Posts Tagged ‘costume’

I took my notebook along to PirateCon; I was originally going to take the laptop and liveblog it, but I decided that wasn’t very piratey.

I knew from perusing the website that there were some really intense people involved in PyrateCon, but…oh, I just had no idea.

Notes from “The Devil’s in the Details:”

(9AM, Friday)

-I am the only person not in full on pirate garb. I thought that surely there would be some sort of more modest pirate day wear. Accordingly, I’m wearing black jeans and a lacey blouse that’s only semi-pirate-ish, but the most pirate-y thing I own.

-Seminar largely about how to sew your own pirate clothes in the most authentic ways possible

-Lively discussion about what should go on the inside of jacket sleeves so as to allow free movement of arms for slashing, wenching, etc.

-Speaker has convinced a friend of hers to knit her a pair of period stockings: “It’s not going well.”

-”It’s all about the bits:” you can get away with having an improper waist coat if you have a lot of fun details. Weaponry of all types, grog tankards, purses all good items.

-I am sitting toward the back and am being snubbed, clearly an outsider. When the speaker’s “perfectly weighted ax” was passed along, they didn’t give it to me.

-No metal grommets, dammit!

-Also, no silk shirts. Impractical in a wet environment.

-She made her own buttons.

-Everything also should be hand sewn- a machine is a copout. If it’s an inside seam that won’t show, okay…if you absolutely have to. She doesn’t, of course, but if you have to…

-There were no left and rights in shoes??

-There’s a very serious guy who’s spending what sounds like thousands of dollars to look like “an average pirate.” None of this fancy captain stuff. An argument ensues about how/which threads would rot at sea. Wants to use rivets, which are very un-period, even if they look cool. Wax covered linen thread is what would be appropriate.

When the seminar was over, I returned to the office, and started reworking some things for my return with Charlie later in the day. It was abundantly clear that there was nothing I have in stock, costume-wise, was going to cut it. When you make your own freaking buttons, a mass produced polyester dress just isn’t going to work.

Charlie’s a Halloween Baby, which is a fantastic excuse to have a big blowout, which we’ve turned into an annual deal. Since Halloween falls in the middle of the stupid week this year, we had the party early.

Last year I kept the camera close at hand, this time I carried it for about 3 minutes, took a few shots and went and hang out instead. It turned out to be a good plan!

But here’s the birthday boy- the theme was Edgar Allen Poe, and he was a dashing Prospero, the noble who throws the party in the “Masque of the Red Death.”

(more pics in the Gallery)

We had to have it on Friday since we were going to see Charlie’s son-in-law play Voodoo Music Fest on Saturday (Writeup here. Summary: phenomenal).

Voodoo ran Friday-Saturday-Sunday and Alison went for the first time…we had her parent/teacher conference on Friday morning and her adviser asked if she was going. I sighed and told her it was a big “parental trust fall,” which she thought hysterical.

“Hmmm, let’s see. You want me to leave you with my ATM card in a sea of high school/college kids amongst all the beer tents, daiquiri shops & pot smoke and not ask any questions? Yeah, let me give that one some thought.”

So we compromised. She went and I grilled her like some redfish on the coals. It worked out well!

Now I think I’ll sleep straight through until Wednesday when we start building the Kaboom playground.