Lady of the Thread's Sewing Basket

Yikes, that storm on Sunday… It rained all day, I think I heard 7-8 inches, and the basement and living room have new leaks to prove it! -_-

Here’s what I’ve been working on lately, the cross stitch piece I started last year. The blue dress is the part I’ve done over the past few weeks.




And finally, the end of the cosplay meme, which everyone else finished like a month and a half ago… >_>;

26. Any unfinished costumes? Will you ever finish them?
A few. I have a half-finished Ritsu kimono but I’m unlikely to ever finish it since I’m not really into Fruits Basket anymore. There’s also an original stained glass fairy which has the dress done but no accessories; not sure when I’ll finish it since I don’t know when I’d have a good chance to wear it. And I started on Lia’s Russian portrait gown from Le Chevalier D’eon last year but it got put aside; I think I’ll try to finish that one for Katsucon.

27. How many wigs do you own? Which is your favourite?
I haven’t done an exact count but probably 20-25. No real favorite. None especially stand out since I don’t have any wigs in crazy styles.

28. Where do you work on your cosplays and where do you store them when they’re done?
It depends on what part I’m doing. Patterning and cutting fabric gets done in the living room since my sewing room is somewhat small. I usually do machine sewing in the sewing room and then hand stuff in front of the computer while watching stuff. And they get stored in a closet when I’m done.

29. What is your favourite cosplay item? (eg. a pair of shoes, a wig)
Hmm… I’ve never really thought about favorite individual items. I guess my Petshop of Horrors plushies. T-chan is especially fun although it’s been a long time since I’ve brought him along to a con.

30. Describe cosplay in three words. No more, no less.
Many hours crafting

Hmm… It’s been quite a while since I posted. I’ve been enjoying a break from cosplay stuff since AnimeNext and I guess I just don’t have much interesting to post about when I’m not working on costumes.

Otakon is this week and my brother and his friend are going. I am not.

Otakon has never been one of my favorite cons; I don’t like the location and Baltimore in the middle of summer is just terrible for the types of costumes I tend to do (long with lots of layers). I know a lot of people like it but I just seem to have terrible luck whenever that con is involved and last year was the last straw. :-/ 2006: was okay but very expensive since I missed the con hotel blocks and I didn’t find it that impressive for such a large con. 2008: missed the hotel blocks again, my shoulder got sunburnt waiting outside in the registration line (and I never get sunburnt!), my father and I got caught in a hailstorm on the way home plus I got carsick (also a rare thing for me). 2009: didn’t even go and still got burned; I’d booked a room through the housing bureau in case but we decided to do a family vacation instead and I canceled several days before the deadline. Still got charged for one night by the hotel and had to call my card company to dispute it. -_- And last year… Well, see below under “worst cosplay memory.”


And I still need to finish this meme which most people were done with weeks ago. >_>;

16. Do you belong to any cosplay groups? If so, what are they?
Not any formal ones. Once in a while I get to do groups with friends which is really nice since a lot of my cosplays are from rarely cosplayed series! ^_^

17. What events have you cosplayed to?
Lots of conventions. AnimeNext and Anime Boston have been the ones I’ve been to most regularly. Also MangaNext, Otakon, NYAF, Costume Con, Anime North, and Katsucon in various years. Plus some non-convention events like Sakura Matsuri.

18. What is your best cosplay memory?
Hmm… I don’t know if there’s a single thing I can pick out. In general, I think I’ll say getting to have groups for the series I love since as I mentioned above, groups are somewhat rare for me. I’d love to have people to cosplay with more often!

19. What is your worst cosplay memory?
Otakon 2010. -_-X We thought she was getting better but my grandmother went back into the hospital two days before the con, which was too late to cancel the hotel without a penalty and we had all pre-registered. Then, I called the hotel a couple of hours before we left and found out they had overbooked and moved us to another hotel. And I had specifically booked that hotel since I had pictures in mind I wanted to do there so that wrecked nearly all photo plans. I was pretty upset with that on top of everything else going on and knew before we even left the house I knew I was never going back. So, I didn’t want to be there that much and was crying in the hotel room Friday night after calling home and finding out they had a scare with my grandmother that day. I highly doubt anything could ever top this as my “worst con ever.” If it had been just me, I’d have just completely canceled plans after my grandmother went into the hospital the first time shortly after AnimeNext 2010. But my brother and his friend wanted to go (they’d never gone before last year) and my father was taking the weekend off to drive down there with us.

20. Have you won any cosplay awards?
Yep, quite a few! Except for a presentation honorable mention at Costume con a few years ago, my awards are all for craftsmanship since that’s my thing rather than performing.

