A Labor of Labor-Day-Weekend Love
So much for barbecue and pool parties! Apparently, what I do on Labor Day weekend is design and sew. I am now officially finished with all six of the renaissance fair costumes (we’re going as the “Merry Folk of Fulshear,” in a sort of fantasy Robin Hood theme this year), and I spent Saturday turning 3 ¼ yards of fabric into three dresses and two shirts. Now I know many of you out there who sew are thinking “the heck, you say?” but let me clarify: Two adult-size-8 sundresses, one adult-male-medium shirt, one kid-small shirt, and one size 6T dress. Aaaaaaaand I will be the first to admit that the adult shirt turned out certifiably weird, because I made it last, and by that time, I had a motley assortment of scraps, and even those were not in consistent and easy-to-use shapes. I think that perhaps the only reason I pulled it off was that I didn’t use a pattern for any of the above (at least not a paper one… I basically used a marker and a clear-view ruler and drew straight onto the fabric), and that freed me up to go a little crazy with shapes. Also, almost everything wound up roll-hemmed, so I didn’t need much seam allowance. The real challenge throughout the project, in the end, was in keeping the lines on whatever bits of fabric I was using up-and-down and side-to-side (3 yards of the fabric was woven in a grid pattern), because I decided that I didn’t want any of the final pieces to look like a crazy train-wreck. All five pieces wound up looking neat and tidy, even if the adult shirt is interestingly colorful.
The only reason I am writing this post at all, and I know some of you are wondering, is that I did a load of laundry today that included the shirts and dresses, and when I hung them up to dry in my apartment, they made a pretty neat picture; so much so that I grabbed my camera and took this shot:
Drying (photo and clothing by E.G.D.)
If you are wondering, as anyone who sews should be, why I was washing the finished products when I should have washed and dried all the fabrics before using them… erm… well… I’m in a coin laundry situation, and I am saving to buy a house. And all three are non-natural fibers, so they were unlikely to shrink. And yeah, I know, I’m still lucky they didn’t turn into misshapen and color-bleeding lumps. Moving on, after I took that initial shot, I rearranged the clothes so the colors balanced better (at least in my mind), and took this shot with my camera in portrait-mode:
Still drying, but re-arranged! (photo and clothes still by E.G.D.)
And because I am still amazed I pulled this off, I gathered up the sum total of the scraps left from these fabrics and took a picture of me putting the lump on my coffee table. And yes, all the scraps fit easily into my left hand before I started to let it go:
Scraps
Finally, in my defense, my family and friends are out of town this weekend, and I am not. I am not a totally crazy, anti-social, Labor Day party pooper! I’m just not very good at not doing anything, and I recently cut back to three jobs (gasp!). Aaaaaaaanyhoo, happy Labor Day, everyone, and welcome to the unofficial start of fall! I finished a batch of summer clothing for my family just in time, right? Yyyyyyeah –E.G.D.
The Traditional Reward for a Job Well Done
Soooooo, I am having a really interesting and rewarding summer, but the summer semester will come to an end before the end of the month! It is time to get my ducks in a row for the Fall semester, and I have a veritable flock. I will be teaching two sections of Theatre Appreciation at LSC- Atascocita Center, and SanJac Central has engaged my services once again as their visiting professor of Musical Theatre and the music director for their production of Little Shop of Horrors. Also, I’m slated to be involved in LanFour Productions‘ production of Happy Hour, though I’m not clear about in what capacity. Aaaaaaaaaaand, of course, I am still performing for Mad Science of Houston on a fairly regular basis. Incidentally, I have parted ways with Starbucks/Kroger (on good terms, of course), which is a very good thing because it doesn’t make much sense to have more than four jobs in any given semester. Between the jobs and the royalties from the three books, I expect I’ll do pretty well for myself, all told. If I neglect to sleep or go out with friends, I might even get another book out on the market. I am officially living the dream! I will, of course, keep the internet world posted. Have a great rest of the summer, everyone! If you can, I highly recommend you hit the beach at least one more time before the regular school year descends. – E.G.D.
Curse!
Ooooooh yes, precious. Curse is finally out in the world after copy-editing struggles of truly epic proportions, the likes of which I shall not relate at this time, because you’ll probably all wind up vexed at me for not getting to the real point. Which is, of course, Curse! Likely the (from a technical standpoint) best book I have ever written, and certainly among the longest, Curse is now available in paperback from Woven Weird through the link in this image:
Art by Peter McCullough, cover design by E.G.D. using cover creator
It’s also on Amazon and the like, of course. I hope you all enjoy it! -E.G.D.
Costume Design Fun-Times
Well, many of you know I was at all four days of Comicpalooza! this year, and I was in costume all four days. I had a good deal of fun, helped a friend sell enough stuff for her to more than break even on her trip here from Rhode Island, and I confused a great many people because the costumes I wore the first three days were not specific to any particular comic book. My favorite of the three was a remix of last year’s Ren Fest dragonrider costume. When people asked what I was supposed to be, I replied “Prepared,” but really, I was a time traveler who wasn’t entirely sure when I’d landed. “Um… anybody seen a newspaper around here?” I thought it would be fun to share:
Costume by E.G.D., Photo by F. Travis Riley
Costume by E.G.D., Photo by F. Travis Riley
Costume by E.G.D., Photo by F. Travis Riley
Tada! I really enjoyed wearing this all day, largely because it was really quite comfortable, and the satchel had lots of space for comic-related schwag. Three cheers for pulling from costume storage (an age-old theatrical tradition). -E.G.D.
