Lady of the Thread's Sewing Basket

So, AnimeNext is over. Saw friends, got photos, and it was a nice break from real life. (Things have been a bit depressing at home but that could take up a whole other post. ;_;) My brother posted a few preview pics, including animeangel, mostflogged and sakuralenayuy:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotofong/sets/72157624212665151/


First costume on Friday was Youka from the Twelve Kingdoms with a new sash (although it looked the same as the old one since I bought identical fabric to remake it) and new flowers for my hair. I’ve wanted to rewear this for a while since it only made it to a couple of cons when I made it in 2006. Emi on ACP had sent me a PM a couple of months ago asking about location ideas for Twelve Kingdoms photos so we started talking and decided to get pics together during the con. ^_^ My brother picked the silly photo for the preview!



Changed into Count D’s artbook kimono late in the afternoon and went to get judged for the hall contest. Wandered a bit afterwards and went to the poofy dress panel. Got invited to go out for a group dinner by blackmarth but unfortunately couldn’t go since I was still in that huge kimono.

Saturday morning was time for the surprise costume, which was Sarah’s cowgirl costume from Kaleido Star. I hadn’t told anyone I was making this and it was kind of funny how some of my friends didn’t recognize me for a second since I wasn’t buried under yards of fabric. :-P I thought it would be fun to do a cowgirl costume sometime since I actually listened to a lot of country music back in the 90’s. (And I’ve been listening to 80’s and 90’s country lately while working on costumes since I found a channel for it on Fios. Yeah, I’m weird considering the other thing I like is musical theatre! XD;) I think this is the tiniest costume I’ve ever made. o_o; Although I made it less tiny than it was actually supposed to be since I used a black tank top instead of a bikini top because I didn’t want my stomach showing. This can mostly be blamed on the fact I found boots that I could paint white for $10; probably wouldn’t have bothered to do this if I needed to spend a lot on shoes for such a simple costume. This preview pic from my brother is the only one I have so far although I did also get a quick shoot with stillvisions and tyrus took a few photos, too.



After lunch, I changed into my half-finished Kyoya costume. Quite a contrast to the cowgirl costume. XD; More photos with stillvisions and then dressdragn. Wandered a bit and ran into and got groped by >_>; yeu who was also cosplaying Kyoya but in the school uniform.

Here’s a pic that dressdragn took.


I had a few moments of panic later when I lost my camera. One of the artists out in the hallway had noticed what I was cosplaying and showed me cards she had with a chibi drawing of Kyoya in that costume. We chatted a minute and I put my camera down to get money for one of the cards. Didn’t realize until after I went back up to my hotel room that I’d forgotten to pick it back up and rushed back downstairs. Luckily, she had seen my camera and put it aside for me. I have such a lousy memory at times. ._.;

Went to the masquerade but ended up in the overflow room since I got in line late. Congratulations to neoangelwink, roserevolution, lady_ava, and starlighthoney on their awards. ^_^ I got the Best of Friday Craftsman award from the hall contest for my D kimono. But I think the most fun was everyone goofing off after the masquerade and the huge random group picture. Although I was kind of like “Huh? You guys want me in the picture, too?” when ryoko was calling me over. ^_^;

Finished packing up Sunday morning and put on my Count D kimono again since stillvisions requested it for photos. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my nails anymore since I cut them and took off the polish after Friday night because I wasn’t expecting to cosplay D again until at least Otakon. ^_^; (Plus, Kyoya would have looked silly with long, pink nails. :-P) After photos, I wandered around a bit and finally made it over to video programming to say hi to ifuritaoni. We ended up walking back to the hotel and chatting for a while in the lobby. We looked over my Petshop of Horrors artbook and he tried to convince me I should get a harem like Count D so it was a silly ending to the con. XD; (Anyone want to cosplay some of the pets? >_>; I haven’t had a group for this series for two years.)

*glances at title* Hmm… I’ll have at least 2 out of 4 of those on my Terra costume. My shoes have lace trim and my necklace pendant is really a big gold button with a plastic gem stuck to it. XD I doubt I’ll find someplace to fit in buckles or ruffles though! I was thinking a bit earlier about possible things to include in the outfit and it occurred to me that I should dig out the large amount of jewelry I made a couple of years ago for a crafts show but didn’t manage to sell. I know I did at least a couple of lariat necklaces with beaded tassels. If there’s one long enough and in good colors to go with the dress, I imagine I could wrap it around my waist to go with whatever scarves I have.

The second panel for my Terra dress is progressing well. I’ll probably be able to finish the flowers on that one later today or tomorrow. And then start on the next panel sometime over the weekend.

To help pass the time while working on the sequins, I’ve been watching some DVDs and decided to watch the third arc (my favorite) of The Twelve Kingdoms again. I had watched my new Gankutsuou DVDs a few days ago and during the episode regarding Haidee’s past, I was reminded somewhat of Princess Shoukei’s backstory from The Twelve Kingdoms. Although in Shoukei’s case, it was really her parents who brought disaster upon themselves by having hundreds of thousands of their people executed for petty crimes.

And after watching a few of those episodes again, I’ve decided for certain that one of the cosplayers I took a picture of at AnimeNext was cosplaying Shoukei. Now, I feel kind of dumb for not recognizing it at the time because she hadn’t done the blue hair (although I can’t blame her since Shoukei’s hairstyle with her princess outfit is nuts!) and the fact that Twelve Kingdoms cosplay is so rare that I wasn’t really expecting to see any other costumes from it. And embarrassingly, I was wearing my nyosen uniform when I took the picture; my reflection was in the glass door behind her. ^_^;; Good to know that a few more people are cosplaying Twelve Kingdoms these days though.