( all the questions )

On Friday, I went to visit my best friend who moved into a new condo with her sister recently. Her boyfriend baked scones and made sandwiches so the four of us had tea outside on the terrace, which was nice. ^_^

We tried some of the flowering tea I’d brought as part of a housewarming present, a new variety I found at Pearl River. They seem to have somewhat random names and this one was called “noble madam.” It bloomed prettily though!



And here’s the food. Mixed berry scones, egg salad sandwiches, watercress sandwiches, watermelon chunks, and strawberries (the bowl on the bottom that you can’t see into).



( Cosplay Meme, Questions 6-10 )

Went into the city today to get some stuff to finish the wedding outfit and my Halloween costume. I bought some sequined appliques to use on the red jacket for the wedding outfit although I’m not completely decided how I’m going to place them. (whether I’ll do something symmetrical or asymmetrical and if I’ll use all 4 or only 2) Except for closures, the jacket is otherwise done but I still need to make the dress.

I also got some cheap shoes and leather paint so I can paint them purple for my Daphne costume. And I bought a new pair of pink tights since I decided the first pair was a bit too bright for my tastes. The clothes are nearly finished. The dress is done but I’m going to remake the scarf since it came out a bit too short and bulky to tie nicely. Also still need to cut bangs into my wig. Should be done by this weekend. I kind of wish I could go to the botanic garden for pics this weekend but my brother is probably going to be busy with a paper for school. (The garden’s annual Halloween event is this Sunday and I find it’s a good time to take costume photos without seeming weird.)





And a book meme from athena8

1. Pick 10 of your favorite books or series.
2. Post the first sentence of each book. (If one sentence seems too short, post two or three!)
3. Let everyone try to guess the titles and authors of your books.

This is probably going to be super hard (unless someone is bored and starts Googling stuff XD;) since I tend to read a lot of series mysteries (only 2 of these are non-mystery) and most of my favorites aren’t that known. I might do another post after several days to explain where these come from. Extra hints: There’s one classic, all except 10 have series, and all series are the first book except for 5 and 7.


1) A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate. The hour, some little time before sunset, and the place, the West Barricade, at the very spot where, a decade later, a proud tyrant raised an undying monument to the nation’s glory and his own vanity.

2) Dr. Bartholomew Slocum was definitely dead. Inspector Gerald Witherspoon stared morosely at the body slumped over the huge mahogany desk and fervently wished he were home sitting in front of a roaring fire instead of standing in a gloomy Knightsbridge surgery.

3) I know what people say about me: that I am willful and opinionated, shockingly eccentric in my manner of dress (this is because I will not wear a corset), altogether a trial to my father. These things are true except the last.

4) Kate Ardleigh glanced warily over her shoulder. The late-summer night was black as the pit and stormy, lighted by the intermittent blue-white glare of lighting flashes.

5) Hands on hips, brows lowering, Emerson stood gazing fixedly at the recumbent ruminant. A sympathetic friend (if camels have such, which is doubtful) might have taken comfort in the fact that scarcely a ripple of agitated sand surrounded the place of its demise.

6) Athena ran blindly down the dark country lane, her breath coming in short, harsh gasps. Her school jacket with the St. Polycarp’s logo sewn to the pocket was no protection against the sudden drenching spring rain.

7) Lady Colveden stabbed a brooding knife into the breakfast butter. “I do wish,” she said, in a plaintive tone, “that casting wasn’t always so difficult…”

8) “I see…” said the vampire thoughtfully, and slowly he walked across the room towards the window. For a long time he stood there against the dim light from Divisadero Street and the passing beams of traffic. (Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice, guessed by gothic_lolita)

9) After I completed my four years at Yale College in 18—, I faced the inevitable decision of what to do for the rest of my life. Conscious as always of our family’s standing as one of the oldest and most respectable in New England, my father encouraged me to read for the bar.

10) If only Simon weren’t such a practical joker! The other booksellers with whom she dealt were not given to joking about their profession—as one of them gloomily put it, peddling the printed word to a nation of semiliterates was no laughing matter—and Simon, of all people, ought to have been free of that weakness.

*looks over list* I certainly seem to like verbose writers, don’t I? :-P

I didn’t really intend to do this but blackmarth gave me a silly list so why not?

