Lady of the Thread's Sewing Basket

Or should I call it “LakeCon” since I even cosplayed while on vacation? XD;

Instead of being at Otakon this year, I was at home packing for a family vacation. We drove upstate to Lake George in the Adirondacks on the 19th and spent a week at a townhouse on the lake. We used to vacation up there a lot when I was younger but the last time we were there was 2002 and we’d only gone on one family vacation since then. Between the cosplay and the fireworks, I think this was possibly our most memorable trip up there so far!


Highlights:
-Doing a Gankutsuou photoshoot outside the castle *_*
-Going around the USA and the world… in mini golf form! ^_^
-Hearing a BOOM on the last night and walking out on the terrace to find there was a fireworks display right outside our house! We assumed some rich guy arranged it for the fancy party being held at the castle. Our vacation literally ended with a bang! :-D


( Vacation photos and report: lake views, mountain scenery, steamboats, a castle, ridiculous hats, a giant lobster, birds, horses, fancy cakes, tacky souvenirs, and more! VERY image heavy! )


And here's the last part of the fireworks display for those of you who like explosions. :-P


I wasn’t really interested in getting a YouTube account but I couldn’t get the embedding code for Photobucket to work even though the video uploaded fine there. >_>

Posting this from my brother's laptop...

Hope those who went to Otakon had a good time. ^_^ If my brother took your picture during the past few months and you haven't seen them yet, check my last entry for links to his new Flickr account.

Anyway, we arrived at Lake George in the Adirondacks yesterday. We have a nice view of the lake and it's pretty quiet here since we're outside of the village. (The village itself is rather tacky and touristy with lots of motels, gift shops, and amusement places along the main street.) Had a long photoshoot at the castle up the hill in my Eugenie costume today. ^_^ And I think that's all I'll say for now since I'm lousy at typing on this thing. :-P

I went shopping with neoangelwink Friday, which was fun. ^_^ We went by Macy’s first since she needed a dress to wear to a wedding. After we laughed about how ridiculous some of the cocktail dresses there looked, she found one she liked. We had to argue with the salesperson though since there was a 25% off sign on the rack but it scanned at full price. >_> Of course, they had to give the discount since the sign was there.

Next, we walked downtown a bit and visited the quilting shop I went to with ifuritaoni the other weekend. After making that little pouch with the Japanese prints, I was tempted to go back and buy a couple of yards to make a sundress. Unfortunately, the print I was hoping to get was out and some of the other designs seemed too busy for a whole dress. :-/ I eventually settled on a floral print. It was shelved with the Japanese prints and had similar gold outlines but doesn’t look especially like kimono fabric. I guess I’ll try going back some other time to see if they get something new. I think a Japanese print sundress could be cute without looking too weird to wear normally.

On our way back uptown, Carrie picked up some thread and we stopped by Borders where I got a couple of Ouran volumes with a coupon I had. Afterwards, we went to Kinokuniya and hung out in the café chatting for a couple of hours.

We went separate ways around 5 and I picked up a zipper before heading downtown to get a ride home with my father. Maybe, I should have just gone all the way home on the subway though. Coming down the stairs at our store, one of my heels got hooked on a step and I stumbled, giving myself a bruised knee. ._. (What is wrong with me this year? I’m not usually that clumsy but that was my second mishap with stairs in as many months. o_O) I’m okay though and the bruising isn’t too bad.


I finished the skirt that I’ve been working on last night. I didn’t have enough fabric left to recut the design I messed up so I pulled out a different pattern to use. I started from a Simplicity pattern but changed it to have 3 overlapping tiers of ruffles instead of 2 non-overlapping rows. I think it came out cute. ^_^ Nice to get a chance to sew and wear cute stuff for a change. I don’t really get a chance to do it for cosplay since I feel I’m not suited for cute younger characters. :-/ But I can wear ruffly summer stuff like this as myself if that makes sense. There’s a metallic blue shimmer to the fabric but it’s not very visible from a distance.



I’m not going to Otakon but it turns out I will be traveling next weekend. :-D My family is going up to the Adirondack Mountains for a week; my father just reserved a townhouse on a lake and we’ll be leaving on the 19th. Kind of sudden but some places were all booked and/or more expensive later in the summer. ^_^; Should be relaxing. We went to that area for vacations a lot when I was younger although our last trip up there was seven years ago. Should mainly be a relaxing vacation. We stayed at the same place once before and it’s pretty quiet and has a private beach.

Photography is one of the main things my brother wants to do during that week and if he’s willing, I want to bring along a couple of costumes and do cosplay photoshoots while we’re up there. >_>; I’ve wanted to take pictures of Count D’s vacation outfit at a beach ever since I made it but I’ve never gotten around to it. And lake scenery would be good for my earlier Ayame costume since he wore it in the manga when they went to the lake for Golden Week.