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my Hallowe'en
Being an exhaustive dissertation on costume construction, the sadly cynical and suspicious nature of Canberrans, and the joy of safety-pins.
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ryokophoenix and I are both suckers for dressing up, and we have a fair amount of experience with construction (especially of the night-before variety) from various cosplay adventures. I arrived to find Mel already hard at work on the wings for her fairy costume - all I had to finish was my mask.
My costume, or most of it. I didn't end up wearing the pouch, but it's a good shot of the Bedsheet Sleeves O'Doom and the edging I did on the mask.
Mel hard at work on her wings, which were wire bent into shape and with blue chiffon first machine- and then hand-sewed around it. Neither of us are particularly good at the hand-sewing thing. I managed to sew a pin INSIDE the wing at one stage. We then painted silver around the edges and dipped them in silver glitter.
Essentials - glitter, paint, chocolate...
The process was hampered by Mel's cat Wicket, who was absolutely fascinated by the mess we were making on the floor and managed to spill glitter, paw at thread, leap onto the wings and generally make a destructive nuisance of himself. Nevertheless, we toiled into the night, sustained by diverse entertainments...
You see why the chocolate was necessary. Anyway. I printed off various quotations on the importance of enjoying life and stuck them to my cards...
...such! And then somehow it was 4am so we went to sleep for four hours, and then got up to do finishing touches.
Me, dressed, cutting carnations and putting them into Mel's basket. There was a folded tray of aluminium foil in the base filled with damp cotton wool, to keep them alive longer.
Me again. My camera did something highly suss with the perspective so I looked like a crazy midget, so I cropped the picture.
- I bought a plain black mask and 4 metres of thin navy blue/gold twisted cord, and used craft glue to stick it around the edges. The rest of the cord I used to tie my sleeves into shape, once just above the elbows and once at the wrists.
- The shirt was a piratical affair from an op shop costing about $4, and for $4 more I bought a huge white bedcover and Mel chopped the gathered edges off and sewed them to the sleeves of the shirt for insta-lace-cuffs.
- Black dance warmup pants tucked into plain black kneehigh boots.
- One length of blue opal-shot chiffon for the sash, one of magenta for the cravat.
- The waistcoat was perfect and cost all of $1 from the op shop.
- Beret was mine already - about the only thing that would cover my hair.
Mel from the front.
- The dress was from our year 12 formal last year, and this was a perfect excuse to rewear it.
- The belt is actually her brother's kilt belt, but it looks nicely Celtic and was needed to hang her pouch of glitter/moon-shaped wishing stones off
- The mask was just plain white, and I painted some silver edging to make it a little fancier.
- The basket had a little sign hanging off it wishing everyone a Happy Hallowe'en
- Bells. Lots of bells. We couldn't sneak up on anyone because she went ker-jinglejinglejingle all the time :D
Mel from the back! A better shot of the wings, including the shiny material and fake flowers stuck in the middle. And the 30-second headpiece
Aaaaand another of Mel, because all of her photos turned out beautifully, especially compared to my crap ones.
So! We drove to Civic and prayed that a) we wouldn't get pulled over and b) the rain would STOP. Both wishes were granted.
From here I'll direct you to Mel's post, because she covered it quite well. Hallowe'en is all but nonexistent here; people didn't trust us and really didn't understand why we'd be dressed up (someone asked if it was for the Melbourne Cup, which is today, and a MUCH bigger thing in the Australian psyche); that was disheartening, but we got stared at like whoa. People thought that anything we were giving out was probably pushing some kind of agenda, or would cost them money. There was absolutely NO way we'd have gotten away with giving out lollies. Thing is, Civic is always full of people trying to sell you things or ideas - in a grand triumph of the spirit, we engaged both some strange political people wearing party hats and a group of people wearing 'make poverty history' shirts in conversation, gave them flowers and cards and ran away again. Hah. Pity the huge Scientology tent was gone, might have been fun to screw with their heads a bit.
Worth mentioning is the fact that Mel's wings had to be pinned and repinned and ribbons retied AGAINANDAGAIN and we didn't actually HAVE any pins to begin with, so we had to march into Lincraft and cheerfully buy some. I also had to buy bandaids later in the day for Mel's toe, and we gave the pharmacy ladies flowers and waltzed away again. The highlight of the day was giving carnations to the choir and telling them how much we enjoyed the performance. They loved it.
I saw: a girl from my old dance studio, a girl from my old high school, a girl from choir and MY AUNT. And I gave them all the same beaming smile as the rest of the general public and didn't get more than the same stunned/bemused stare that most people gave back. So. Hurrah for anonymity.