Directions: Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given

1.God Tier sewing skills D=
*laugh* An exaggeration. My style of sewing tends to be finicky with everything lined or finished on the inside if possible and lots of hand stitching to avoid visible stitches on the outside. I think some of the stuff I do is more time consuming than hard. ^_^;

2.SUCCESSFUL GANKUTSUOU COSPLAY ILU
Since I watched it a few years ago, I always thought it would be fun to do something with all the crazy designs. Plus, I thought it was about time I did a costume where I wasn’t buried under yards of fabric (hard since I like elaborate outfits). But I underestimated all the painting and spent the last couple of days before NYAF hiding in my sewing room to finish it in time. Never doing that much handpainting in 5 weeks again! x_x

3.Count D ALWAYS
Other than being a Petshop of Horrors fan, I love fancy clothes and Count D has enough of them to rival a Clamp character’s wardrobe! :-D Many outfits are only shown in black and white, so there’s often the chance to pick my own color schemes. And although there are a lot of Chinese robes, there’s enough variety that you can do a bunch of his costumes without any two looking too similar. Among other things, he’s been drawn in kimono, riding clothes, Ancient Egyptian costume, Pokemon cosplay, and this. o_O;;

4.Needlecraft
A normal topic?! O_O Needlework was my big hobby for several years before cosplay. I even went to a few needlework cons and won a bunch of ribbons at the annual Woodlawn Plantation exhibit before business school finally devoured my spare time. Never got back into it as much afterwards but I still stitch something once in a while between costumes. And I blame it for being why I tend to put tiny details that you would only see from 2 feet away in my costumes! (Woodlawn judges supposedly looked at stuff under magnifier lamps!)

5.Cosplaying in Chinatown lol
Halloween was coming up and I realized after 2 whole years of cosplaying Count D, I still hadn’t taken photos as him in Chinatown. The funny thing is people kept walking past me and then turning back to look. Apparently, a Chinese person in a Chinese dress in Chinatown on Halloween is a weird thing! :-P


I’ve been wanting to go fabric shopping but I’ve had a minor cold for the past week and didn’t want to make it worse by going out before I was better. It’s been more annoying than anything since it’s mostly just sniffles and a cough but keeps lingering. What drives me nuts is those times when I’m trying to do paperwork or sew something and keep having to stop every 5 minutes for a tissue. -_-

Since I have a lot of stuff to do for Costume Con but couldn’t go buy new fabric, I dug through what I had at home and managed to come up with material for Count D’s vampire cape. Except for the feathers, the whole thing is leftovers. XD; The red taffeta was left from my Lili costume 5 years ago, the lining was leftover jacket lining from Eugenie, and the black silk was also left over from Eugenie. Despite the jagged edges and holes in the cape, I imagined it in fancier fabrics because of the feathers in the collar.



I was originally going to try to do a mottled pattern with darker edges to better match the screentones in the reference but couldn’t come up with anything satisfactory. :-/ Starting with darker fabric and adding lighter blotches didn’t really work since I couldn’t get a good red. (I had this problem with Eugenie, too. Reds always seem to come out dull once you paint them onto the fabric.) And trying to use black paint on the red taffeta just made it look dirty. So, I left it plain. Oh, well. At least, it already has some light/dark effects since it’s taffeta.

The cape was interesting to make since I don’t really go for the raggedy look and hadn’t done anything tattered looking before. I satin stitched all the edges on the machine and then cut away the excess material so it won’t fray. (detail pic) I think it came out decently although I might have overdone the feathers; can thin them out later if needed.

I’d been holding out on doing that 2008 cosplay meme that was going around a few weeks ago since I thought I might get my stained glass fairy costume done before the end of the month. But it looks like that’s not going to happen so I’ll just do it now.



( 2008 cosplay review )

Conventions attended: 4
Total worn costumes: 8

New costumes (total): 4
New costumes (that I made): 4
New costumes (closet w/mod): 0
New costumes (borrowed/given): 0

I think I possibly have the fewest new costumes out of everyone that filled this thing out. XD; Oh, well. Four seems to be my usual number of new costumes in a year anyway.

Saw this meme pop up on my friends list a few times and was curious what people would suggest.

Tell me two things you think I should cosplay: One you think I would really like, and one you think I might never consider in a million years but might be suited for!

And since no one seemed up to guessing last time, here’s the YGO character I’m going to do for AnimeNext. Yes, I’m going to be Cecelia/Cyndia, Pegasus’s dead wife! (Even though I wasn’t really a Pegasus fan when I was into the series. ^_^;) 

It’s been a long time so there wasn’t anyone I especially wanted to cosplay anymore although I’d tossed around the idea of doing Mai. novaraven was trying to convince me to be Isis but I just found her wardrobe to be blah since I usually like more colorful things. Then, I finally remembered Cecelia and settled on doing her since novaraven is making Pegasus and I’d have more fun making that dress than the other things we were discussing. Plus, I figured it might be cheaper and easier since I won’t need to buy purple boots or mess with patterns much. ^_^;; Not planning to compete with this one and I’ll probably only wear it when requested for a group. 

