Costume College! Part 1

I am finally unpacked (though not everything is back in its place just yet), and I'm feeling somewhat recovered, so it's time for a recap! I am sooo glad that I was able to make it to Coco this year, even though there was a lot of stress involved. Even though I had over a year to save and plan, my savings kept getting obliterated because of one big thing going wrong or another. First the family trip to Germany ate what savings I had, and then the day before we flew, my car's ball joint just decided to give up on life and I had a spectacular breakdown, coupled with an equally atrocious repair bill. So, I went to CoCo with less than $100 in my pocket. I've traveled with less before, but it definitely meant that I missed out on some fun things like dinners out and Garment District shopping. Blah.

Anyway, the whole saga started on Tuesday evening. I needed to stop at Joann's to pick up some more lace after work, and as I was turning into the street the store is on, CLONK. And suddenly my car wouldn't move. I called my Dad, who came to my rescue, and we called the wrecker. And we waited. And waited. AND WAITED. After two hours of waiting, we finally decided that I would take his car back to the house and he would stay with my car until the wrecker came, which turned out not to be until one o'clock in the morning. And Dad has this weird sense of loyalty, so he refused to call a different wrecker company to come and get the car, so he just sat there and waited for seven hours. I'm so glad I didn't stay there, because I wouldn't have been able to finish the few sewing projects I had left before we flew out. As it was, I was sewing and hot gluing things until 2:30AM. I managed one hour of sleep before I had to get back up and get to the airport for our early morning flight.

I was completely exhausted by the time we landed at LAX. Our ride from the airport had flaked out on us, and the hotel shuttle wanted a whopping $230 to get us to and from the hotel, so we ended up calling an Uber. Once we settled in, we explored the mall across the street and had lunch at Maggiano's. There was a little convenience store across the street from the mall, where I picked up a box of cereal, some pop tarts, and some protein bars so I'd have some food in the room, and in my bag so I could eat between classes.

Thursday was pretty laid back. Other people were arriving, and by the early afternoon Josie, who was in charge of the Cavalcade of Costumes exhibit, was starting to set up the exhibit room, so my roommates and I headed down to see if we could help out. My roomies headed back up after a little while since they still had a ton of sewing to do, but I stayed for at least four hours helping to set up. It was actually really enjoyable, and I liked having something to do. I'd worked so hard to have all my sewing finished that there wasn't really anything to do in the room, and after all the insane amounts of sewing I'd been doing before leaving, being idle felt terrible. So, I worked with Josie until about 6, before dressing my own mannequin with the Charlotte dress.


Afterward, I went upstairs and dressed for the Pool Party. I'm glad to say that the Egyptian was a big hit! People seemed to really love the outfit. I was a bit bummed to have missed the Frock Flicks broadcast, though, it sounded like it was a blast.

Friday was my busiest day of classes. Freshman orientation was first thing in the morning, and it was very entertaining. I took Jennifer Rosbourgh's class on sleeve fitting, which was really informative. There was a lot of information about where a sleeve should be fitted, where you can expand it, the anatomy of a sleeve, etc. I can't wait to put the things from that class into action on my next Victorian project! Someday, I shall vanquish the sleevils. Afterward, I took Kendra's class on self-publishing, which also had a lot of great information, especially about finding printers.

The afternoon was mostly free, and I caught up with some of the other LJers and we hung out on the patio for a while. It was great to just relax, chat with people, and have a bit of free lounging time.

The entire group headed inside to Ginger's self-fabric trimming class, which was packed. It was a lot of fun, and there were so many great dresses in the slideshow! The whole crew moved down to the next classroom for Jenny-Rose's class on creating the perfect curl to end the day with before everyone dispursed to go change into their outfits for the Social.

I didn't have anything new to wear for the Friday night social, so I just stayed in my JCP Regency dress for the event. I was so surprised how many compliments I received on the dress over the course of the weekend! I had so many people tell me that they loved the fabric! And the night of the social, I complimented one girl on the fabric of her 18th Century gown, and she told me it was an Ikea duvet cover, and I told her my dress was bedsheets and we were all DUDE, HIGH FIVE! and we dorked out over our crazy fabrics. It was so goofy and wonderful.

BTW, I can't remember who told me this, but apparently 18th century prints are huge in Sweden, so Ikea actually consults with museums when it creates the prints for duvets and bedsheets! So, chances are that if it's at Ikea and looks 18th century, it probably is!

I was a bad photographer and didn't manage many pictures over the weekend, but I did snap a few during the social.

So much pink!

Part 2 coming soon!