Steampunk Progress . . .

My sister came to visit this weekend! Yay! I went to the Mission at San Juan Capistrano with her and my brother-in-law, and a lovely time was had by all. But, when I wasn't visiting with them, I was working on my Halloween costume.

I've had to scale back my Halloween plans this year due to budgetary comstraints; most of what I have has either been purchased very cheaply or is repurposed from things I already have. But, it's still going to be fabulous. The bodice above is the new steampunk bodice for the ensemble, draped for the most part, though it is loosely based on a Truly Victorian pattern. It's underbust, but I'm not a big fan of how I look in underbust corsets (hi, Dolly Parton!) so I designed this to be worn over a regular corset. The bodice is boned, but is not designed to draw you in at all. You can't quite see the collar due to the fabulousness of the blouse (can you believe I bought that a few years ago at Forever 21?), but the collar is actually pretty cool: dark green silk velvet, fanning out and standing up with sass. The front will close with hidden hooks and eyes, and those brown leather straps and buckles. There's no real reason to have the detachable straps with buckles, they just look cool;)

I'm going with a brown bowler; I feel like the top hat or tri-corn is done to death in this genre, and I wanted to do something a little different. The motorcycle goggles need to be spiffed up, but I probably won't get to that before next week. My favorite pats of the costume you can't see yet: I'm going to be wearing leather bracers covered in wires and gears and little doo-hickies, and I made a leather holster for the giant bronze flare gun I just happen to have in my possession. It already looks totally steampunk, but I will eventually trick this out too.

Add to all this the skirts from the Money Dress, and I'm ready to take over the nearest airship. I just hope I can get it all done by next Monday;)