Like I did last year , let’s check in on how I’m doing compared to my plan in January…

Now, just looking at that image, it doesn't seem good. I mean, just a couple of projects worked on and nothing finished???
​While, granted, main cosplay projects Midna, Nightingale, and Captain Marvel have been more or less untouched, I've gotten a lot done on Alice and Cersei! Not to mention the unexpectedly large amount of time I spent at conventions and other events (which is time not spent working on new costumes)!
~Alice's whole outfit was designed and made, and although the wig needs a little styling work, she's been worn to a couple of cons already. The main thing which is slowing me down now is making her prop bass, because I'm not a props person. As of this writing, the base has been sculpted and base coat of paint applied , and I hope to get back to painting and adding hardware in August.
~I got a huge chunk of work done on Cersei's lions in June but I had to take a break because it's a very tedious and very large job. As soon as I get the hoodie (see below) finished, Cersei's embroidery is moving back up to the top of my priority list though.
~Espeon, Miz Mishtal, Captain Marvel Gown, and Journey are all no change, because they were only for after the top 5 are done XD

BUT, I did complete a long list of smaller projects, many of which were owed to various friends.Clockwise from top left:
~I completed a new (casual) costume - flashback Tizzie - which I blame Needle Panic for and for which I finally started to play with Worbla's TranspART
~Weirdmageddon version of Wendy
~Makeup tests/closet cosplay of Ammy, Badb, and Luci from The Wicked and The Divine
~A kid-size Pink Knight (from Castle Crashers) winter hat for Little Stark
~ Character Lumas including Cosplay for a Cure, Hawkeye, and Luna & Artemis
~ Wooper (Pokemon gijinka) bathing suit for Hikarimoro
~Several stenciled t-shirts for friends including the two shown
​.... but that's just the stuff I finished.

Cosplays in active progress but not on my January plan:
​~I'm currently sewing away on a Blastoise hoodie for Mr Stark (which I want to finish this week). Despite only having started work on it recently, it's been on my to-do list for over 2 years.
~The WicDiv closet cosplay thing worked out so well that I'm fleshing out Ammy a little into a wearable costume
~since some jewelry and accessories from Flashback Tizzie were originally intended for "proper" Tizzie, she's on the list. I have all the fabric/supplies for the costume because my original plan was to make her for Halloween, but at this point I think that would take a minor miracle. So... she's pending.
~surprise-new-thing-oh-wow, Gwenpool, because last week I won a dye-sub suit pattern from The Symbol of Hope , so why not? It'll be something new to experiment with since I've never worked with custom printed fabric before. Depending on how the higher-priority stuff goes, I might try to put her together for Fan Expo XD

Anything else which might show up in 2016? I've got wigs to work on for Chihiro and Pepper Potts ; and a half-finished Sam Sparks costume which has been sitting in my apartment for far too long. Oh and another potential little project for fun, somewhat related to this . If you want to watch my random progress as it happens, everything is currently going to my instagram (and cross-posted to twitter and facebook ). Hope you're all having a good summer and I'll see you again at Fan Expo!

Just like in Toronto, Kitchener’s geek community has its fair share of drama, personality conflicts, and people who are simply poor representatives of fandom. However, the positive energy at Kitchener Comic Con this year totally dominated the atmosphere and made for a great event. Granted, my experience was coloured by spending most of the day working the Cosplay for a Cure booth which is always a positive experience, but still.

Because I was at the booth most of the day there’s not a lot that I can say about the event itself aside from the general commentary above. I debuted version 1 of my latest Alice in Wonderland costume, and although the other Cure girls were also in their rock princess costumes, the booth was busy enough that we didn’t get photos together. I was able to sneak away for a little bit for solo shots with Dream Land Photography . Ragz Cosplay was there in his latest Spiderman costume and standing next to him, I was mistaken for Gwen Stacey several times hahaha. Iron Girl wore her Elsa costume and was “borrowed” by the Marvelous Girls of KW throughout the day to join their (canon) princess group.

“Ain’t No Pretty Princess” Alice gallery page is now up featuring photos from my shoot at KCC.

