Brass Screw Confederacy, 2014

The Brass Screw Confederacy is a Steampunk weekend in scenic Port Townsend, WA.  I was originally booked to vend at another event this weekend, but after a change of plans I headed out with my camera to play tourist.  This seems to be the year for that!

The full album is here, and here's a few of my favorites from it:











bonus ladybug!





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Steampunks at the Park

The Steamrats converged on Gasworks Park yesterday for one of our big photoshoot get-togethers.  Good times were had.  Silliness occurred.  Also puppies!











 More pictures here.



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The Steampunk Pied Piper

Last year my wonderful, patient husband took charge of not only my own munchkin but 5 other children of other merchants during Steamcon.  This year we decided to coordinate his costume with his cat herding activities, and I made him a Steampunk Pied Pier-esque outfit.  I started with an old wool coat, tail'd it, and then covered it in patches using embroidery floss.





After the first few went on, I asked my husband if he thought it was too much and he told me it wasn't enough.  Okay, then!





I also made him a hat with gramophone horns coming out of the back that we rigged with a bluetooth speaker so he could wander down the hallways playing music with kids following him dancing.  Unfortunately the kids were all much more self-sufficient this year, and the hat turned out really heavy so he didn't wear it much.  The only picture I got was after he'd traded it in for his more mundane, non-music playing topper.



He enjoyed the outfit, though, and that's what counts.



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I got almost no pictures of my costuming for this year's Steamcon, unfortunately.  Friday's outfit was a big hit, though.  I did a lolita-esque gender bent Alex from A Clockwork Orange.





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Pride and a wedding

I'm in the enviable and unheard-of position of having my costuming for Steamcon V finished three months early!  (I still have to sew something for the munchkin and the husband, but hey - three months early!)

Each of the outfits was made for a previous event, but I've now got enough in the "new" department to satisfy that little voice in the back of my head that says "but I've got nothing to wear!!!"

The first came about after I was gifted some fabric, a lovely chartreuse stretch piece and some lightweight satin in a pattern of peacock colors.  The outfit's first use was for Pride, as there was pretty much every color of the rainbow but red in the fabric, and I covered that with my hair.  Also, there's a fine  tradition at cons here, of what's called the "hangover detection outfit."  These are worn on Sunday mornings at cons, and are meant to tweak the folks who may have overindulged a wee bit on Saturday night.  Achievement "Eye Burning Brightness" unlocked!

Here's the outfit, and I borrowed one of my parasols from the shop for the day:





In past years I've marched with the Seattle Goths for the parade, but this year Steamcon represented, so we joined them.  Luckily I got a few pictures, as we were all the way at the end so not many surfaced after the parade.



This year's theme was Marriage Equality, so I made us all sashes especial:



And here's the whole group of us:



The second outfit I'm including here was made for friends' fancy dress-up wedding.  It started, as so many outfits do, with a pair of drapes I found at a thrift store.  This is how I accidentally wandered into Steampunk, by the way!




The drapes consisted of two kinds of brocades in matching colors, bronze and black.  One was a Victorian wallpaper pattern, and the other was 1/4" stripes.  The wallpaper fabric became the skirt and the stripes the drape and bustle.

Someday I'll do a tutorial on this, I promise.

The edges of the drapes were finished with tasseled trim, but there wasn't enough to finish the drape so I used some beaded fringe there:





I finished up the parasol an hour before the wedding:





I was taking pictures during the reception and accidentally shot myself.  But it's cool.



And here's the other outfits that will round out my Steamcon costuming this year:









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Untwisting my knickers

I was dressing for a skit I was doing last Sunday, an announcement for a charity auction I am co-chairing. It's a Roaring 20s theme, and I was supposed to be a newsboy selling papers. "Extra! Extra! Our auction is only 5 weeks away!" etc, etc.

I have a pair of cheater knickers I made some time ago, which I couldn't find. And even if I had found them, there's a good chance they wouldn't fit anymore, as the little calories that live in your closet and shrink your clothing have been hard at work on my wardrobe this year. I ended up pulling the legs of my pants up inside, doubled up, and tying them off just below the knees with ribbons, which worked fine for that day, but that won't do for events.

This evening, I picked up a pair of slacks at the thrift store. They're a pair of Dockers that were altered for a woman who was ~5' tall, apparently. Knickers, ho!

First, I cut them off at just below my knees:



Then, I cut the hemmed portion off the remainder of the legs, cut out one of the seams and sized them to my legs just above the calves, with a seam allowance of 1/4" on either end:



Sewed down the edges of these pieces, then pinned them to the pants legs. There's now a bit of a gather:



Sewed the cuffs on and topstitched down the seam, and for fasteners I picked out a couple of antiqued silver buttons and made two loops with elastic cord:



And here you have it:



This took me about 30 minutes altogether, including the time it took to start my daughter's bedtime shower. Easy peasy!


