Two Days Before Dragon*Con

But first: To the person who, unfortunately, landed on my non-fiction page in a quest to discover if “UGLIES is considered a fiction or non-fiction book”: It’s fiction, dude. FICTION. And no, not all fiction is fantasy. I sometimes have this conversation with people who tell me they don’t read fiction, and that their favorite book is like, The Kite Runner or The Da Vinci Code or something. Fiction means made up. Not necessarily that it’s got hobbits and magic wands.

Okay, moving along. So I’m headed out to Dragon*Con in two days, and I’m still trying to put my costumes together. My first costume is totally awesome. I’ll have pictures soon. It’s supposed to have gloves, but it’s Atlanta on Labor Day weekend and I can’t tell you how much that’s not happening. My second costume is…. problematic. It’s supposed to be steampunk, but as I put the various and sundry elements together I realized I may have overdosed on the steam and underdosed on the punk. It’s currently sort of this unacceptable mix of Victorian schoolmarm and can-can dancer. So I need to figure out how I can fix that…. in two days. part of the problem, i think is that it’s black, white, and silver, which sort of X-es out all those cool copper steampunk accoutrements. And I really don’t want to lose the silver.

These are the current elements:

black and white striped detachable bustle:

This is about calf length in the back and hip length in the front. It’s very frustrating since, a few inches longer and I could just wear this as a skirt.

My awesome black and silver crinoline:

This pictures doesn’t really do it justice. It’s so big and poofy, and the silver trim is actually lamé. I love it. SB says it’s too poofy and detracts from the bustle though.

And then, a top:

So… that’s what I’ve got. Plus about a million different black or white skirts I’ve tried on with it, from the short to the long from the poofy to the slim, and a ton of other black or white shirts… oh, and my suede lace up boots, which are perfect.

I think if I can find a cool steampunk pattern cloth in the fabric store, I might make a gathered overskirt to go over the crinoline and under the bustle, and then I can probably find a waist cincher pattern online somewhere and I can make the same material. The material is the tricky part. Maybe I can stencil. Will have to be done quickly too.

OR, maybe I can borrow my friends cool overcoat. that might go really well with this. I’ll ask her.

I’m open to suggestions.