I have some exciting news: The EX (AKA the Canadian National Exhibition ) has a pop culture exhibit this year with the theme of " Let Your Fandom Flag Fly! "... and a couple of my costumes are part of the display!!! I got to take a sneak peek at a few of the items which will be part of the display when I dropped off my costumes and it all looks so awesome! I'm really looking forward to seeing the whole thing all put together. I can't believe that my Alice and Saffron costumes will be alongside so much other fantastic work *_*

If you want to check it out, the EX runs Aug 15 - Sept 1, and the fandom exhibit is in the Direct Energy Centre (Heritage Court).

(I've added a few new photos from Costume Con to my Alice gallery to celebrate!)

As I'm now officially "on hiatus" from conventions, it's probably high time to catch up on a few con reports, huh? Let's start with Costume Con 32. Words at the top; all the photos at the bottom.

This was my first ever Costume Con, because even though what I love most about all the cons that I go to is the costuming, when they're not remotely local to me it's difficult to attend. When Kaijugal and Sarcasm-Hime announced that Toronto had won the bid to host CC32 three years ago, I had grand plans for a really impressive costume... and as things are wont to do, those plans totally collapsed in on themselves. When it came down to it, I had nothing to enter in any of the competitions and not even anything new and cool to bring out for photos. But I pulled some of my favourite costumes from my closet to wear in the halls and headed out anyways.

Elemental and I arrived Thursday night thanks to a ride from Kurumasha . I was too late to pick up my badge, but luckily there was time to make a trip to the hotel pool with Kurumasha and Calamity before totally crashing for the night.

After getting my badge on Friday morning, I spent most of the day wandering the con out of costume. Ok, not completely out of costume, but close. I needed to assist with costume assembly and also do a fitting myself during the day so there didn't seem to be a point to cosplaying until after those were taken care of. The costume construction portion was prepping Kurumasha's "Single Pattern Contest" entry, which was a very literal interpretation of "using the pattern creatively". There were supposed to be several of us assisting but unfortunately the others got stuck in traffic so it was down to just 'Sha and I taping tissue paper to her XD. In the end, I wore my Alice in Wonderland costume to the Friday Night Social, and she won an award for her "Best Literal Interpretation" LOL. The social itself was fantastic, and every detail was monster/horror themed! Our local maid and butler cafe groups did an amazing job with everything. After leaving the social to get some pizza for a late, late dinner, my friends and I spent the evening hanging out and finishing last-minute details on our costumes... or in my case experimenting with Worbla (more on that in a future blog).

Saturday started with a hilarious (and informative) workshop about drafting bunny suit patterns ("bunny suits" like playboy bunnies, not like Easter bunnies XD) run by Gillykins and Gina G. (and friends). I wouldn't count on seeing me in a bunny suit anytime soon since the corsetry parts are way beyond my experience level, but it was a good learning experience and I came home with the beginnings of another pattern for my stash. Once that was done, it was costume time: Pepper Potts so I could hang out in character with KW Iron Man and Iron Girl XD.

I attempted one more event in the afternoon, a swap meet, for which I brought 5 bags of fabric and notions and only managed to get rid of 3 small pieces. That was disappointing. It seemed that everyone who stopped by the room was looking to get rid of things and nobody wanted to take anything home. Unfortunately, that's been consistently my experience at convention cosplay swap meets, so maybe they need to be marketed differently. *shrug*

After that was watching the masquerade, and I just want to say WOW. I've never seen such a consistently strong show, both in costume quality and staging. I did not envy the judges' job. It made me both glad that I didn't have the pressure of entering, but also disappointed that I wasn't even trying. Big props to all my friends who entered and even bigger to winners Calamity, Kudrel , Melting Mirror , Vickybunnyangel , Elemental, Melanie , and Iron Girl! (other thanks go to Kia and Gord for grabbing us awesome seats)

I had hoped to go to some of the room parties Saturday night, but since my friends and I decided to stay in the main room to wait for the judges' deliberations and because the awards ran so late, I missed out (or was too tired).

On Sunday my one and only real obligation at the con had me up bright and early. OK, maybe just early. I had volunteered to model for Andrea Schewe , who is a pattern designer for Simplicity, which meant i had to have my makeup and hair done and be at the greenroom far too early, in order to get into costume for the fashion show of some of Andrea's recent designs (which was the half-time show during judges deliberations for the Future Fashio Folio). Andrea is a really lovely woman and the costumes were so exciting to get to wear - I doubled up and got to wear both Galadriel's dress from The Hobbit and one of Cersei Lannister's gowns .  As a Game of Thrones fan, I was particularly happy about that second one ~_^  I wish I could have kept Cersei... to the point of going out of my way to pick up the pattern recently even though I don't know when I would have the time to make it. Sadly, I had to return the dresses right away so I only have the photos of the Game of Thrones dress on stage, and the hall shot of Andrea and I.

