Convention Time Again

This time, I'm heading out for the Authors After Dark convention with a few of my fellow Beyond the Veil friends. In fact, Carolan Ivey, Dana Marie Bell, JC Wilder and I are hosting a "Dark & Dangerous Wine & Cheese" during the convention where we'll be giving away a Nook eReader. If you plan to attend the AAD con, please make sure to come to our event!

If you can't come to the con, never fear, we'll catch you up on the goings on in our next blog posts, I'm sure. The convention grew out of another blog I have been part of for a number of years. I don't have much to do with the planning of the con anymore, but I still like to go and show my support. This year, I'm sponsoring the Steampunk Ball (even though I haven't been published in the Steampunk genre yet) and was forced to get a costume because I'm on the "Steam Court."

Those of you who know me may understand that I HATE costumes at this point in my life. Once upon a time, I was really into it. I worked at a Renaissance Faire and all summer I was a mercenary wench (one of the only female fighters the men let into the mercenary guild!) and dressed and talked the part while on the Faire grounds. It was a lot of fun and I loved dressing up. Now... older and fatter, I really HATE dressing up.

But because I'm on the court, I HAVE TO wear a costume. I agonized over this for months and bought and discarded a few different outfits. Finally, I think I have arrived at a solution and if it works out, I will try to post a pic. First, I'm going to be wearing a wig! I've never worn a wig in my life, but I thought if I was supposed to be Victorian, I needed ringlets and I'm just not that good a hairdresser. LOL. So I bought a wig that has ringlets and a giant hat that will sit on top that I've dressed up with ostrich plumes, netting and the requisite Steampunk goggles. (Mine are actually Harry Potter Quidich goggles, but I don't think anyone will notice. LOL)

The hat matches the costume, which is actually a commercially made lady pirate costume that I've altered with a netting bustle and an added long skirt and boots. I think it'll work. (I HOPE it'll work!) I'll let you all know how it works out after the con, which is next week. Carolan may update you sooner (since my turn to blog probably won't roll around again for a while).

In the meantime, please go out and get your copy of DEAD ALERT, my newest (and last in the series) zombie action/adventure book. Funnily enough, if you look right now, the previous book in the series, A DARKER SHADE OF DEAD, seems to have taken a place on the Kindle SF Best Seller List. Wow! I'm really happy about that and hope all of you will check out the books. The complete series is:

1. SIMON SAYS novella in the HALF PAST DEAD anthology
2. ONCE BITTEN, TWICE DEAD
3. A DARKER SHADE OF DEAD
4. SMOKE ON THE WATER novella in THE BEAST WITHIN anthology (which will be released in mass market paperback next month! It's already available in trade paperback and ebook.)
5. DEAD ALERT

Wish me luck with my costume and happy reading!

B.
Bianca D'Arc
Come over to The D'Arc Side... www.biancadarc.com

13 Rejected Holiday Outfits

What comes to mind when I say holiday traditions? Eggnog, carols, exchanging gifts, watching for snow? Families have as many winter holiday traditions as there are snowflakes, and most of them are anticipated year-round. Most of them are remembered with great pleasure for years.

Some of them--not so much.

In my life, a new and rather horrifying holiday tradition has taken shape: finding an appropriate grown up party outfit. Not the party I have with my writer friends--they love me no matter what I wear, which is a good thing, because I show up in some weird duds. No, this would be the hubby's office party, where I have to dress to impress my husband's coworkers and boss, and I can't spend a lot of money doing it. (The party budget gets invested in my hair.) Since I've been in and out of maternity clothes and up and down the numerical scale these past ten years, I haven't had any go-to outfits I could rely on. No classic little black dress. No magic pants and sweater. One year I even skipped the holiday party because the thought of shopping just made me too cross.

But this year, I'm happy to say this torturous new holiday tradition morphed into something less miserable when I found I was no longer alone. My younger sister, whose involvement in the field of environmental education didn't exactly require designer duds, has several parties on her schedule that require fancy dress, or at least dress that's fancier than jeans and hippy shirts. They're her fiance's parties, and so she's in the same uncomfortable shopping boat I've been in alone for ten years.

We just finished a marathon session in my extensive vintage collection, trying to find attractive yet unique outfits for her various party needs. Since my sister never reads this blog, I thought I might share some of the rejected items she will not be wearing to be glamorous at her holiday parties in 2009:

1) The dress that someone probably wore to a funeral in 1965. (I have no proof of this. It's just a feeling.)

2) The pink shiny mini with the ripped out armpit. (I told her I could fix it before her party, but the fact it barely covered her underpants was a bit of a deterrant.)

3) The black go go boots that were a size too small. (I thought you were supposed to be miserable when you look that good?)

4) The polka dotted 1950's taffeta party dress that was made of awesome. Too big of awesome. (My sewing skills do not extend far enough to remedy bigness, though they could probably ruin awesomeness.)

5) The crispy cotton dress that wouldn't have looked out of place on a cub scout den mother. (A wise choice, as her fiance sort of resembles a cub scout.)

6) The grey wool cape circa 1973. (Even though I told her it would probably be COLD and she only has a rugged barn coat for winterwear.)

