Looking Less Like A Theater Goer And More Like The Cast?

I've started trying to design clothes instead of just throw myself into them lately, and decide what kind of thing I want to wear with the help of Pinterest. I've come up against a hitch.

It seems like many amateur seamstresses, who's blogs I read for far to long each day, have an aversion to hand made clothes that look 'home made', 'home-ecy' or like some kind of costume, but I don't seem to have the same problem.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to wear poorly made or poorly fitting clothes, but looking a bit like I've just come from a street carnival doesn't set off the alarm bells that maybe it should.

The people I hang out with probably contributed to this. I've talked about my goal to make a cosplay costume, now even more important for going to video gaming conventions with my boyfriend, I've talked about going to goth festivals with my family, and I regularly go to parties where the dress below would be greeted with joy, complements, but not one weird look.

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I love ridiculous embellishments, frills, useless buttons and stylish embroidery and I went through a phase when I was a teen where I wore pink feather fake eyelashes and borrowed the glue from them to stick plastic gems to my face. I see feathers and gold and silly hats and I start thinking about how I could make one for myself.

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Maybe I have a not so deeply buried dream of being a costume designer. Maybe I just want to be an art instillation. Do you think it would be possible for a woman to make a bit of cash posing for pictures in ridiculous dresses like drag queens or people who impersonate superheros and celebrities?

Maybe I should have been born a drag queen. I'd have come out bright pink feathers and all.

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I've mostly decided just to live with my nutty side. Any friends I want to keep won't treat me any worse for it, it brings me incredible joy to dress up and hey, even if I get made fun of on the street I can just take a taxi.

Hawthorn Sewalong

I am officially jumping on the bandwagon. It's so fun and happy up here, though, so can you blame me?

I've never taken part in a sew along before so I'm looking forward to talking to people about the pattern I'm using RIGHT NOW and taking part in an event.

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This dress looks like it'll work with my body and sewing skills but the sample ones that the amazing women at Collette Patterns aren't quite my thing. I'll need to do mine a bit different if I'm ever going to wear it and I have some ideas.

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In my humongous stash I've got a basic red poly-cotton that would look awesome as a shirt dress but that would still be a bit plain. How about some stamps? I've got a big square stamp chockablock with cogs that I've been just dying to use. I liked the idea but wouldn't it look a bit homemade (and not in the good way)?

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The answer! Foil that you apply to fabric by putting down glue, letting it dry and then pressing the sheet onto it. It's beautiful and washable, perfect for the lazy launderer, and I can't wait to try it out. The cogs will all be in gold but I'm definitely going to use some of the other ones for different projects.

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Have any of you ever tried putting foils on fabric? More importantly, did it work?