March Hatter: very very late for a very important date

My completed March Hare costume! This is me taking a break from my serving duties at the art party (11 February)

I love these Art Parties: they're fun even when you're a waitress. Mainly because we were allowed to enjoy the various nibbles on offer, which included delicious lamb meatballs with a mint yoghurt dip (a bit like kofta), quiche, strawberries on a stick, AMAZING brownies and stuffed olives.

The Dormouse and I were in charge of pouring drinks, carrying dishes to and fro, and offering extremely delicious food (which did not make people shrink or expand. Nor was it labelled 'Eat me') to the guests-even to those who were busily painting away. There was a lot of talent there. One man did this brilliant surreal painting of Mdina of a pinnacle of rock, high in the sky. I displayed a few of my works in a display folder, just in case anyone wanted a look. I think this is my first original costume. I'm really pleased with it, and how it evolved (the shirt was originally plain; I ended up covering it in transfer images of Tenniel's illustrations, though you can't really tell from the photos). The waistcoat is my favourite part of the finished costume: that old curtain fabric looks so sophisticated as a waistcoat. The Burton-esque cutoffs were probably the easiest part of the costume: just stick on the masking tape and spray paint! This costume has one major advantage over the other costumes I've done: no need for contact lenses. I can just wear my glasses (one day I might do a Velma costume just so I can wear glasses). My dear Dormouse did a fantastic job with her costume. It's altered from a carnival costume. You can't see it very well, but she has a sort of bustle skirt at the back, and the decorations on her costume are made with contact paper.

A more recent costume adventure happened last Friday on a night out. I went dressed as Lady Gaga in my Telephone bikini. I brought a warm jacket and wore tights: good thing I did, it was freezing. For once I was actually glad to be wearing a wig cap and wig. The rest of our group were dressed as pimps, the green fairy, a devil and Playboy bunnies. It was a little sad to see so very few people dressed up for Carnival. I suppose everyone who wanted to dress up went to the Nadur Carnival in Gozo (I would have gone, but for the Sucker Punch/Naruto skit), where not only is everyone in costume, but the costumes tend to be a little scary. It was also at the Nadur Carnival where a year or two ago someone got in trouble for dressing up as Jesus (thank you, ridiculously pro-Church legislation).

Lots of little things

The March Hare costume has debuted :) It was great: very confortable , yet elegant. Pity I lost my tail in the car before I arrived at the party. Oh well, next time. My good pal the Dormouse (whom you may know as pkdesigner on deviantart)also made a costume, and did very innovative diamond decorations from contact paper (aka sticky back plastic). I'm not sure whether to keep the waistcoat though. It is one of my more professional looking pieces ,adn I have a feeling that I could sell it. Any takers?

I am going to be writing an article on Lolita fashion (under the title Loli fashion. Thank you very much Nabokov ;( ) I can't post it up here for a while: it's part of a course I'm doing on writing to get published, and if it's good enough there's a chance that I may actually be able to place it in a magazine. If this doesn't happen, it's going straight up here, though.

I managed to finish plenty of little things: the Ouran blazers are taking shape. Thanks to those who replied to my post on the Cosplay.com forum.

March Hare costume progress

Waistcoat: DONE.
THe waistcoat is made from old curtain fabric. The dark brown flowers are flocked, and I think the light brown flowers are screen printed. The lining is made from an old banner I made for a New Year's Party (Genesis: A New Beginning. Eve's head is on one of the back piece, whereh the yoke meets the centre back). I messed up the armholes by sewing them and then trying to turn the whole lot inside out: I keep forgetting that that doesn't work. So I had to seam rip them and sew them shut from the outide, only I messed them up so much that there wasn't much to sew :( Cue the beautiful trim that my mother gave me (thanks Mum). I used some fantastic buttons from my 'stash of old clothes destined to be recycled', and had fun playing with the buttonhole foot.

Shirt: 25%
This is my old graduation shirt. It's a tradition that on graduation (not the actual ceremony) from secondary, everyone writes with marker over their friends' shirts. Mine is covered in multicoloured writing (me being me, I brought fabric markers with me for that day). I'm overlaying the writing with Tenniel's illustrations from both Alice books, using Dylon Image Maker. The good thing about this stuff is that you can use photocopies. I've cut the neckline and I'll make a casing for elastic. Same for the sleeves.

Cravatte: DONE
Based on this tutorial http://whatthecraft.com/victorian-jabot-tutorial/
Mine is much less uniform. THe base is green cotton, stained with bleack and sepia acrylic ink, covered with every scrap of lace and ribbon that I could find, as well as some waistcoat scraps. The final touch is a leopard print flower with a bead in the centre. It looks very bizarre Ears and tail: DONE
Based on a Threadbanger tutorial, except that I wired the ears to a hairband rather than making a hood. The ears are brown fake fur with pink lining. THe tail is just a scrap of white fur (used to be a hair elastic) with a safety pin

Trousers: 30%
Finished applying masking tape to the front. I'm going to spray them black for a stripy look. Spats: 0%
Not even started. I'm not sure what to make them of, whether to use buttons or velcro, to make them plain or patterned. I was thinking of using bleach to create a steampunk look by painting gears on black fleece, but my last bleach experiment wasn't very successful (the bleaching on the jabot is virtually non-existant).

If anyone has any tips on bleaching, please let me know.