Okay, more PSOH drabbles. The latest prompt was “needle and thread” and considering my screenname and hobbies, how could I not write something for that? :-D I did a silly one first.

( Sewing Lessons )


Then, I did a serious one but went over the word limit for the challenge. ^_^; (I think I don’t do serious as well either. It’s pretty rare for me to write something like this without any humor at all. o_O;) D’s visitor in this one is based on the Goddess of Silk from Chinese mythology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leizu (Sometimes, she’s also referred to as the Goddess of Silkworms.) According to folklore, she was an empress who discovered silk and taught others how to domesticate silkworms. One tale says that she discovered silk after a cocoon fell into her teacup and started to unravel.

( The Price of Silk )


And ngmaster tagged me for a meme. :-P Take it if you feel like it.

The rules are easy, just post 6 things that recently made you happy! Then tag 6 people and force them to post this meme on their LJs. Because it is good. Everyone needs a little happiness once in awhile.

1. Some unexpected gifts for my birthday a couple of weeks back.
2. Getting the pearls for my new Count D costume.
3. Seeing friends at MangaNext.
4. Finally getting my hands on a copy of the Twelve Kingdoms novel.
5. Getting a shoe rack so I don’t have to hunt all over the house for rarely worn pairs.
6. Playing the latest Nancy Drew computer game.

Went shopping on Friday. Got a tank top and a couple of embroidered/beaded skirts, all on sale. ^_^ Most of the day was spent looking for shoes I could wear with my new cheongsam for a relative’s wedding. Even though I didn’t need to get flats, it still seemed hard to find a good pair of dressy pink shoes that weren’t pastel or neon. -_- I didn’t like the style much but ended up buying this pair with weird wedge heels because they were one of my cheaper options and I could actually walk in them. (I don’t think I’d be able to walk in stilettos. ^_^;;)

The wedding was yesterday. A cousin’s son got married and we went to the reception. For some unknown reason, they had a piñata. Not sure where that idea came from; it’s the most random thing I’ve ever seen at a wedding reception. O_o They also had a lion dance, which I have seen a time or two at a reception before. And they showed a music video the groom and his friends made that included footage of him dancing around with pots and pans in his kitchen. *laugh* (He’s a chef and has his own restaurant.) Then instead of a normal wedding cake, there was a tiered stand full of cupcakes.

And here’s a meme taken from rukawagf and twilitesea

( List all the costumes you have made and when you wore it. For extra fun, list your favorite feature of each costume. )

My LiveJournal Trick-or-Treat Haul
ladyofthethread goes trick-or-treating, dressed up as Count D.
astarel7 tricks you! You get a wet rag.
auburntressed gives you 1 light orange chocolate-flavoured wafers.
genkitozuku gives you 7 light yellow apple-flavoured pieces of chewing gum.
insaneladybug gives you 7 blue peach-flavoured pieces of taffy.
jezeroth gives you 1 green chocolate-flavoured wafers.
neoangelwink gives you 15 light yellow mint-flavoured gummy worms.
ngmaster gives you 6 light orange apple-flavoured gummy bats.
sakuralenayuy gives you 7 red grape-flavoured jawbreakers.
shinei gives you 3 light blue grapefruit-flavoured gummy bats.
vampricyoda tricks you! You lose 8 pieces of candy!
ladyofthethread ends up with 39 pieces of candy, and a wet rag.
Go trick-or-treating! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern.

Nec gave me a wet rag? Yuck. T_T

Went shopping for trim for my dress yesterday. Boy, that stuff can be so expensive, much more so than fabric if you need large quantities! I figured I would need around 8 or 9 yards if I was going to trim along the slits and the satin accents as I was planning. I picked out one that was about $3 a yard so that’s already close to $30 of trim. o_o; In contrast, I only spent $18 on the 3 yards of blue brocade and had about half a yard left after cutting the fabric.

Frog closures seem rather expensive, too. I was thinking I’d need 5 or 6 for my outfit but the ones in the trim shops were going for $2-$5 each. At that price, I think I’ll try making my own. I have directions from my Folkwear Cheongsam pattern and scrap brocade left from earlier projects. Yes, I can be a cheapskate at times when sewing. >_>;

Hmm… Halloween is in another week. Since I haven’t really got parties or such to go to, I’m thinking I might put on one of my costumes to wander around town that day. Maybe browse some bookstores or look through some fabric shops. XD Not completely sure what I’d wear. I had wanted to use the peacock dress as my Halloween outfit but that might not be the best idea if it turns out to be cold and I’m out most of the day. I suppose Ayame would do since it’s warmer and relatively simple to wear. Or my original Count D if I finish sewing the dress by then.