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Friday Favorites!

Steampunk Asylum Corset High Back Sewing Pattern, from HarlotsandAngels:



Fragola Silk Chiffon Evening Gown, by siobhanbarrett:



Framed Print- Persistence of Vision, by TormentedArtifacts:



Silver double breasted vest, by RetroSewCo:



FLOATING BUBBLES, by BeadyWhite:

International No Pants Day

No Pants Day was yesterday, if you were unaware. It occurs every first Friday in May. This tied in nicely with the theory of a friend of mine, that time travel is deleterious to the garments on the lower extremities of a time traveler. In celebration, a group of folks from the Seattle Steamrats descended on Gasworks Park for a photoshoot.

The official photos are still forthcoming, but I got the husband to snap a few shots of myself with my new red and black laced parasol. I've been holding off listing it until this shoot, as I wanted to get some pictures of it "in action," so to speak. Mission Accomplished!

Frilly Red and Black Satin Parasol Steampunk Lolita






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Brass Screw Confedacy

The Brass Screw Confederacy is Port Townsend's first steampunk event, a proper Steampunk Hootenanny if ever there was. Anyone familiar with both the city and genre will appreciate the hand-in-glove fit, a perfect match of setting, community, and eccentricity.

Visit their website!

The vendors are peddling their wares during the day on Saturday, but the weekend is filled with events from Friday night through Sunday, including a pub crawl, a reading by Neil Stephenson, and a Zombie Triathalon. I'm really looking forward to this!

The Royal Couple

That's how a passerby referred to us as she made a u-turn to come ask us if she could take our picture. Here's my favorite shot so far of us in our matching outfits:

Hats and Spats!

I started out the evening making some simple hat bands for our tophats, to go with our matching outfits. And then I tried my hand at making a pair of spats. Very happy with how they turned out, so much so that I will have to make another pair (or three or five), and describe the process. So expect a tutorial at some point!



Remember, every successful outfit is made by the accessories.



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Another new outfit

I need more excuses to wear my vintage crinolines after all, don't I? I was lying in bed this morning, because for some reason I woke up at 6am, trying to convince myself there was absolutely no reason whatsoever that I should be awake and that I needed to go back to sleep, but my brain wouldn't cooperate, and instead it went off on costuming tangents. Why shouldn't the husband and I have matching outfits? (That's how a lot of my outfits begin, actually.)

I still have oodles of the brocade from which I made my husband's tailcoat.

I treated myself to this corset as a Christmas present to myself. The stripes are a bit darker than the brocade but it was close enough, I decided.

Started cutting out the pattern before church this morning, and finished sewing the skirt at about 6pm this evening. Paired with the corset and the vintage crinoline I bought last year, and voila!





I still haven't finalized the decoration for pinning back the front of the skirt yet. I've got some trim bows pinned in place for now, but may change my mind after a trip to the store this week. Will still also be making headbands for both our tophats as well. Oh, and by the way:





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Frocking the husband

I promised the husband a tailcoat. Silly me! I had planned on using Butterick 3648, but when I went to go cut out the pattern pieces for the jacket, I realized I only had it in the XS/S/M size. The husband has a 42" chest. I'm guessing I bought the smaller size because I was thinking about doing Victorian drag at some point. The pattern is out of print, of course! I made a trip to the store, and the only tailcoat pattern I could find is a silly costume-y one for Uncle Sam, but I worked with it, added lining, and actually came out with a piece that made both of us happy.



I used a champagne colored brocade that I scored at Goodwill last month when we braved the Day after Christmas sale.



I found a rich chocolate brown lining fabric that complemented the brocade beautifully.

Of course there have to be buttons!



And chain



So another step up in my confidence level of sewing things for people other than myself has been achieved.



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It's chicken soup time again

I had described the process of making soup here, but hadn't included any pictures! I made more soup last night, and took some this time around.

How it starts out, with the whole raw chicken and veggies, making the stock:



After simmering, this is how the chicken comes out of the pot if I'm lucky:



If I get distracted and let it go too much longer, it completely falls apart, which makes fishing out the meaty bits a bit more challenging. And of course, this is Miss Nellie's favourite part of the process, as a bit or two usually falls off.



In between warming my innards with a tasty bowlful, I've been listing again! I realized I had four parasols that had never found their way into my shop, and I finished two new necklaces this week as well. Here's the first set:

Hand Embellished Ivory Battenburg Lace Steampunk Parasol Bridal



Steampunk Brass Gear necklace with Vintage Brass Chain



Red Black and Ivory Geometric Steampunk Parasol OOAK Ruffled Trim