See you in Pittsburgh!

These are the costumes that I'll be wearing in Pittsburgh: my Dark & Strange Alice in Wonderland and my Susan Storm of the Fantastic Four. You'll be able to find me at the booths of PAUL STORRIE, STORMWATCH COMICS, and JOE SINNOTT. I'll also be taking as much as it allows to walk the floor visiting other great talent like Josh Lyman, Jay Fife & his model Lola Lynn, Andy Harmon, Stauffer, and Ken Haeser.

Thanks for voting! Here are the counts:

ALICE: 24
SUE: 13
FIRESTAR: 12
POWER GIRL: 12
ACE: 7
TWILIGHT GUARDIAN: 1

New Alice Gallery

You may have seen the tutorial for my DARK & STRANGE ALICE but now you can see a nice gallery of the finished dress.

Dark & Strange Alice

I actually finished my Dark & Strange Alice Liddell in time to wear it last weekend to a steampunk event. I hadn't planned on wearing it but figured, what the heck, Alice in Wonderland is from the time period of Victorian literature and the theme was Oz Meets Wonderland; so it worked out. I was one of at least four Alices.

Work in Progress - Alice in Wonderland

ALICE LIDDELL of Wonderland dress: The “sexy” babydoll dress in my photo gallery was actually the property of my photographer; the long traditional one in my Brooklyn shoot was one my mother made but is so worn and getting shredded. The construction of this Dark and Strange Alice dress is going much faster than I anticipated.

Of course I modified the design slightly from the Simplicity pattern (#4015) so that may have streamlined it a bit. There are so many parts of this that have been frustrating.

All the progress pics with my current notes of the process are at AmberUnmasked.com.

NY Fairytale Pictures

Coincidentally there were two fairytale photoshoots going on yesterday in NYC, one in Manhattan's Central Park and one in Brooklyn's Botanic Gardens. I was at the Brooklyn gathering dressed as Alice in Wonderland. Our group was a steampunk version of the fairytale characters.

My costume was actually made by my mother when I was in college, before I took up sewing. It's been lovingly worn by several ladies of my family too. It's slightly tattered seams worked just fine for steampunk. I also felt that if Alice was a real little girl (she's based on a real little girl the author knew) she would have raided her grandmother's jewelry drawer the way I always did. I punked up my look with black tights and shoes, kept my purple hair, added heavy goth makeup and black vintage gloves ($8 find a the thrift store).

Logistical details -- the organizer of our group had gotten permission for us to be there yet we were harassed by security the entire time. Every time we moved on to a new spot, they'd approach us again. What's the point of getting permission? Apparently some of the group tried organizing a shoot at the Cloisters and were met with much distain and harassment as well. I guess the costumes just scare the hell out of some people. The passers by, however, loved us. We were approached by many people asking if we were performing and lots who had never heard of Steampunk before; I don't blame them because I didn't know there was word for it until last year. It's security and it's NY - at least they're trying to d their jobs. After 2 hrs drive, no food, sore feet and the hottest day yet, I was not in the mood for security crap. Then it took us 30 minutes to go one block trying to get home. Grrr.

Brooklyn Group's Gallery:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1047498@N25/

Sleeping Beauty, Alice, Lion Tamer from Dumbo
Miss Muffett, Red Riding Hood, Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts


Rapunzel and her Prince were so entertaining all day. She was totally Xena-like and had really super short spiky hair so the long detached braid was just hysterical.


Red with her hood up.


Hatter and Alice checking on Sleeping Beauty.


The Central Park group's gallery:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/knightmare6/sets/72157617315743660/

Fairytale Photoshoot in Brooklyn this Saturday

Allow me to direct your attention to the SteamFashion community at LiveJournal.com. One of the members is organizing a fairytale photoshoot at the Brooklyn Botanical gardens for this Saturday at 11 am.

I had my mum bring me the old Alice costume she made for me back in college before I was doing any sewing of my own. Lo and behold, it still fits really well.



As I said, no much in my steamy wardrobe yet. I added black gloves, black tights, a choker and put pigtails in my purpley hair. I'm off to find boots at the thrift store. It's really more of a goth take on it but for now, that's the best I can do. I hope to make my own version some day maybe with dark blue pin stripe fabric or something nifty. ;)