Trafficking in Magic!
As I mentioned previously, I have a poem in this anthology, and I think anyone who enjoys my dark fantasy genre work will probably love everything else in here, as well:
Enjoy! -E.G.D.
Kinlea Keeper is Back in Print!
Aaaaaaaaaand, here we go! Kinlea Keeper is back in print, and the paperback is available in a number of different places (including Amazon). My personal author sales page is linked to the cover image below. Tada! I appreciate your support ^_^- E.G.D.
Words, words, words
When all else fails, use a Hamlet quote! Moving on, though, it is very nearly May, and I am pleased to announce that Trafficking in Magic/Magicking in Traffic, in which my poem “Roadseller’s Trade” is being published, is finally being released for public consumption. In May, that is. I will be posting links as soon as they exist. In honor of this event, I am scrambling to get a couple of my novels back into print because they are in very much the same ilk as the poem, and I expect anyone who enjoys the poem will enjoy the books. Sooooo, I’m up to my eyebrows in literature-I-wrote-a-long-time-ago and the glories of last minute copy editing and formatting. It’s not that I haven’t been preparing to get these back into print, it’s that I am the sort of person who will nitpick until the picks nit and the nits pick back. So, I suppose my point is that when all is said and done, I have written millions of words in my relatively short life, and I am really looking forward to some of them winding up in the hands of people who have never met me, and I am at a point where I figure it’s time to just let go and get these books out there. Stay tuned, folks! May is on the event horizon, and so are the public releases of “Roadseller’s Trade,” Kinlea Keeper, and Curse. Wooosh! -E.G.D.
San Jac Central: Young Frankenstein the Musical
Guess what’s opening next Wednesday? The truly fabulous, awesome, wonderful production of Young Frankenstein the Musical at San Jacinto College Central in Pasadena, TX! For this one, I am the music director, and I can personally guarantee that anyone who comes to this show will have a great deal of fun. The shows are Feb. 19,20,21,and 22 at 7:30 and Feb 23 at 2:30… granted, you’ll want to be there at least a half an hour early to get your tickets and get settled. The price is $15 for general admission, and I’ve been told the proceeds go to fund student scholarships. Cool, huh? A great show and for a good cause. Come on down and be prepared to laugh out loud and leave the theatre humming some truly ridiculous and awesome tunes. Woohoo! Mel Brooks + Musical = Greater Than the Sum of It’s Parts. Trust me on this. -E.G.D.
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE!
Happy holidays, everyone! Is it just me, or have these cards gotten progressively stranger over the years? This year’s card was made with a pencil, a sharpie, a piece of computer paper, a scanner, the GIMP 2.0, and a bit of digital photo collage (with some of my own images and some images from Wikimedia Commons).
It has been a down-the-rabbit-hole sort of year for me, let me tell you! I was bit by a dead shark on stage at the Johnson Space Center (yes, NASA’s “Houston”) and had to be treated for nerve damage in my right hand (don’t worry, I got better!). I performed more than 100 times for Mad Science of Houston (once on television), I was in a dinner-theatre musical at the Houston Hobby Center (right in the heart of the theatre district), I made about a billion beverages working at Starbucks and Teavana, and just in the past couple weeks I was offered adjunct positions at both San Jacinto College Central and Lone Star College Atascocita Center. My life has been absolute chaos recently, as I scramble to finish all the crazy hiring paperwork at the two colleges, write a syllabus for Intro. to Theatre, and prepare for auditions (I am slated to be the music director for San Jacinto’s production of Young Frankenstein the Musical, and I have been asked to teach the people auditioning a selection… sort of borrowing the format of a dance audition). In completely different news, Trafficking in Magic/Magicking in Traffic, an anthology in which my poem “Roadseller’s Trade” is the very first piece the reader sees, is set to be released in May, and I am determined to get Kinlea Keeper and Curse back into print before then so that people who like the poem may wander by my website and buy the books. Also, over the past month I have slowly moved to an apartment in the middle of town, though my bed, sofa, and sewing table are all still at my sister’s house until Friday, when I’ve scheduled a U-Haul rental. Aaaaaaaaaanyhow, many, many thanks to all of you who have supported my many endeavors this year (and in past years! The application I just signed at SJC was submitted to them in the winter of 2011). I couldn’t have done it without you ^_^.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all! -E.G.D.
The Fulshear Dragon Riders’ Guild
Well, I did it again. I went crazy designing and constructing costumes for the Texas Renaissance Festival. This year, the group (my elder sister, my niece, my nephew, a friend, and myself) went as the Fulshear Dragon Riders’ Guild. Back when I started the design phase, I asked each person, “if you were a dragon rider, what would your job be?” As for me, I said I would “drive” the dragon ambulance and be, basically, a fantasy Renaissance first-responder. This is the costume I made myself:
Photos by F. Travis Riley. Costume by E.G.D.
