Alice in Avalon

Whew, it's been busy, but I'm being as productive as I can be! I'm a little dazed that Anime LA is only a few months away! "Technically" I've started, but I'm not where I want to be. Obviously with the holidays coming up, I'm going to be doing my very best to keep my eyes on the goal! On top of that, I start school again this upcoming week! It's kind of weird starting when my friends studying are on break for the Thanksgiving week here. I'm here just hoping I can brave through the holiday sales and crazy store hours, but we can get through this!

Happy Summer! It's been such a crazy summer, and while I don't intend to get too carried away with this post, I wanted to share some pretty fun updates that have been going on. Over the summer, I competed at Anime Expo for the World Cosplay Summit USA finals! It was such a crazy experience and while we didn't get the title, just being close in this race was more than enough for me and Shii this round. I definitely have plans to try again since it's still a brightly burning dream to do it, but I will admit how much work it went into to get this rolling in such a short amount of time! Needless to say, it really tuckered me out. While I've been organizing my plans for the year, I haven't really done much sewing since AX given how much of a boot camp-like experience it was, but I sincerely don't regret. We had such an amazing wealth of friends, fellow cosplayers, family, and people in our community who showed nothing but love and support for us. Most impor...

Two Posts in One Month!? I must be going soft. Today culminated towards the end-ish of my hunt for fabrics for my upcoming Utena cosplay, which I probably should start sewing as I speak but the allure of resting from my first day back from class and a hectic work schedule by catching up on other projects and grasping onto the little break time that I have before tomorrow is too strong. Truthfully though, I'll be starting up over the week, likely even tomorrow since I managed to get those epaulet pieces today. So last few entries, I went over my first Utena cosplay, which I completed in January, and it's only fitting now to kickstart my progress on with my new Utena, which is based off of the classic manga version: Like over 9000 years in the making. My fabric haul for Utena is probably one of my favorites since the colors are so striking. As always, my go-to place for a number of projects has been Gilack Fabrics in downtown Los Angeles in the Fabric District. They a...

Hello! It's been some time since I've made a proper post, but admittedly I've been writing them but losing my track of time before I get the chance to submit them. I've been working on trying to be active on social media, and I'm honestly stunned and in awe of the people who can manage to balance both out. I can barely reply to an email on my phone. Since I'm knee-deep in for AX, I haven't had much of a time to discuss any of my ALA or Fanime cosplay progress, so I thought it would be a great way to retrospect on some new sewing techniques and share in general what I've been working on. Let's start with the easiest. I freely admit that I have a love-hate relationship with One Piece. It was one of my middle school go-to anime when I was just getting into the scene and my guy friends had their subscriptions to Shounen Sunday. My best friend at the time also was a die-hard Sanji fan. Come to think of it, several of my friends throughout middle sch...

Australian movies, here I come! Or rather, many movies in general. Things have been winding down since coming back from PMX! It's crazy to see that I'm finally working on my way to update and get things rolling. I think that in many ways, it was an eye-opening experience for me. I don't really need to begin with the same old story that work, school, and life had been so overwhelmingly busy that although I have been productive with cosplaying, I really haven't sat down to reflect upon how much I work at things. The benefit to that is really living without the necessity to blog, to simply live and keep on going forward, but another beauty of life is also looking back at posts and absorbing those good spirits and remembering all of the great things you can accomplish, even against all odds. PMX for me this year was probably one of the hardest conventions to get enough time to get things done for how I wanted them to be. For starters, I had great plans with my frien...

Today is a happy day! And brings a week of creativity (and a lot of work!) I got a job offer with better hours for school! Recently that had been taking a toll on me. My summertime was mostly working, which is great, but the school year brings a lot of demands. I got a job opportunity to have work while going to school, and it's closer to my interests in gaming. I'm definitely excited! Hopefully this will bring a realm of stability I have lacked a little over the year. Like I mentioned before, I am blessed to be able to fit a lot of my interests in with my priorities, and it's a constant evolution. It is difficult due to my school hours to factor in a really heavy workload, so I hope that it will allow me to be able to care for my health too! I celebrated a year of progress on my back, and I want to keep on going! I'm currently in progress to start my PMX cosplays just before I transition out of my old workplace. Most of my sewing will start this week, and I...

Oh goodness, I'm not gone! My online chronicling has been rather terrible lately, even on my main website. It's been a whirlwind of a year, and yes, cosplay has been involved, but it's been so crazy...but I intend to keep updating! I'm trying really hard to get my momentum going. So here's a recap of what's been going on: Bahaha the Slayers Return! Whenever life gets a little hectic, I recollect the memory of being about four or five years old and watching Pocahontas, particularly in the scene where Powhatan tells her to choose the smoothest and steadiest course. And of course, the ever-bamf Pocahontas realizes that the river isn't steady at all. It's a wild and crazy ride, with a few tranquil spots along the way, but it eventually leads to a whole new opportunity. Sometimes, it still might even have the same decisions to be made, only the experience adds a fresh perspective to it. And that...is my excuse for my delays in writing about...

Happy November! I can honestly say I remember very little about what happened in October...it all feels like an odd blur of homiegoshness. I haven't had a proper chance to post a decent, Happy Halloween! although I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween. I'll add pictures of progress work, I promise! But this year I completed Hermione and it was fun being her! I worked on the costume till the last minute before I headed off to my good friend's house, which was absolutely fun. All the friends were around and we were goofing off and playing Project Runway (psssst Michael Kors digs my designs. xD). But unfortunately what I do remember of October was I actually got Carpal Tunnel Syndrome on both my left and right hands, which are now in wrist braces. Over the past couple weeks, I've been really working hard on my homework, juggling work and then trying to sew and get other items done. Unfortunately my consistent lack of sleep and lack of breaks have probablymade t...

Well, I survived my midterm. I stayed up till about 7am finishing everything up, but it was overall a pretty smooth experience. I had one strong cup of coffee and pretty much worked through my sleepiness. So I went to purchase items firstly for my Hermione costume. I bought fabric for the skirt and the robes. I initially wanted to make the robes with the lovely black lining on the inside like the first two film designs, but the red just called out to me. Tomorrow I'll likely get to the robe, and I'll have to purchase a frog and then my Gryffindor patch should be arriving on Monday. Also my sweater should be arriving tomorrow! Whee! If I finish Hermione tomorrow, I'll likely move on to working on some patterns for Yuki's dress. After some thinking, I realized that I have been wavering so much about whether to cosplay and go to PMX or not because of all of the craziness outside of my cosplay life. It's productive no doubt, but it does burn you out. I think tho...