ladyofthethread | Phoenix feathers

I put in about 15 hours of work on the phoenix over the weekend and a few more hours this week. A lot of that was making fabric feathers and using one of the decorative stitches on my sewing machine to embroider fabric so it doesn’t look like much so far. But I’m pleased. ^_^ It’ll probably be at least another 20 hours of work to finish it; it’s taking as much work as some of my whole costumes but I’m enjoying it after my frustrations with sewing real garments recently.

Still have to figure out my presentation, too. It’ll probably be a basic walk-on based on the idea of Count D arriving at the palace to visit the princess. But I’m stuck on music ideas since I live under a rock when it comes to pop culture and most of the songs I know are Broadway stuff. And I'm clueless about classical and opera, too. ^_^;; Anyone have suggestions of things to check out?

The scene from the manga where the costume appears is when one of Count D’s ancestors visits a princess and gives her a wish-granting phoenix. But the princess wished for D’s love, which was the one thing the phoenix couldn’t do. So she asked to be reborn so she could meet him again. Then, the princess ended up dying young and being reincarnated over and over. >_>; The princess keeps making me think of fairy tales but it’s not exactly a “happily ever after.” “Into the Woods” involves fairy tales going wrong but doesn’t really fit. “Once Upon a December” came to mind, too, since the princess’s reincarnation dreamed of her past lives. But that would make more sense if I had a princess, which I don’t. (And I never even saw the movie. I only know the song from hearing it on the radio back then. >_>;; Actually, there’s lot of animated movies I never saw or saw once when I was a kid and hardly remember.) I think an instrumental clip would be preferable (only need about 30-40 seconds of music) so I don't have to worry about lyrics not fitting or getting cut off.

At this point, Ekaterina is getting postponed to a later con. Not sure if I’ll try to finish it for AB or Anime Next or just postpone it until NYAF so that I’ll have the whole summer to work out the pattern issues. I’m disappointed considering the time and money I’ve already put into it with the intention of having it for Costume Con. I also feel a bit bad since the historical masquerade director was super helpful in answering the ton of questions I had and that I won’t have an entry for her after all of that. :-/ But I think I would just drive myself up the wall if I tried to finish it to my standards with only a couple of weeks left and the jacket not even started yet.