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Costumes, Cards and Steampunk Adventures! Tuesday, Oct 17 2023

Hello faithful readers, and new friends!

I last checked in with you as summer was just beginning to rear her shaggy head, and I have to tell you… it has not slowed down one bit!

For those first seeing this blog, I began Repleating History over a decade ago as a way of keeping myself accountable for documenting my process as I designed clothing, costumes and cosplays. I’ve been making all of those things for nearly three decades, and have won a good many costume contests (and judged a few), organized and participated in fashion shows (including Fashion Week here in Milwaukee), been an actor at the Bristol Renaissance Faire for a few summers, been an active member in the tri-state area Steampunk community for over a decade, and two years ago I wrote a book on costuming– mainly focused on my Steampunk-Victorian designs. I also have a degree in English and Fine Arts, and a master’s degree in Education, which informs a lot of my creations…

I believe in continually challenging myself and learning, and I wrote my first book in the hopes of encouraging others to do the same, and to hopefully make parts of costuming easier and more entertaining, while using gorgeous images to illustrate the chapters. When possible I fund new projects on my own, but once or twice a year I’ll run a crowdfunded project to help cover initial printing costs for a variety of items I’ve designed; a card-matching game to improve memory, a deck of cards featuring original sketches and vintage/obscure fashion terms & definitions, and a steampunk murder mystery game (for 2024)!

I kicked off the summer with a Kickstarter for a deck of fashion-focused (my brand of edu-tainment) playing cards that I designed, utilizing a ton of never-before-seen images from various photoshoots, and commissioning 36 original sketches from a madly talented artist in Madison, WI!

Well those cards have just recently arrived, and they turned out great!

The summer closed after a mad slew of conventions and vending opportunities in which I slung my goods. (I also finished a super-fun crossover of Starbuck and Bo-Katan, and made Katee Sackoff grin when I dramatically opened the curtains at the photo-op)

I also took time over the last two months for more original creations, to design new banners for my business, to do some much-needed housecleaning in my life in general, to finish one of two photoshoots, and to ramp up plans for the new book! (more on that soon!)

All three banners are new, and work for booths of different sizes and setups!
Also, yes, I work out 💪

And NOW…. I’m busily gearing up (haha, see what I did there?) for TeslaCon, the largest and longest-running immersive Steampunk convention in the US! If you find your way over to Madison during the first weekend of December, you will find much to entertain you!

For one, I’ll be launching the Kickstarter for my SECOND book, “The Halloween Collection: Costume and Cosplay Techniques”!! (click!)

What will be at my TeslaCon table?

My book “The Victorian Collection: Advanced Costuming Techniques”
A bookmark set all about women fashion designers in the Victorian era!
My fun and fashionable greeting cards
Fashion-focused Card Games
Fun corset and fashion-themed stickers and pins
AND an activity booklet featuring the article I wrote on steampunk costuming, as well as art contributions by a few artists….

….what artists, you ask? Well, the aforementioned artist who created the sketches for my playing cards, Katie French!

ALSO contributing will be the international Steampunk author and fashion icon, Bonsart Bokel!

Bonsart created the podcast Radio Retrofuture, and has published a number of stories, comics and coloring books set in his compelling “Association of Ishtar” steampunk-with-a-Lovecraftian-twist universe!

… and probably a dozen more things I don’t even know about- to say this man is immersed in the Steampunk community is a huge understatement. In fact, his newest project, a new Association of Ishtar story, is due to kick off with a launch party on October 22, HERE.

If you’re a steampunk fan, it’s definitely worth checking out! Bonsart has had me as a guest on his podcast a few times, and I always enjoy talking with him about writing, games, conventions and of course… steampunk!

The TeslaCon season will also bring more fun blog posts coming up… outtakes from the photoshoots for the new book, a new ballgown I’m making for the Saturday night ball, and lots of costuming posts related to the book as I go along!

Keep an eye on “Repleating History” as we head into the colder months….

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Creativity in the Time of Corona Thursday, Oct 1 2020

It feels as though it would be oddly appropriate, given the title, to leave this post blank.

…and there’s your preview to what many people have been struggling with the last several months. Social lives have been stunted and we are at home more than ever. Even if we’re working, we may find we have more free time on our hands than usual.

With the exception of many health care workers, of course.

So what do we plan to do with all that time?
We’re going to really dig into cooking for ourselves! Catch up on that foreign language we abandoned on Duolingo! We’re going to work out- a lot! And we’re going to finally do all those fun, creative projects we never seem to have time for!

Hooray!

And then…. nothing. The owl blinks, and sends *another* reminder.

The weights sit. The projects remain on the list. And we wonder what is happening- where is that time going?

Now, this post is *not* meant to be a downer, but I don’t know how it’ll hit you. Just know that the intention (TL;DR) here is to say, try to be kind to yourself, okay?

At the beginning of the pandemic, as a teacher with summer break coming up, I imagined I would have time to complete the most epic of all costume builds… that my creations would be limited only by my resources (teacher salary). And for the first couple months I was making masks to outfit friends and family with, and to donate. And then commercial production caught up with both paper and fabric masks, and the urgency abated.

But the pandemic continued…. and my projects continued to sit, as projects are wont to do when untouched and alone.

Somewhat recently, I was able to plan a trip to a sizeable fabric store… by appointment, daytime, mid-week, masked up. And I made a list of the cosplays I would be shopping for. And I was excited! Here’s a pic of my haul:

Now, a few weeks later, in the midst of online learning with 50 kids who probably aren’t doing any better than the rest of us are, I am wondering if this pile of fabric will serve as inspiration or additional guilt- I have now spent more money on projects that are sitting.

At the moment, it’s in the guilt category, but I am hopeful…
Hopeful that I will stop doom-scrolling, turn off wonderfully distracting games, and convince myself of the value of creating costumes for events that may not happen. Because I love the process, not just the end result, and we have to embrace all the things-and people- we love right now.

There is additional, constant, underlying stress for everyone with the uncertainty and changes in the world, and the U.S. in particular. After several months, we can feel like we *should* be getting used to it, adapting and improving… but instead, it seems to be layering on over itself. We miss our lives from “before”, yet every interaction can feel like an obligation. There are contradictions in how we feel, and what we want, and whether we can even trust ourselves to know what that *is* at this moment in time.
It’s not just you, it IS harder right now.
So, keep plugging away, do your best to take care of you & yours, and try to express your creative side if it feels like that’s part of taking care of yourself.

*Hopefully*, I’ll be adding another post soon.

XOXO