After the fashion show, I had planned to wear my Goth Kim Pine costume but plans changed when I heard that Empress of Squee was going to be wearing her Cheshire Cat, because I wanted to try to get some photos with her. When I  found her, to my delight, she was hanging out with Ani-BEE 's Red Queen! how perfect??? No professional photos of the group, sadly, but I did get some awesome creepy 'out of character' pics with Eleventh Photograph . I went to the photography panels run by Elemental and Solar Tempest before getting ready for Sunday night's plans - Kurumasha's birthday party! (unfortunately this meant skipping watching the Historical Masquerade in favour of dinner and cleaning up our hotel room) The party was awesome, however, and a great way to wrap up the bulk of the weekend playing games and talking cons & costumes with new and old friends.

Monday was really chill after checking out of the hotel I wore my sloth kigu around the con, stopped in at the Game of Thrones costuming panel, registered for Costume Con 35 (which will be back in Toronto!), and generally socializing. When my friends and I did leave, we decided to continue taking advantage of having the day off by plaing board games at my place followed by a visit to the Video Ninja for our weekly Monday-night routine of watching Game of Thrones. Was a pretty good extended convention weekend overall and I loved getting to see so many of my friends again.

.... You may have caught that I mentioned Costume Con will be heald in Toronto again - we (well, more accurately the ConBravo team) won the bid for the next available location with write-in votes! So if you are at all interested in checking out a Costume Con but can't make CC33 in Charleston SC or CC34 in Madison WI (because the majority of my readers are also in Ontario), it'll be back in the GTA in 2017. Pre-registration is available now if you're ready to snag a badge really really early ^_^

And now, ont to the photos... almost entirely taken by other people. Credits labelled on each pic :)

There's just a few days left until CC32 and I am a mix of emotions about it. As I mentioned previously , I'm not making anything new which is really one of those "disappointed in myself" things. It's not really helped by seeing so many of my friends either posting progress photos or working on things in Google Hangouts - I've also been working on costumes the last couple of weeks, but not quite with the same commitment since my next deadline isn't for a while yet and I'm doing several things at once to boot.

So what have I been working on? In my last progress blog I mentioned working on bodysuits, and that's what I've been doing, although it's been a slow process. I have 3+1 bodysuits ahead, and I'm working on Midna first, though there's some simultaneous work going on for all. Unfortunately, all the suits require different patters and they all have to be hand-drafted so... I hope I'll be really good at this by the time I'm done. Progress pics of things so far below:

Also, spending face-time with friends:

and speaking of Costume Con... my cosplay plans are below. Aside from doing Alice on Friday, I don't have plans for which costume for which day. I'm not entering any of the masquerades, but I am going to be part of the Future Fashion Folio event on Sunday, modeling a couple of dresses for Andrea Schewe. I'm excited just because I get to wear the Cercei dress XD. I might not want to take it off LOL. Looking forward to sharing photos and maybe videos from the con once it's all over <3

So Anime North is long over, and my video from that is still, well..... it's coming. Eventually. As will videos from my trip to Massachusetts and The Rusty Gear.

In the mean-time, I have a few things to share. On the subject of the Rusty Gear, the Boston Phoenix did some coverage of the event which I think was pretty fair, which you can read here: http://thephoenix.com/Boston/recroom/140920-lynn-lynn-city-of-adult-swim/

Other Rusty Gear business: several people at the presentations I did asked if I would make my powerpoints available for reference; so here they are!
**Note that I had to divide the foam one into two parts due to large file size. Also note that the mask instructions will have to be in a separate post since the photos all need to be re-done.

More locally, I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in a research project examining cosplay by Ryerson student Ashley Lotecki earlier this year. My work, in the form of Alice's blue dress, was even showcased as part of her presentation, which I think is really exciting. If you are interested in reading her thesis paper, it is available online here: http://digitalcommons.ryerson.ca/dissertations/806/