CoCo Part 1 - Thursday!

I'm back from CoCo and trying to settle back in normalcy (it's not working). I took less pictures than ever this year, and my phone was taking very grainy/blurry pictures, too, so please bear with me.

As usualy, though, I had soooo much fun! Why is this only once a year?! I flew in early Thurs morning, arriving to Burbank at about 11:30. I was picked up by another lovely costumer, and we headed out to the Huntington. I had never been before, so I was excited to see everything. Unfortunately, it was so hot and humid outside that I wound up skipping almost all of the gardens. (I made it partway through the rose garden before I overheated). But I loved the European gallery, and I took lots of pictures of the beautiful portraits. The library was also very cool. I've never seen so many old books before!. After the Huntington, we headed back to the hotel, only to find that their system was down. Luckily, there were lots of friends to hang out and chat with while waiting, so it wasn't that bad, and I still found enough time to get upstairs and curl my hair before check-in.

Costume #1: The 1831 bathing suit!
I absolutely loved how this turned out. I felt just as ridiculous as the fashion plate, and it was really quite comfy, too! We wound up having quite a nice group for our bathing suit gathering, and took some pictures after the Frock Flicks podcast. I pretty much skipped the Pool Party entirely - I literally walked through it from one end to the other and back, before heading up to celebrate fairegoddess's birthday.

CoCo Part 2 - Friday

Friday, I woke up bright and early, donned my Miss Pettigrew outfit, and headed to my hard-bottomed reticule class. It was a great class, and I finished my reticule! I also attended nuranar's class about self-trimming, which was so useful and informative, and jennylafleur's class on curling hair (apparently, I'm doing everything wrong, but my hair certainly does seem to hold a curl!).


Thanks to starlightmasque for taking the only pictures of me in this outfit!

After classes, I headed upstairs to re-curl my hair for the Not-ice-cream Social. Yep. I curled my hair four times within 48 hours. I wore my archery dress, which is still either my fav or 2nd fav costume I've ever made. :) My phone camera was being especially troublesome on Friday night, but I did manage to get a few blurry pics in:


Does anyone know who this is? I loved her 30's.              Kaila                                              Abby


                americanduches                                             jenthompson and Alyxx


Selfies with big hats are hard, right, vanessa_lynne?


Then of course, it was the Pink Princess party, but I only made it to 10:30 before turning in for the night. 

CoCo Part 3 - Saturday!

I had been looking forward to ashamanja_babu's dance class on Saturday morning since she first started talking about it, and it did not disappoint! I purposely wore Little Red on Saturday, hoping that it would be my coolest one for dancing. And although it probably was, I was still sooo overheated! Also, my calves are still sore, and it is now four days later. Although this makes me feel like a wimp, it certainly doesn't make me regret taking the class! My favorite dance was the last one we did - not only was it fun to begin with, but our little dance group was hilarious. jubilima in particular made me double over with laughter, when we got to a point where she just sort of scurried away with a terrified look on her face.

Of course, by the time I'd cooled down and cleaned up after class, the portrait studio was closed, so I'll have to make do with the faux studio pics for this costume. I did like how it turned out, but this is probably one of the least flattering things I've made in quite some time. And although everyone guessed at Little Red, no one knew I was from the Into the Woods movie.




The only other class I had on Saturday was the Regency chemisette class. I feel like mine is a little rough, and I also ran out of lace, so I haven't (yet) put any on the shoulders. I am intending to wear mine on the outside of a navy blue swiss dot long-sleeve regency I will be making sometime in the next couple months. I didn't finish in class, but I did finish on the bus this morning! It has three layers of lace ruffles at the neck, and is made out of a striped cotton batiste. When I find a similar lace, I will likely finish the shoulders, but the only fine lace in my stash is ivory, so that will happen sometime later. I haven't tried it on yet, but here's a picture taken this morning at my desk!


