I’m on my bi-annual Sewcation! Wanna guess what’s not happening?
Since the time I had a job long enough to bank PTO (and to rid myself of the guilt of being away from the office), I’ve taken the week of my birthday off. At first, it seemed like a chance to go away for a bit or to clean the house or to watch Hench Hubby while he sleeps during the day or whatever. At some point, vacation turned into staycation, which turned into sewcation–my time to sew during daylight hours and into the wee hours of the early morning with no expectation of leaving the studio, in preparation for summer conventions. It’s glorious! This year, on Day One, I am failing miserably.
Calendar-wise, I still have enough time to be packed and ready for BlerdCon with three new costumes and two backups from the closet. Hench Hubby hasn’t expressed interest dressing up for this con and the babies will be on Grammy-cation, so I don’t have the usual time constraints around fitting other people. My costume spreadsheet is prepared. This should be “simple”. Instead, I got it into my head to work on brand new ensembles for myself and the babies for the Wilmington Pirate Festival this weekend. Two months ago, I had time, then some challenging part of my brain decided that I should use that time to hand-sew my 1740s English Gown. Again, this would have been fine, if not for the adorably distracting family that I like to hangout with and the pesky 9-to-5.
Speaking of Blerdcon, I’m going to go ahead and put my updated lineup out there with the intention of not changing it in the next 17 days. The theme is “Blerd Magic”, and I’ve picked three characters who I believe fit nicely, while giving me a chance to explore some new techniques. From Bitter Root, Blink is a demon-fighting, soul-saving badass from Harlem. I get to wear my schmexy boots, modify an early 1920s silhouette to suit comic fantasy, and finally try resin-casting. On Day Two, I plan to wear Artemisia from Sparrowhawk. I saw the cover poster in the comic shop last year and decided that she was absolutely my aesthetic–historically adjacent fantasy. Once I got into the book, however, I realized that her starting outfit–Steampunk Fairy–was too far from my costuming interest for the portrayed time period (~1851). As it happens, her upgrade costumes through the rest of the book were much better for July weather. For this character, I’ll be trying some 3D fabric manipulation with burlap. Save me, Jeebus. For the final day of the con, I’m going full witchy with a Hogwarts-Weird Sister mash-up. In my head, I’m going to make a hooded skater dress with a feather applique collar and cuffs. This should be the easy costume (she says uneasily).
What’s important for today though, is that I’m still sitting at my laptop in the early afternoon, having only worked on some fitting for my festival gown, while I have a dinner to attend in 18th century duds tonight, and nothing to wear. Like…how do I even get out of bed in the morning? I promise that I will have my shit closer to together tomorrow.
Thanks for checking in, Team!
Green Linen Shirt 
Good luck getting it all finished!