Steampunk Symposium Part II: Costumes, Crafts, Booklust, and more!

Here we go, round two of the Con Report!

Costumes
I am horrible at taking photos, especially of my own costumes. I didn't even remember to take out my camera for most of the weekend.

Once we arrived at the hotel, it didn't take long for me to realized that I'd left two key costumes pieces behind. The first was the bodice I normally wear with my seamstress costume. It's a more casual/lower class character, so my fancy corsets are a bit too much for her. Without the bodice, I had to modify things. The result was okay, but I wasn't happy with it. My top half wound up looking more like a tavern wench than a seamstress.

Missouri wore this outfit on the right the first day. She designed the top, and I made it for her. I'm so pleased with the way it came out, and she got a lot of compliments on it. Doesn't she look great? (You can see how thrilled she was with me taking her photo, but I think it's excellent.)

Saturday I wore my Victorian walking dress (left). This is the costume that I spent most of last week working on, but I think the results are FABULOUS. I got so many compliments, and this was the first year were multiple people asked to take my picture. I love this costume. I did discover that it needs a little tweaking in the back when I'm wearing my corset, and I'll be adding a bustle to it eventually, but I'm still very pleased with how it came out.

My Sunday costume is an old standard. Pardon the washroom photography:

I tweak this outfit a little bit every year, adding more and more too it. This year I changed blouses, going with a peasant look instead of my usual button down. I also added the hat and the chain on the corset--darn useful, that. It's not really visible, but that chain has my pocket watch hanging from it, and there's a clip for my fan. I'm going to add other bits and bobs to it, too.

Missouri's Saturday outfit was just stunning--academic in inspiration, it was a purple and cream plaid over a bright green blouse. I didn't think it would work, but  they were perfect together. The blouse was store-bought, but the waistcoat and skirt were made by moi, again based on her design. We make a good team! In the photo on the left, I had to do some creative pinning, since the manikin was still set to my measurements, but it looked wonderful on her.

Missouri's Sunday costume was tried and true--a button down tunic dress over a skirt, tied with a modified obi that I made last year. No pictures since Sunday was a bit of rush with checking out and the two hour drive, but I'll see if I can rustle up something to share.


The Swag
Our budget was tight this year. Most of my money wound up spent on food. Most of my souveniers are even consumable.

War Pony Forge candies ended up being a place we came back to twice. They have great homemade candy in a variety of unusual flavors like Early Grey, lavender, and coriander pear. We walked away with blackberry, coconut, cinnamon, an lime flavored chocolate (and white chocolate, in the case of the last, and I don't even like white chocolate. It's that good).

I picked up a pair of white gloves for my costumes, and chipped in for a gift for a friend who couldn't attend the convention. My last purchase was a mother's day present.


I also bought an herbal tea. Gents, you won't be much interested in this and might want to skip to the next section. Ladies, this is a tea that is supposed to help with cramps and some of the symptoms Mother Nature likes to dump on us. I haven't tried it yet, but I will be soon. If it works, I'll let you know.  ;)

There were so many books that I wanted to get! Steampunk Symposium is a bit of an author's mecca. Two that I will probably download on my Nook soon are Darker Still and The Tales of the Airship Neverland, which is a dark, Steamy retelling of the Peter Pan story. I almost bought a couple of other books, too. I've got a whole list that needs downloading!

The Crafts

You didn't expect me to sit through all of those panels with nothing to do, now did you?

At first, I was carrying my sock in my purse. I'm just finishing the gusset on these, about to start the heel. After a week of hard work,, though, my wrists were pretty fatigued. Saturday night I switched to embroidery.

You'll never guess what I found in a box of craft stuff when I went downstairs to retreive some costume pieces.
 Remember this one? It's been sitting in storage for almost a year, but I got quite a bit of work done on it Saturday and Sunday. It's still sitting by my bed, getting a few more stitches every day. I'll have to make a Joann's run this weekend, since I used up the last of the color I had for the right hand gear.

Alas, those are all of the pictures I have to share. We had a fabulous time despite the little kinks; it will be interesting to see where the convention is held next year. We're already plotting costumes and panels, so it should be fun!