And then it was time for the gala! A group of about 10 of us bypassed the disaster that was the red carpet this year, went to the portrait studio, and made our customary jaunt over to Maggianos through the mall. I'm surprised there was even anyone left to eat at the gala! There had to be at least 50 costumers at Maggianos, if not more. We got back to the gala with about 10 mins to spare before they opened the doors, and then wandered around the room awkwardly for a while, taking pictures of people on the edges. Once the music started up I headed out to the hall to socialize in quieter climes. Everyone looked so wonderful! Again, crappy camera, but here's a few:


fairegoddess, sakon76, hharris, her husband, Samantha, Amanda, Sarah, Emily, DodiRose, and I comprised our dinner group.


Katherine and I rocked the 1830s!                             jubilima's absolutely beautiful beatle-wing gown


ashamanja_babu and the_aristocat looking fabulous as always. And I don't know this gentleman, but he looked wonderful!
 

CoCo Part 4 - Sunday/Monday!

Sunday started very early for me. Unfortunately, getting up at 6am was not early enough to eat breakfast before the Bargain Bazaar, especially after one showers, dresses in one's bustle undergarments, and does one's hair. That said, I still got downstairs by about 7:20ish, and got a pretty decent place in line. Once they let us in, I high-tailed it to the "large pattern" sections, scooped up a whole bunch of them, and then went and grabbed several different lengths of vintage laces. I also picked up 7yds of what might be a wool-blend, and 3-4 yds of a lovely plaid that I'm hoping will be enough for an 1890s walking skirt (my next project). I also got a mini-Hedwig in a cage, not pictured. Definitely a good haul this year.


I dropped everything off upstairs, got dressed the rest of the way, and we headed down for a quick breakfast before class. I took nuranar's class on stroked gathers, which was very helpful, and they look beautiful, but I don't know if I'll have the patience to ever do them! The next class was my own! I co-taught a class on costuming on a budget. I think it went over very well, and I had people come up to me later saying the class was very helpful, so that's good! I think next year I might teach a workshop on making 1830s hairpieces. I also took a class on Costuming Business and the Hobby Loss rule, which was very eye-opening, and definitely alerted me that I need to be waaay more business-like -- maybe it will get me to change my receipt cubby to something that is actually organized, and to enter purchases in some sort of record-keeping platform, instead of just going back and writing them down once a year during tax season. Whoops. I finished up the day back in Ginger's class, learning how to scale up patterns with adobe reader. Now if only I could get my scanner to work!

For Sunday, I wore my brand new green and ivory bustle gown. I am soooo pleased with this gown that I'm going to do a whole separate post on it. Look for that in a little bit!

Sunday night, fairegoddess and I may have gone a little crazy, planning for our upcoming group project - Children's Victorian clothing. There was lots of math involved. We may or may not have bitten off more trim than we can chew! Please join us in our project -- it will most likely be a daytime meetup, since children's outfits are relatively mobile, and therefore, good for class. We have a facebook group you can join here, which also has links to a couple pinterest pages for inspiration.

Monday
I took the tour bus down to the fabric district after checking out of the hotel on Monday morning. It was a very disappointing trip this year. I was only looking for three things - pink silk taffeta, white silk taffeta, and navy swiss dot. I found the white silk taffeta, and also purchased some narrow twill tape, a ton of skirt hooks, and a roll of pattern paper. From downtown, I took a shuttle to LAX, and caught my plane home. I did upgrade myself to first class, though, which was very nice. I mean, $50 for two checked bags, or $53.75 for first class? Don't mind if I do!

The green and ivory bustle gown

I am so pleased with how this turned out. I don't think I've ever felt more like a fashion plate! It's definitely not perfect - the bodice has a bunch of wrinkles, and four of the seams inside the bodice are not actually finished. But it makes me feel so grand and elegant. And for once, I think I got the hair right! Now I need to plan more events that are okay for wearing trains.

Speaking of which, I originally wasn't going to try it on before I packed it. Thank goodness I did. Not only did I wind up taking the bust in about 2" more, but I was also originally going to wear this only with a very large bum pad. The skirt is so heavy, though, that when I put it on, it looked like I had nothing there at all! So I actually wound up wearing it with my giant bum pad over my lobster-tail bustle, and I still managed to have a little train! I really like the silhouette it gives, and I think I'm going to have to try it out with my other bustle gowns as well.

The original inspiration:



And mine, in dark green: