Venture Receptionist Triana

I used a pattern for the dress, but I had to alter it because I wanted a stripe down the middle of the dress and I wanted short sleeves instead of long (with a stripe on the bottom.)

The biggest hassle with this was the collar. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth over unfinished ickiness sticking up visibly behind the collar. I finally did it in reverse of how the pattern said to do it, which was much better. But it still had some unfinished edges that I ended up having to pin under at the con. Part of the final problem was definitely my incompetence. I sewed it too far up on the bottom of the yoke and probably not far enough down on the top. And the other part was just that the way the pattern was designed was super annoying.

I also made one of the sleeves too small. Basically, I suck at sleeves.



It took me several tries to figure out the logo. I tried fabric paint and I tried attaching fabric to interfacing and then cutting it with an Xacto knife. That did not work AT ALL. And finally my friend said, just iron it on. At which point I introduced my head to my desk because duh. (Also, when you're printing out your iron ons, remember that you have to reverse the image. Because I did not remember that until after I'd printed a couple sheets out.)



The logo came out really well, but there was a problem with the ironing on because that lighter blue fabric was a hideous polyester suiting and I set the iron really hot to make sure the logo transferred, but that actually MELTED THE FABRIC since polyester is basically plastic. It left some little white marks and things on the fabric, but they weren't TOO noticeable. Sewing that fabric was a huge pain in the ass too because it kept getting snagged. I would be sewing along and all of a sudden the needle would catch and it would snag and I swear it was not because I'm incompetent, it was the FABRIC.

To make the little hat, I cut out a piece of interfacing. I thought I bought the fusible, but it wasn’t (argh!). But it was the super thick kind, so once I realized it wasn't fusible, I just made a little covering for it out of the blue fabric. Like a toilet paper cozy for your head. I sewed 4 bobby pins to the back of it to keep it in place.

The hands free phone part is the microphone that came with the toy guitar I bought for Stormer. Seriously, if you're a costumer or a crafty person never throw anything away. You might think it was the wrong fabric or the wrong wig or the wrong paint, but it's actually a future costume. Anyway, I painted the accents on that aqua. I couldn't find aqua spraypaint, so I had to use acrylics which was scraping off if I looked at it too hard so I coated it with nailpolish to try to set it. It lasted okay, but there was still a little bit of scuffing.

2008 Wishlist

I... Am not very good at keeping up with this blog. Clearly. But! It's con season, and I'm sewing things. So it seems like a good time to share with all you strangers on the Internet. To start us off, here's my costume wishlist for this year.



Lady Au Pair from The Venture Bros. This one is done. I wore it to New York Comiccon this year. I'll put the after pics in a separate post. Obviously I have this thing where I do a lot of Venture Bros. costumes, and I hadn't done a Dr. Girlfriend costume so I wanted to capture the Venture ladies trifecta. But Dr. Girlfriend gets done a lot, and I always figure why do something recognizable when you can do something entirely obscure instead? And honestly, really, I just wanted to make a murderous moppet doll.



Pete White from The Venture Bros. I never see anyone do Pete, and I think I could pull it off. He's fairly feminine so it's not like that time I tried to do Aragorn. I've got parts of it bought, and I'm working on the coat right now. The only thing I'm worried about is the part where he's an albino. I'm white enough to pull it off I think, but my eyebrows are very dark so that may require some experimenting. And I have no intention of buying pink colored contacts if they're going to cost me upwards of $80. But I suppose I can always rely on good old camera flash caused red eye to do the job for me.



Venture Industries Receptionist Triana from The Venture Bros. I already have a regular flavor Triana costume, and we've discussed my penchant for obscure costumes people are less likely to recognize. So of course I am drawn to alterna-Triana variants. But what really tipped it for me is that I already own shoes in the right color. I have so many pairs of shoes I've bought for costuming that I rarely wear. (Seriously, does ANYONE need THREE pairs of purple ankle boots in their real life?) So being able to use shoes I already own is a huge bonus.



Astrobase Go Speedsuit from The Venture Bros. So easy, and yet so awesome. I was shocked (shocked I tell you!) that I didn't see anyone do this at Dragoncon since I basically started shopping speedsuits as soon as I saw the season 2 DVDs. (What. Is that weird?) There are actual vendors that call them speedsuits by the way. I always thought that was something the boys just made up, but no, it's a thing! A real thing!



Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's. Mainly I just think this would be fairly easy. Heh. But classic. And I'd like to see more classic movie costuming generally. I'd kind of like to do a whole bunch of classic movie costumes at DCon one year. Like a theme. A very obscure and unpopular theme. (I could do Katharine Hepburn's pool wrap from The Philadelphia Story! You know the one that looks like a ballgown, but it's just the super fancy robe she wears to cover her swimsuit?) This seems like a relatively easy and recognizable way to start.



Joannie Stubbs or Alma Garrett from Deadwood. This is an early casualty. I bought a bunch of patterns, because I don't feel comfortable with attempting too many adaptations to a pattern for something this complex. But I've procrastinated too long to do something this labor intensive this year.

But next year! Obviously, if I pull this off I get to be Queen of Everything because this is hardcore. This is also way, way beyond my limited sewing ability and experience. The likelihood that it's going to be an expensive, frustrating, time-consuming failure is very high. But at the same time... How goddamn awesome would it be to make something like that? From scratch even! I really want to try. (And I really, really want to wear a top hat with a scarf tied around it. SO BADLY.) If nothing else, I can present to you my string of inevitable failures.



Squirrel Girl from Marvel Comics. By request. This was a friend's idea. I don't usually do costumes that aren't from things I care about so intensely my love must overflow into costume form. But the idea's been growing on me. I feel like I can pretty easily (*cough* it's never as easy as it seems like it'll be in my head *cough*) handle everything but the tail. And I've never seen anyone wear this costume personally. I think it'd be one of those where not everyone gets it, but the people who do get it are ridiculously happy to see the character done. I love to do those kinds of costumes. So I'm considering it.