Cosplay Progress - Minene Uryuu Dress

I have finally started making significant progress (enough to warrant a blog post, anyway), so I give you the more-or-less complete Minene Uryuu dress!

Or Uryuu Minene. Whichever. Point being, she likes to blow shit up.

To start, I decided to order a frilly pink dress from Bodyline, because 1) I don't know how to make a dress from scratch and 2) I think I had a hidden desire to completely shred pink lace, because I did so with great pleasure.

So let me begin by saying that I ordered what I later found to be the completely wrong dress for this cosplay. Could I do it over again and save myself much anguish, I would, but instead I took advice from Tim Gunn and decided to "make it work."

Pink is not my friend. Time to take down this lace monstrosity.

It took quite a while to get all of the pink lace off the dress. Here is the result.

I'm pretty sure there was more lace than dress in that thing.

After realizing that the dress was completely not suited to this cosplay and having a brief moment of panic, Mimi had the brilliant idea that I could just turn the dress around backwards so the zipper was in the front and then just alter the neckline from there. Crisis averted! I also cut off the waist tie and altered such that it is a removable velcroed piece.

Just so.

Altered neckline and inevitable mirror picture, huzzah!

Then I had to take in the sleeves pretty heavily, they were way too wide. I used leftover scraps from the waist tie to make the hairpiece. You know what's awkward? When you walk outside to get the mail and forget you're still wearing that hair accessory.

I can stand in the bathroom and hold a camera in front of my face, too! Look how edgy I am.

I'm sorry. The sarcasm doesn't have an off switch.

So what have I learned while making this cosplay?

1) If you're going to alter clothing, make sure you get the right clothing to begin with.

2) Rulers are your friends.

2) Don't try to sew into the dress while you're still wearing it. Just... don't.

And now I just need to make socks like this. And kick Yuno in the face.

Contact and wig reviews for this cosplay will be forthcoming, mostly because 1) I want to wait as long as I can to open the contacts, and 2)I have learned from bitter experience (read: Medusa) that the less you mess with a wig, the easier your life will be.

Now it is time to work on Black★Gold Saw, also known as "how in the hell am I going to make a six foot sword out of insulation foam."

~Kathryn

OMG Life Changes OMG I'll Live in a House

From the beginning of September I'll be living in Philadelphia at my friend Lex's house. (You might remember Lex from the Acrobatic Yoga post). This means I'll have a real bed to sleep in, a fridge, and a bathroom - after four straight years on the road, living in a van, this is hugely luxurious! :P Philip will keep traveling with an old friend of ours who's a monk and a scientist. He'll be in good hands. I just need a break. So if you're in Philly or nearby, be my friend! Let's hoop! Or hang out! Or both! And have kirtan! And fingerpaint! Play house! Or whatever! And if you're not in the area, come visit!

I'm going to have a wardrobe!! For years I've longed for a closet to hang my skirts and dresses. So I can look at them and go through them and figure out what to wear each day. Hee hee!

None of this means that I don't love to travel and do what I've been doing the whole time on the road -- I absolutely do -- but at the same time there hasn't been the balance I need in the long term. So I'm going for the balance now. And I know some of you might be concerned about me and Philip -- we're as close as we ever were, just taking a different direction.

I am also thus informing my mom Heini who is hiking in Lapland, my sister Minna who's rainbowing it out at the Gathering in the mountains of Italy, and my sister Kaisu who's in Finnish forest milking cows and baking fresh rye breads - I'm not coming home next fall, it's your turn to visit the US since now for once I'll have a room to accommodate you in. Just so you know ;)

Is this how my room will look like?

Marianne Sunshine

I was hanging out yesterday with Marianne. This girl is a total sunshine, now look at her:

Recently we had a hoop jam in Helsinki for the World Hoop Day and recorded a video of us all doing "the official" WHD choreography. You can check it out here. I think it was Marianne's idea to bring the beautiful yellow leaves to our hooping spot. I don't know who took the above photo but the following ones from the park were taken by Noora or some other hooper there, I forget. Credit where the credit is due :)

And here's the whole crew:

This is how it's done yeah!

I made her a new hoop and she gave me these pink and colorful dreads that she made herself. Aren't they cute?!?

Ok everybody, have a great weekend! I have some exciting plans for tonight, will tell you guys later what happened :)

PS. Marianne has a blog at www.mariannesisko.blogspot.com, but it's in Finnish so you non-fairy-Finnish-speakers can check out the photos :D