Halloween Musings...

Well, really one musing. When in doubt, grab a $2 kit of facepaint from HEB, a rose hair clip, a black corset, and make yourself into a Day of the Dead skeleton! Easy as pie, but slightly scarier.

Pirate Night!

One of the highlights of my year is undoubtedly Pirate Night, the annual day in which a bunch of (mostly) adults get dressed up as pirates aboard a gigantic schooner, consume rum, play music and occasionally shout obscenities at the passing ferries. And, of course, if you're a slightly obsessive-compulsive costumer like certain people we know, Pirate Night is something to be designed. And planned. And sewn. Here are some photos from past years.

Masquerades Past

Here are a few shots of costumes made for past Portland Masquerades!

Romeo Jacket: Finished Product!

Here it is! Aside from a few hiccups with the quilting and with the (expletive) cuff hem coming undone, like, five times, this jacket came together really smoothly and I must say I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It's fully lined, with accents on the wrists and elbows, with contrast fabric on the ribs and the upper arms. I added a little shoulder panel (based on a flash of inspiration from Maximus's Gladiator armor). It zips up and has an eyelet section hidden on the chest so that Peter can choose to lace it up for shows. When not being used the ties are threaded through loops along the zipper and knotted at the bottom to keep them in place.

The only thing left is seeing whether or not it fits! And, of course whether or not he likes it. Fingers crossed.

Theater Costumes

I learned to sew by apprenticing as a costume designer in our high school theater department. Blissfully, our director leaned more toward "provoking the Central Texan establishment" than "put on Oklahoma!", which meant a lot of fun experimentation for the creative teams behind the scenes. After apprenticing for the first few years, I became head of the department for the last two, during which time we put on A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1930's Romeo and Juliet, 1984 and Woyzeck.