Skarlett in Transit

For Gay Days Annaheim we’ll be supporting our lovely friend Ryan!

Themes have been organized, and the following sewing projects are to be completed by October 2nd.

Wendy Darling-though since its to be worn at a gay dance club event I may re-make the version I wore a few years ago for Ryan’s birthday-

Also for that weekend I’ll be making a Capt Hook costume for Danny.

I’ll be doing a weekend of Northern Faire this year and will most likely wear the gown I wore at Southern-though its very sun-bleached in places and would never pass approval to be worn at Southern for another season.

December will see the completion and wearing of my Victorian riding gown.

Fabric is on its way and I’ll begin work once the above costumes are completed.

Then I must decide if I want to do Southern Faire again for the 2009 season.  I’ve made lots of friends, and have had some great times being a part of that cast.  However its a HUGE time committment and I’m just not sure that another season is the best use of my time.  Faire rehearsals normally start 1 day a month in November and December, and then weekly after the start of the new year.Theres also something to the feelings I tend to get about “faire people” that they only ever live for, and surround themselves with, faire.  There seems to be very little outside life or personal development with most of that community and I don’t want to de-volve into that myself.

If I do decide to do the Southern Faire again, I’ll have to make a new gown to pass approval.  The gown would be green again so as to match my new hat from last year.

In May of 2009 I plan to attend LeakyCon in Boston, so will have to make a new more movie-correct Narcissa gown for that.  I will wear the same gown to the Potter event in San Francisco in July.

In addition to all of the committed costumes above my wish list of eventual planned projects:

Sleepy Hollow Striped Gown

By the Seaside dress from Sweeney Todd

Yellow and Pink gown from Marie Antionette

Pink Diamonds from Moulin Rouge!

Black Diamonds from Mouin Rouge!

Green Bustle ball gown from Interview with the Vampire

Elizabethan Irish court gown

Queen Redd from The Looking Glass Wars

Hatter M from The Looking Glass Wars

Disneyland Alice dress

Disneyland Mad Hatter suit

Silver gown from Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Green doublet gown from Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Attonment green gown

Ellen’s prayer gown from Gone With the Wind

Boarding suit and hat from Titanic

Mary Poppins Jolly Holiday

Red ball gown from Vanity Fair

Red bustle gown from Dracula

Green bustle gown from Deadwood

Saturday morning saw me up early for what was meant to be a 3 mile easy hike to a waterfall in Thousand Oaks California. 

It tured out to be an 11 mile trek up and down ravines and thru valleys to a beautiful 70 ft high waterfall, a stroll along a stream, long walks thru wooded areas, and slow climbs up steep inclines.  We didn’t want to take the book with the map, we presumed it was 3 miles so not a difficult trail, and got lost and walked and walked and walked.

By the end of it we felt great-though tired and sore.

It’s all part of this new mind-set that I have to get my life in order and organized and minimalized and healthy and all that blah blah blah.

I want to eat better, look better, and live better-

Saturday afternoon saw me organizing my sewing room and missing a production of 12th Night at Shakespeare in the Park due to being just too tired.

Sunday was a send-off day at Disneyland for Polly who moves away in 2 weeks time.

I’m ever so sad to see her go and have tried to sort out ways that will convince her to stay-with no success.  She’s at a point now in her life where she wants to get married and own a home and just doesn’t think you can do that sort of thing in Los Angeles.

The send-off ended up being way too many drinks while at Disneyland.  Folks drank to much, got messy and lazy, and embarissingly loud.  I was struck how I’d just had this amazing expierence a bit over 24 hours ago-how my body felt refreshed and eager for more exercise-and then i’d just sat at a bar and had drink after drink.

I’m a bit disapointed in myself for having been so very good, and then chucking it all and being so bad.  All those empty alcoholic caleries are making me feel like a bad person.  Like I wasn’t strong-willed enough to just have water and stick to how good I’d been just the day before.

I have never been to the Dicken’s Christmas Faire and I have decided I’m going to go this year.

Now onto the fun part of making a new gown!

I know I want to do some sort of riding outfit.
I like the look of the semi-masculine gown much more than the ball gowns that to me look like prom dresses from the 1980s.

The set time period is 1840-1860 and I’ve found some great inspiration images!

1840s riding gown-I LOVE the bottom of this skirt!

French riding gowns-I like the cut of the back of this jacket.

1859 English riding gown.  I like the front of this jacket and the sleeves.

Next will come the fabric picking-and trying to sort out if I will attempt to make a hat on my own.

Dicken’s Faire costume info says for the holiday season that is the theme, jewel tones are appropriate.
For me this likely means ANOTHER green gown.

After receiving the domain renewal notice for my url I debated what I wanted to do-to renew or not to renew.

I’ve found that I don’t blog much at all anymore-and when I do that is done mostly on LiveJournal.  But even that is not real introspection.

My photo gallery is still attached-but new photos are now being added to Flickr-

So what to do?

I’ve finally decided that I’ll be using this blog for costume information, sewing, and then the occasional update about me.  I’ll use the gallery for old photos, but it will evolve into a costume and research gallery.

Why the change?

I’ve been relenting on how stagnet I feel.  How typically unfulfilled I am now that I’m living back in the states.  It’s not my friends here, or that I regret moving back to be closer to my Brother-its that I haven’t traveled, that I rarely write, and my life has become 12 hour work days and lack of sleep.

One thing that does excite me though is costuming.  The research, working, and finished product are not only an outlet for my creative starvation, but the events and functions are a great social calendar to keep me motivated.

So there it is-thats the plan-we’ll see how it goes.  I’ll try and write up something with updates of the latest costumes I’ve completed soon.  Costumes on my To Do list will also be forthcoming.

Happy Sewing!

I haven’t posted here in ages-and it seems strange to post only to list wishes-

But as I have friends across the globe who are asking for a list-here it is.

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Kelly Caleche perfume by Hermes

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Louis Vuitton, Monogram Canvas Speedy 30 from eLuxury.

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1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die from Amazon.com.

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Apple Tango and

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Smokey Bacon crisps

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 a sea lion

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River Icons watch from the Tate online shopi

Spenser’s Monstrous Regiment: Elizabethan Ireland and the Poetics of Difference

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Boys can often be amusing-though most often annoying-when they try to ask you out.

Annoying could be any of the following:

He dosen’t take the hint when you’ve said no several times-

He tries some line on you that you can’t believe actually ever works on any woman on the planet-so why does he think it would work on you?

They try and pick you up in completely wrong moments-like when you’re at the chemist buying a pregnancy test. (of course not for me, but for a friend who was embarrised to buy one for herself).

Me-Are you ACTUALLY asking me out in the Pregnancy Test section of the chemist?
Him-well sure…..I mean…..you must party, right?

They just went out with one of your friends-

They try and do it by insulting you-

Yesterday at work:

Him-I didn’t think I’d ever think a size 6 was hot, I don’t ususally go for big girls.

WTF?

Or when Colin tried to chat me up the first time-

C-Will you go for a drink?
Me-Sure
C-I wanted to have a go, you know, get off with you before anyone else got in there.
Me-Have a go? Get Off? Excuse me? Got in where?
C-Oh yes. You’re an American. I’ll speak plainly

And then there’s amusing.

In the lift on the way to lunch-

Him-Your hair is really beautiful
Me-Thanks
Him-I love red hair
Me-That’s nice
Him-My mother was a red head and seeing one always reminds me of her and really turns me on
Me-That’s…..wait….WHAT?
Him-…
Me-*trying to dial my cell phone and praying the doors open soon*
Him-You’ll never go out with me now, will you?
Me-ok bye!

Then on the way back to the office, walking past a man asking for change-

Him-Oh Baby! Stop and talk a minute! Just cause a Brothers homeless don’t mean he can’t take you home!
Yay to funny at work-and too a short day at the office!
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(x posted)

In a hybrid of 200-year-old poetry, plushie kink, rap, and British tourism, William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud” has been modernized for the younger generation and set to music in a hip-hop, hippity-hop video featuring local Lake District squirrel MC Nuts.

Cumbria Lakes District Site

The gown is done-got it back last night and I’m worried the hand-beader has added too many pearls, and the costume mistress is going to tell me to remove them.
At least it’s done, and as has been pointed out, it’s easier to remove hand beading than to add it.
Will be re-trying to make my neck ruff-this will be attempt #5, using the procedure that worked for attempt #4, but the colors were bad with the gown.

An iteam from Andrew that makes me ever so happy-
Shaun is getting his own show!
(Where you can also make a sheep mask to color and print out)

Today is World Book Day in the UK. A day devoted to reading, and promoting young people to read.
According to Michael, the Waterstone’s at Oxford Circus has actors dressed as children’s book characters, including someone dressed as Snape.
And Colin had the joy of a special exhibit at The Bodleian Library-
On display is the original manuscript of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows,
and in his class today they discussed children’s books.

Today Jeff and I had a chat about Dr. Seuss-Jeff says it took him years to write The Cat in the Hat, and the reason the book was written was to provide a children’s book that uses vocabulary the students were meant to be learning.

From Wikipedia:

“Seuss wrote the book because he felt that there should be more entertaining and fun material for beginning readers. From a literary point of view, the book is a feat of skill, since it simultaneously maintains a strict triple meter, keeps to a tiny vocabulary, and tells an entertaining tale. Literary critics occasionally write recreational essays about the work, having fun with issues such as the absence of the mother and the psychological or symbolic characterizations of Cat, Things, and Fish. This book is written in a style common to Dr. Seuss, anapestic tetrameter.”
“Dr. Seuss created The Cat In The Hat in response to the May 24, 1954 Life Magazine article by John Hersey, titled “Why Do Students Bog Down On First R? A LOCAL COMMITTEE SHEDS LIGHT ON A NATIONAL PROBLEM: READING.” In the article, Hersey was critical of school primers,

“In the classroom boys and girls are confronted with books that have insipid illustrations depicting the slicked-up lives of other children. [Existing primers] feature abnormally courteous, unnaturally clean boys and girls.” “In bookstores, anyone can buy brighter, livelier books featuring strange and wonderful animals and children who behave naturally, i.e., sometimes misbehave. Given incentive from school boards, publishers could do as well with primers.”

Hersey’s arguments were enumerated over ten pages of Life Magazine, which was the leading periodical during that time. After detailing many issues contributing to the dilemma connected with student reading levels, Hersey asked toward the end of the article:

“Why should [school primers] not have pictures that widen rather than narrow the associative richness the children give to the words they illustrate — drawings like those of the wonderfully imaginative geniuses among children’s illustrators, Tenniel, Howard Pyle, “Dr. Seuss,” Walt Disney?”

Dr. Seuss responded to this “challenge” by rigidly limiting himself to a small set of words from an elementary school vocabulary list, then crafted a story based upon two of the words which rhymed—cat and hat.

Dr. Seuss books were created to supplement the ‘look say’ reading programs taught in schools. Dr. Seuss’ publisher supplied him with a sight vocabulary of 223 words which he was to use to write his books, a sight vocabulary that was in harmony with the sight words the child would be learning in school.

In an interview he gave in Arizona magazine in June 1981 Dr. Seuss claimed the book took nine months to complete due to the difficulty in writing a book from the 223 selected words. He continued to explain that the title for the book came from his desire to have the title rhyme and the first two suitable rhyming words that he could find from the list were ‘cat’ and ‘hat’. Dr. Seuss also regrets the association of his book and the ‘look say’ reading method adopted during the Dewey revolt in the 1920’s by expressing the opinion “I think killing phonics was one of the greatest causes of illiteracy in the country.”

Today also happens to be the 50th birtday of The Cat in the Hat.
At the site is an opportunity to send a birthday card to The Cat in the Hat, and each card sent results in Random House donating a book to a literacy program.

Read something new today
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Partlet is done!
That’s 1 of the 2 projects I intended to finish today, the neck ruff being the other-
but I woke up not feeling well, am continuing to be sniffy regardless of the medicine I’ve taken, and am now just going to delight in getting 1 done, drink lot of OJ, and watch Marie Antionette before going to bed.

Tomorrow I’ll be visiting FIDM and seeing all the Oscar nominated costumes-
then lunch-
then to the science museum to see the Star Wars exhibit.