As you can see, due to the nature of my dragon rider job, I have quite a lot of storage associated with my costume. I actually had a wooden box (that I stained by hand with tea, incidentally) that contained a full sewing kit and first aid kit, which I tucked into the burgundy pouch on my belt along with a hand-sewn wallet fashioned from the same fake-black-alligator pattern fabric as the front of my costume vest and my secondary belt pouch. The boot-daggers I embellished by hand, as I did with all the weapons for last year’s Ren Fest. This costume’s daggers are not really weapons as such, but are more intended as tools in case I need to cut a person in need free from a stirrup or some-such obstruction. The large bag was a super-last-minute addition I crafted the night before… when I realized I didn’t have any suitably sized bag for my rather large camera or for the fake-fur half-cape I made for evening outer-wear (and oh, it did get awfully chilly! I was glad I made that cape… though I just realized I didn’t take any pictures in the late evening when I was wearing it…). In any case, the end result of my excessive accessorizing was that I was ready to save the day, keep myself warm, take pictures, and stow away purchases with ease and comfort. This is among the most comfortable costumes I think I have ever made for myself.
Moving on, though, my friend Travis said that he would be a long-distance courier, because it would be an excuse to travel and an excuse to not work very hard. This is what I came up with for him:
Photos and costume by E.G.D.
I made the sash buckle by hand out of an epoxy jewelry clay and silver-finish fleur-de-lis buttons. He bought the boots from a cobbler at the actual Ren Fest, incidentally, and I think they made for a quite classy finishing touch! The chain on his wrist held his guild issued dragon riding license (a metal signet-seal monogram of the first letter of his last name. We each had one, though the other four of us wore ours as necklaces).
My nephew Liam said that he would be the dragon riding equivalent of the bookmobile. “My dragon likes to read, and we’re librarians,” he told me, so this was his costume:
As you can see, he had a sizable book bag. His vest is the boy version of the one I designed for myself, and the book bag actually contains a knee-length, hunter-green, wool-and-polyester felt cloak I made him for evening outerwear. To my mild chagrin, he didn’t wear the cloak, even when it got cold in the evening, so even if I had bothered to take pictures of us all that night, I wouldn’t have a proper picture of it 0_o. I made the straps of the book bag so that they could double in length with the adjustment of four buttons, because I assumed he’d get sick of lugging stuff around and we adults would have to carry it, but he really did carry it around for most of the day all by himself. The cape I made his sister is in the bag, too, as he kindly agreed to carry it for her.
When I asked my niece, Oona, what her dragon riding job was, she looked at me with the utmost seriousness and said, “I am very, very gentle with the baby dragons. I’m really gentle with them, and I give them treats.” I was especially excited to design a dragon rider costume for someone who works in a dragon nursery, because I never would have thought of any such thing on my own. It’s the perfect job for Oona! Here’s the costume:
photos and costume by E.G.D.
The pouch on her sash belt is expressly for the purpose of storing dragon treats!
My elder sister, Kristie, was not immediately sure what her dragon rider job would be, but from the materials we chose for her costume, she knew she was from a wealthy family. What she ultimately decided was that she was a dragon riding instructor. I, as the designer, decided that she probably did some dragon racing in her free time, and the end result was this:
photos and costume by E.G.D.
Sturdy , comfortable, stylish, and free-moving was the name of the game. The bodice is based loosely on European bodices of the middle 1600s, and the trousers are Japanese hakama. I used fancy gold-colored laces, stylish brocade, and metallic gold canvas, along with some almond-colored vinyl pleather. Tucked under her arm is my best winter cloak, which I bought at an art fair in New Mexico when I was a teenager (I didn’t make it, but it matched so perfectly, I didn’t have to!). The pouches hanging from her belt are gold velvet and almond vinyl with polished coin buttons, respectively. I hand crafted the flight goggles out of two glass flashlight lenses, mason jar lids, unused automotive parts from a gasket replacement kit I bought earlier this year, gold canvas, brass grommets, a very old nickle buckle, a shoelace, and some more of that almond vinyl. I hand-made the bracelet/ring combo on her left hand using brass chain, several connector pendants, a fashionable toggle, and my gerber multi-tool.
Here are a couple of cool action shots and a heartwarming family picture to wrap up the display:
Family swing ride (photo and costumes by E.G.D.)
Kids at the costume contest (the banner was painted by Oona, aged 4, and it reads “Fulshear Dragon Riders”)
A dragon riding instructor and her two prize pupils at a glass blower’s shop (costumes and photo by E.G.D.)
We all had a truly wonderful time running around the Texas Ren Fest this year, and in the end, I have to say that all the long hours at the sewing machine were 100% worth it. We looked great, we were comfortable, and I had loaded us all down with enough pouches, purses, satchels, and book bags that we still looked authentic once we started buying souvenirs. Really, the project paid off in fun. I can’t wait to see what we wind up going as next year! -E.G.D.
Worlds of Words 