Miss Tess

Busy working on stuff for my show, check out what I’ve been up to!

Click on the photo to see it up close! Here’s the descriptions of the garments left to right:

Circus Ballerina Dress: This is from my personal collection. Old prom dress reconstructed to be awesome. I added panties w/snaps on the crotch after a disastrous evening at a club…I had tights, a bathing suit, and underpants on and it was very difficult to go to the bathroom! John washed this so it’s a little wrinkled, since it’s dry clean only

Hello Nurse Crinoline: I love crinolines, and love to wear them on their own! This can be worn as a skirt, the appliqué makes is saucy and the pocket makes it practical, or wear it underneath something!

Bunny Mutant Dress: Andy is a mutant alien bunny. His parents landed on earth and set up their burrow near a nuclear waste treatment facility. He had only 1 eye and 2 noses, but he’s happy and doesn’t mind.

Big Bow Dress: This is from my personal collection. I received this dress from a costume donation thing at burning man last year. I couldn’t exactly go selling it, that wouldn’t be cool! It was super stained and super unflattering. I gave it a big sparkley bow, a big pink bow on the waist, and pink rick rack on the bottom!

I heart Alice Crinoline: This reconstructed cutie reminds me of Alice in Wonderland! Wear it was a crinoline or a skirt, the hearts are pockets!!

Leopard Star: A reconstructed slip with black, green and white stars and leopard print ruffly trim!

I am a little bit nervous, it’s getting closer and closer to the show! I need to do so much and I’m beginning to feel a bit lightheaded thinking about it! And it doesn’t help that editing photos sucks up a ridiculous amount of time! Then I feel as if I have to TELL EVERYONE and show them since I put so much time into it…and here we are, at 1 am with a totally dirty house in need to cleaning since someone is coming over tomorrow, and 100 items to sew in 9 days. AHHHHHHH

Anyway, before I have a nervous breakdown thinking about it…here’s more pics!!

And the grande finale, my favorite! My circus ballerina dress! Made for D6 in boston, and promptly broken in by pouring my disgusting drink on it. Watermelon vodko+tang+a handful of limes. Yes, a handful. I don’t know what was going through my head. Oh yeah, i know what it was. “OMG there are so many lime! I want a handful!”

I’m working on stuff for my first craft fair with Miss Tess Costume, Crafty Bastards in DC!. Check it out, glitzy appliqued party dresses, some klown stuff, and an alien mutant monster bunny dress!!

I’m busily working on products/design ideas for my new costuming site (hopefully up by mid June for Crafty Bastards). I love tutu’s quite a bit, and would love to offer various custom tutu options. My friend Alisa wanted to do a photoshoot, so of course I thought “what a great opportunity to make another tutu”. So I did. I’m very pleased with how it came out, and I have more materials to make a primary colored rainbow one

Even my dog likes it.

By the way, I got word today that my grant proposal for Firefly was approved. My submission was “DIY Costumefest 2008, holla” AKA “Sparkle Rainbow Pony Princess Fun Time Tutu Party”. The representative called me today and said, “We loved the idea of a bunch of adults running around in the forest in Tutus.” I like the idea, too, so I’m happy to throw countless hours into this to facilitate as many people in tutu’s as possible! If you are in the New England area, consider coming up! Firefly is awesome, full or fun people, small (500 peeps, so smallish) and it’s BEAUTIFUL in the woods! And you can make a tutu. Which is rad I have to say I’m amazed I got the grant. I wrote it after staying up for nearly 4 days strait, running around ROFLcon like a lunatic, sewing some more, dancing all night, then trying to rest before flying home. Let’s just say I was a basket case. I re-read the proposal today and it’s something else grammatically. No wonder they asked me to clarify a few things. . . xo!

I’m diverging a bit from my normal posting of a funny thing from the internet to post a funny costume that I made. Hey, I did find this picture on the internet so I guess it does fall into my “interesting things I found on the internet” parameters.

Behold, le DJ Space Love Monkey:

Hilarious.  This was for a party in Boston called “Debauchery”, and this was the 6th year.  It was held at my friend’s house, and I know the guest list was something like 300. No clue at how many showed up.  It seemed like everyone loved Jeremy’s costumes, and lots of folks I didn’t know came up and talked to me about. Right now my head is swollen from all the compliments, I guess it’s time to go to school and screw up an assignment or something

I love working with this group of friends, especially Jeremy.  He is really willing to go for anything, gets his idea to me fast, and will like it so long as it fits and is awesome.  I think it’s going to be a hit at burning man as well. Wahoo! Success!