7) The black tank top that did not match the black shrug at all. (That was just her excuse. It looked great, but she worried about being cold, and it really didn't match the shrug. It *did* match the cape, a fact she didn't appreciate me bringing back up. She wouldn't be caught dead in that cape. But do you think she might wear it to a funeral? Because that dress in #1 fit her pretty good.)

8) The muppet shirt. (Don't ask. And shut up--I *like* it.)

9) Anything with a turtleneck. (She has a bit of an obsession with freedom of the neck area.)

10) The black and red kimono missing all its snaps. (What, the matching gold safety pins weren't good enough for her?)

11) Striped knee socks. (Actually, she already had these on, and I made her take them off. They really soured her opinion of some of the garments. Honestly, I think if she'd taken them off before she tried on the cape, it would have been a winner.)

12) A jaunty neckerchief. (See: turtleneck. Also see: Dude, I'm not Rizzo, I'm not wearing a neckerchief.)

13) The green and gold lounge dress from the 70's I can't even believe I got her to try on just by pointing out it was mostly a Christmasy color (green) and would match the gold shoes she didn't hate. (But she took it off before I got back with the camera.)

***

What are your lesser known and least favorite holiday traditions? To suffer through them, I recommend proper companionship--like sisters willing to try on green and gold dresses from the 1970's and dance a jig. At least until the camera shows up.

As for me, I'm wearing black pants and a red blouse. I suspect the muppet shirt will be taken.

Jody W.
So much cyberspace, so little time!
www.jodywallace.com / www.meankitty.com

How to dress like the ancient Greeks

Things are...well...I won't say settling down, but slowing just a bit. Work is over for the summer, and I'm back from the Maryland Faerie Festival (I don't have any pics, because it was just too damn hot to take any) and I've turned in my FLE's and excerpts for The Ankh of Isis. Now I'm looking forward to the fall, and the paperback release of The Crown of Zeus, which you can pre-order on Amazon now but won't be out (officially) until December.

But I'm always thinking ahead. And I have some cool ideas to help promote the book, one of which is to dress in ancient Greek costume for my fall events, like Philcon. Actually, probably for most events I have in the next couple of years, considering the series is the Library of Athena, I'll just use the costume for the life of the series. Anyway, I was considering going with a pre-made costume pattern, but then I did some Googling and found I could get in touch with my inner Goddess and do the thing properly...just like the ancient Greeks.


Of course I'm sharing it with you, so just stop your whining. You can do this even if you don't know how to sew, because there's really no sewing involved unless you want to.

First of all, the greeks did NOT wear togas. The Romans are the ones famous for the toga. The Greeks wore chitons or peplos, depending on how you wore the giant piece of fabric that was your clothing. Yep, one gigantic piece of fabric, folded and tucked and pinned all around you. Come to think of it, it's not much different than an authentic kilt in that respect.

The first thing to do is measure your fabric. Put down that measuring tape! If you want a chiton, which is a simple garment pinned at the shoulders and down the arms, you need a piece of fabric (preferably linen or wool, but a poly/cotton blend that hangs nicely will do) that is as tall as you are and that goes from fingertip to fingertip with your arms extended outward...twice. If you understand DaVinci's Vetruvian man, you know that means as tall as you are twice over. I'm 66" tall, so I need a piece of fabric 132" wide. It's hard to find a piece of fabric that wide, I know, but you can fudge it and get two lengths of 60" fabric and sew it together up one side. If you use fabric with an obvious pattern, try to match it up so it looks like one piece.

Take this piece of enormous fabric and fold in half lengthwise, so it's as tall as you and as wide as your fingertips once and makes a huge tube. Step inside the tube and pin it at your shoulders, front to back. That's it. You can make sleeves by pinning the rest down your arm at regular intervals. It's gonna be long, so get yourself a belt, preferably some kind of pretty rope like the kind they use to tie back curtains. Tie the belt around and pull the excess fabric over it until you aren't tripping over it.

The peplos, which is what is shown in the picture up there, is even easier. The fabric tube only needs to be half as wide, or from your elbow to elbow. I'll make things easy - just get a piece that's as wide as you are tall. The length should be as tall as you are, plus eighteen inches. Take your fabric, fold down the top eighteen inches, then fold the whole thing lengthwise into a tube, just like you did with the chiton. Step inside the tube and pin at the shoulders, front to back, catching both layers of the folded part. Belt around the waist, leaving the fold hanging loose, and pull up the excess length. If you want, you can sew or pin the open side closed, or just make sure you've got on something underneath that people won't be offended by.

The one in the pic is a different type of peplos, with a longer fold that's belted over, so it looks like a second layer at the skirt level. Play around with it.

You can do any color, and accessorize with pretty pins and jewelry. That's really all there is to it. Just folds and pins and you look just like an ancient Greek. It's a pretty ingenious piece of fashion, isn't it? The fabric is so big, it'll always fit, and if you're a kid and you grow, the draping and excess fabric allows for growth. You could have the same peplos for years. Very economical.

And if these directions are too confusing, you can check out this site, which has pictures.

Have fun making your own Greekwear!

Christine