So much more fun than studying. I'm kind of paying for it now, but...no regrets :D
ETA: (because Australians can't really help the whole Melbourne Cup thing, no matter how indifferent we are to sports and animals generally) Makybe Diva won for the third year in a row! That makes Cup history. And it's the first year I haven't been part of the family minisweep and had her name on one of my slips.
ryokophoenix and I are both suckers for dressing up, and we have a fair amount of experience with construction (especially of the night-before variety) from various cosplay adventures. I arrived to find Mel already hard at work on the wings for her fairy costume - all I had to finish was my mask. My costume, or most of it. I didn't end up wearing the pouch, but it's a good shot of the Bedsheet Sleeves O'Doom and the edging I did on the mask.
Mel hard at work on her wings, which were wire bent into shape and with blue chiffon first machine- and then hand-sewed around it. Neither of us are particularly good at the hand-sewing thing. I managed to sew a pin INSIDE the wing at one stage. We then painted silver around the edges and dipped them in silver glitter.
Essentials - glitter, paint, chocolate...
The process was hampered by Mel's cat Wicket, who was absolutely fascinated by the mess we were making on the floor and managed to spill glitter, paw at thread, leap onto the wings and generally make a destructive nuisance of himself. Nevertheless, we toiled into the night, sustained by diverse entertainments...
You see why the chocolate was necessary. Anyway. I printed off various quotations on the importance of enjoying life and stuck them to my cards...
...such! And then somehow it was 4am so we went to sleep for four hours, and then got up to do finishing touches.
Me, dressed, cutting carnations and putting them into Mel's basket. There was a folded tray of aluminium foil in the base filled with damp cotton wool, to keep them alive longer.
Me again. My camera did something highly suss with the perspective so I looked like a crazy midget, so I cropped the picture.
- I bought a plain black mask and 4 metres of thin navy blue/gold twisted cord, and used craft glue to stick it around the edges. The rest of the cord I used to tie my sleeves into shape, once just above the elbows and once at the wrists.
- The shirt was a piratical affair from an op shop costing about $4, and for $4 more I bought a huge white bedcover and Mel chopped the gathered edges off and sewed them to the sleeves of the shirt for insta-lace-cuffs.
- Black dance warmup pants tucked into plain black kneehigh boots.
- One length of blue opal-shot chiffon for the sash, one of magenta for the cravat.
- The waistcoat was perfect and cost all of $1 from the op shop.
- Beret was mine already - about the only thing that would cover my hair.
Mel from the front.
- The dress was from our year 12 formal last year, and this was a perfect excuse to rewear it.
- The belt is actually her brother's kilt belt, but it looks nicely Celtic and was needed to hang her pouch of glitter/moon-shaped wishing stones off
- The mask was just plain white, and I painted some silver edging to make it a little fancier.
- The basket had a little sign hanging off it wishing everyone a Happy Hallowe'en
- Bells. Lots of bells. We couldn't sneak up on anyone because she went ker-jinglejinglejingle all the time :D
Mel from the back! A better shot of the wings, including the shiny material and fake flowers stuck in the middle. And the 30-second headpiece
Aaaaand another of Mel, because all of her photos turned out beautifully, especially compared to my crap ones.
So! We drove to Civic and prayed that a) we wouldn't get pulled over and b) the rain would STOP. Both wishes were granted.
From here I'll direct you to Mel's post, because she covered it quite well. Hallowe'en is all but nonexistent here; people didn't trust us and really didn't understand why we'd be dressed up (someone asked if it was for the Melbourne Cup, which is today, and a MUCH bigger thing in the Australian psyche); that was disheartening, but we got stared at like whoa. People thought that anything we were giving out was probably pushing some kind of agenda, or would cost them money. There was absolutely NO way we'd have gotten away with giving out lollies. Thing is, Civic is always full of people trying to sell you things or ideas - in a grand triumph of the spirit, we engaged both some strange political people wearing party hats and a group of people wearing 'make poverty history' shirts in conversation, gave them flowers and cards and ran away again. Hah. Pity the huge Scientology tent was gone, might have been fun to screw with their heads a bit.
Worth mentioning is the fact that Mel's wings had to be pinned and repinned and ribbons retied AGAINANDAGAIN and we didn't actually HAVE any pins to begin with, so we had to march into Lincraft and cheerfully buy some. I also had to buy bandaids later in the day for Mel's toe, and we gave the pharmacy ladies flowers and waltzed away again. The highlight of the day was giving carnations to the choir and telling them how much we enjoyed the performance. They loved it.
I saw: a girl from my old dance studio, a girl from my old high school, a girl from choir and MY AUNT. And I gave them all the same beaming smile as the rest of the general public and didn't get more than the same stunned/bemused stare that most people gave back. So. Hurrah for anonymity.
So much more fun than studying. I'm kind of paying for it now, but...no regrets :D
ETA: (because Australians can't really help the whole Melbourne Cup thing, no matter how indifferent we are to sports and animals generally) Makybe Diva won for the third year in a row! That makes Cup history. And it's the first year I haven't been part of the family minisweep and had her name on one of my slips.