B&S #37: McCall's February Cosplay Patterns: Ribbon Candy & Victor
I hope everyone’s year is going great, and that if you do cosplay, you’ve expanded your wardrobe! I’ve got a quick request before we get to this month’s Cosplay By McCall’s patterns. If you’ve made cosplay out of any of the patterns I’ve reviewed, feel free to share them below!
Bodacious
This month, McCall’s offers a sensuous ballerina pixie costume and a coat fit for royalty, nobility, and champions.
Ribbon Candy
This cosplay bundles sexy, cute, and classy. Ribbon Candy is a fun pixie cosplay that would fit right in to a performance of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from The Nutcracker. This is the debut Cosplay By McCall’s pattern from costume designer Becka Noel. The pattern includes top, detached sleeves, sash, and skirt. You’ll find useful tips on handling horsehair braids and removing wrinkles from velvet, so even as you’re sewing this intermediate level pattern, you’ll learn new skills.
Here’s an idea for giving this a steampunk edge and backstory. In the Victorian and Edwardian eras, many people believed in the supernatural, including fairies. What if, in a steampunk world, fairies examined and adopted the technology themselves? Add, you guessed it, goggles, gadgets here and there, and era-appropriate model guns and weapons. Alternately, you could use leggings and body paint to turn yourself into a dancing automaton.
Ribbon Candy sells for $16.95.
Victor
Men and women of virtue, or vice, your coat pattern has arrived. Victor is a lined coat perfect for many medieval cosplays. Of course, with a little imagination, including choice of material, it could work in a plethora of eras, from a black assassin’s cloak to something out of Star Wars. In a steampunk universe, I see this as the official garb worn by members of some secret society. Goggles, a brass mask with tubes, or the right boots could give this that Victorian-punk flair.
Victor is also rated intermediate. It sells for $14.95.
Again, if you create a cosplay from these or any Cosplay By McCall’s patterns, feel free to share pictures below!
Sundry
Here’s the section where I ramble on about what I’m doing as an author. Not interested? Feel free to skim.
Taxes
Knowing that I need a new computer to adequately create The Wild Steampunk Podcast and other videos for you all, I filed my taxes early. How early? Before the end of January. Congress decided this year to pursue the tiny bit of money the government loses to tax fraud by those in lower income brackets (screw the middle class and poor, in other words), by delaying tax returns to those who claim the child tax credit and earned income tax credit. Yes, I’m in that group. So while others who filed early have already received their tax money, it looks like mine won’t come until next week.
This is frustrating! I’m eager to get my first new computer in four and a half years so I can start making videos again. However, I know it will be here soon. The point of this rant? Just this. I’ll have new videos coming out likely starting sometime next week! I’ll let everyone know when I do that. I plan to do at least two videos per week and two blog posts.
Are you waiting for your tax return? What do you plan to do with it? Feel free to comment.
Giveaway Winner
Since the last blog post, I’ve spoken with the winner of my book giveaway, and she said she’d like me to mention her name. So, shout-out to Danielle Philpott of Tasmania, Australia, for winning a limited edition hardcover of my upcoming novel Bodacious Creed: a Steampunk Zombie Western and trade paperback editions of my fantasy novels, Children of Rhatlan and Tamshi’s Imp! I’ve already mailed off the fantasy novels, which she should receive soon, and will send Bodacious Creed as soon as I’ve finished editing and publishing it. I expect that to be in the next couple of months.
I do plan on giveaways on the future! The best way to learn about them is by subscribing below. You’ll also get some free stories!
Bodacious Creed Editing Update
When I edited Bodacious Creed last time (the second draft), I did minimal editing on the first twenty chapters or so, then started editing more heavily. Because of that, it’s taken a while to get through the first 20 chapters, for the third draft. It just really needed rewriting. However, I’m now in Chapter 21. Starting around that chapter, I’ve already greatly improved the writing, so this phase is going faster. I expect to have the book done and published in the next two months. I also hope to attend the LA Times Festival of Books as a vendor, and I have a feeling the book will do well there.
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