White Queen and Adventures in Matching Plaid

On Friday, my friend had an Alice in Wonderland Dress Up "tea" (aka booze) party. I had just gotten back from Maui (that's right, you're jealous) and I thought I was going to have no time to throw together a costume, but felt inspired at the last minute. So, I went out and bought a white slip and a ton of lace and made the following costume:

I can't believe how well it turned out considering how last minute it was. (See the real White Queen here) The only serious downside was that the wonderful tan I picked up on vacation really didn't help the costume. In fact, I think that with the blonde wig it made me look more like a drag queen than anything. Also, white is not my colour.

I also had to throw together a costume for my boyfriend at the last minute. I was inspired by this post I found through the Craft Magazine blog while at work, and so I "Recycled" a couple of filing folders into a Dormouse mask. It took 15 minutes to make!

He looked so adorable with it on, too.

I also have had some time to work on my wool coat, and I love how it's turning out. I bought all the fabric they had left on the roll, and boy am I glad there was 0.6 meters more than I needed. Plaid that big is a BITCH to match. I double checked the match before I cut anything out. A good thing too, because I caught some mistakes. I also had to re-do so many seams because the plaid was just a little too much off.

I learned something while cutting out the fabric. I have a new rotary cutter and self-healing mat (so nice!) that I was using to cut out the pattern, and I learned the hard way that rotary cutters do not work well on pattern paper! It does not cut with a soft background like fabric, it TEARS! Cut out the pieces to fit you before placing them on the fabric!!

Sadly, I finally cut into my lovely leather coat to make the collar. I like how it matches, but I think I need to add some stitching to make it sit right. I also had to go and buy new buttons to match with the leather, since the original ones didn't quite look right.

With a little luck, the coat should be finished in the next day or two. Now, I'm thinking I will have to make a matching wool-and-leather purse with the leftover fabric.