Steampunk Empire Symposium

Greetings all -
I return from the Steampunk Empire Symposium VICTORIOUS!!! Not only did I manage to create three amazing costumes from thrifted and re-purposed materials, but one of my outfits won Best Concept in the Symposium Fashion Show!!  (all photos credited to the amazingly talented Mikki Schaffner!)

Here's the award winning outfit (OK, I won a sticker and a mustache on a stick, but STILL - I Won!)

Yes, that's the same skirt from my New Year's Outfit, and the belt pouch is the same too.  Time and resources allowed me to add a great faux leather corset, and a ruffle bustle made from the same bed sheet that gave me the skirt ruffle, plus some extra fabric I had that dyed to an almost perfectly matching purple. (the shirt was a thrift store find)

You can also see the goggles my husband made for our NYE adventure - I finally got straps on them, though I ended up just pinning them in my hair.
This was my Saturday outfit ;-)

Friday night, I wore the tweed suit and green corset that I wore to Steampunk Weekend at the KY Renfaire last summer, but I had remade the corset to fix some issues the first version had, and added a hoop skirt to help with the weight of the bottom ruffles (those things are HEAVY!)

Did I mention that I put this on in the parking lot?
Yes, for some reason I thought I would be able to lace myself into a corset, and put on a hoop skirt in my car with no one the wiser.  I was somewhat successful and since the jacket covered the back, no one knew that I'd missed four grommets on the back. The hoop ended up being put on actually IN the parking lot, since there just wasn't enough room in the car. 

Saturday Night was the Masquerade Ball
I remade an old corset - took it apart, replaced the boning and added decent grommets and added sleeves and a bustle and apron made from fabric I found in the costume shop. It's from a rather infamous and horrible show in our past in which the costumes were literally SEWN ON TO PEOPLE AS THEY WERE GOING ON STAGE.  My boss was thrilled to get rid of it, since she couldn't use it without people referencing said horrible show.

Adjust one found skirt and Voila - instant ballgown:

For Sunday, I wore the outfit I'm probably most proud of:

That beautiful green corset started life as a horrible 90's suit. My shirt was actually one of my husband's old dress shirts while the lace is all scrounged from the costume shop (jabots are great for using those scraps that can't work for anything else) Skirt and apron material were thrifted and found respectively.

I had enough leftover material from the suit to use the fabric in this fun bustle and turn the scraps into a hat.

I'm already thinking and planning what to do for the KY Renfaire's steampunk weekend... we'll see what I come up with!