Costumes

Saturday night, my hubby and I got dressed up and went to the Edwardian Ball in San Francisco.  I've heard about this event for years & years and I've never made it before.. it was absolutely delightful (if a bit too crowded).  If I do it again next year, I am getting there much earlier.

But Oh! the costumes!  And the circus acts!!  We managed to find all the people I knew for sure were going, plus bump into a couple more we didn't expect.  It was one of those places, though, where every single person you see looks almost exactly like someone you used to know, or should know, or met once at a party.  Everyone was eye-catching.  In my costume I fit in perfectly, but did not stand out.  I'll get more extreme and wacky next year.. I like to be on the line between fitting in and standing out.  :)

To that end, I spent a huge amount of time shopping in the vendor's hall, and acquired my first bustle.  It LIGHTS UP!!  It's red and gold and poofy and it lights up with little red lights.  It was made by Katherine the Great at Blue Moon Designs .. she had SO much gorgeous stuff.  Actually, everyone had so much gorgeous stuff! 

The whole experience got me ruminating.  Upstairs, amazing and inspiring circus performers.  Downstairs, amazing and inspiring fashionistas.  If I were going to participate in this event next year, would I rather be upstairs?  Or downstairs?

His hat has a hat!

Immediately I answered "upstairs!  on the stage!!"... but as I thought about it more, and truly explored my heart for the answer, the quieter voice inside me whispered, "downstairs.. with the costumers.. watching people try on things I made." 

This is significant.  Of course, I LOVE performing, love being on stage.. but this is the first time that I've presented myself with that kind of choice and felt like I was 51% on the "downstairs" side and just 49% on the "upstairs" side.  I really, REALLY love costumes.  Maybe I feel like after 10 years of being a full-time performer, I'm ready to start making a change? 

This gives me a little hope for the future.  Being a performer, well, has an early retirement age.  I've probably got another 10 years in me, if I'm careful and wear sunscreen and do a lot of yoga.. but not much more than that, at least, for the super active circus stuff.  But if my passion migrates over to costuming.. well, I can do that for the rest of my life.  Until this week it's always felt like an inevitable concession.. eventually I'd "have to give up" performing and "fall back" on sewing.  This week was the first time I've ever made the voluntary choice to choose sewing over performing.

Read More

New Faerie, Corset and Circle Hoodie Photos

I am on a roll this week.. 3 new hoodies in 3 days.  4, actually.. the green one was a custom order and I liked it so much I made another one.  :)

None of these are "mine" - I love them all, but they haven't quite glued themselves to me just yet .. so I guess I've gotta keep going until I find my own perfect hoodie for this winter.  :)

All up on Etsy.. enjoy enjoy enjoy!!

Read More

Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf

We booked ourselves a walk-around gig as Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf for the ISES NCC gala in SF on July 19.  I had a little too much fun making the Red Riding Hood cloak, since I don't imagine I'm going to wear it a whole lot.  But, then, who knows?  It is a truly wonderful cloak..  :) :)

Here was my concept sketch:

I like how she's kinda bad-ass.. with her hatchet and her basket full of wolf puppies.  :)  I drew the inside of the cloak all patchwork, and envisioned having lots of pockets and magical symbols and such, but just plain simple red on the outside.  Here's how it turned out!

The lining was made out of scraps of fabric that I already had.. what can I say, I *love* red and black fabric.  I used a lot of chinese brocades with (what look like) magical symbols and dragons and Chinese characters printed on them.  There are maybe 20-30 pockets in the lining of varying sizes, which I found incredibly handy at the gig (business cards, cameras, phones, keys, wolf puppies, and smuggled hors d'oeuvres, not to mention eye of newt and spleen of worm).  The only trouble was remembering which pocket held what.  I made a red mesh pocket too, which just tickles me to no end, for some reason.

More pix on Picasa.  Aaaaand.. the photos are still coming in, but here are a couple from the gig!  People liked us a lot.. especially the Wolf.  He looked amazing, and he's just an amazing performer - really engaging and interactive, and he loved every minute.  

I painted him up and I painted some claw marks and scars on me (as though I'd been mauled by him already).  We had a great time running around chasing each other as the guests watched and giggled.  Fun times!!

Read More

Satyr / Beast Stilting Pants

We've got two shows coming up in the next week or two where Darrell, my fabulous hubby and partner in crime, will be performing on his jumping stilts.  This was my first attempt at making costumes for jumping stilts - I've made regular stilt pants before but this was kind of a new challenge.

For the first gig he's going to be the Big Bad Wolf (and I get to be Red Riding Hood, oh MY.. what big ears you have..) and for the second, he's going to be a satyr.  For both gigs I'm going to body paint his upper half and add appropriate costume bits.  I'm gonna have to think about the claws..

But here are the pants I came up with.  I like the design a lot.  They are convertible - they work great as regular floor-length pants, and have two pieces that velcro securely onto the back and bottom to extend them down to cover the stilts.  I left the bottom of the stilts visible - for safety and also just because, well, the stilts look COOL.

I made a silly little video of him bouncing in them.  With the paint and the rest of the costume, these are gonna look HOT!

Read More

Mad Hatter Fleece Tailcoat

For Halloween, my hubby Darrell wanted to be the Mad Hatter.. he had just about all the costume bits except for a good Mad Hatter Tailcoat, so .. since I had a bunch of fleece on hand, I made one up for him out of cozy dark blue anti-pill fleece.

Of course, Halloween in San Francisco was unseasonably warm, so he ended up running around with it under his arm for all of Halloween.  Ah, well.  He still looked darn good.

However, the fleece tailcoat has found its purpose.  He puts it on first thing in the morning now that the weather is turning chilly.. and I must say it delights me to see him so scruffy and yet somehow so formal while sipping his tea.

Read More