The Road to RuffleCon Part II

Well, folks, it looks like I'm going to have a busy and (hopefully) productive next 146 days. What's in one hundred and forty six days, you ask? RuffleCon. And why am I going to be so busy? Yes, that's right! You guessed it! Atelier Sucré has been officially accepted as a designer for RuffleCon 2015's Fashion Show.

Over the next five months, I will be creating 4 to 5 distinct looks for the show. As mentioned in my previous post, my theme will be an 18th Century take on Lolita fashion, and I will be responsible for at least 3 dresses, 3 bonnets or headpieces, probably one ouji coordinate, and a bunch of other accessories/garments. I hope to begin production of these garments immediately, assuming that I have no serious problems in procuring the remainder of the materials that I need. Currently, I do not have the rose silk nor the special scalloped pinking blade that I require for my Mme. de Pompadour dress, and I will also need to find coordinating ribbons and trim to match whatever I find. I also need to get my <insert many curse words here> serger up and running, and get a mat for my rotary cutter. This will be a very big endeavour on my part, so I want to make sure that I'm fully prepared to take it on.

As I work on things I will try to keep you updated with photos of my progress! Thanks for reading!

Mini Update!

I haven't had the time to update this blog in several months, and even though I've had plenty of great ideas swirling around in my head, I haven't had the energy or the time to make a solid post. My health has been in decline since the spring, with lots of new, subtle, and unpleasant symptoms bogging me down. I was really depressed for a while, and my anxiety and OCD were driving me crazy (hahah). I also began to notice that I was tired all the time, and that I was beginning to have a lot of problems with memory, concentration, and speech. As it turns out, those new symptoms were actually really scary side effects from a medication that I'd been on for the past 2 years. My medication created such a disturbance in my sleep patterns, that over the long term, I was actually beginning to experience various forms of cognitive impairment. (<_<);; I've fired the doctor who put me on that crap, found a new one, and am actively working to get transitioned off of that medication. It has been a rough road, as anyone who has experienced Antidepressant/SSRI Withdrawal Syndrome can attest, but I'm starting to feel optimistic about the coming weeks. I am out of work right now, and taking some much-needed time for myself, so expect a lot of updates in the coming weeks.

Here are some of the topics I'll be discussing soon:

• Lolita Sewing Project Updates - Burgundy Corset Skirt, Headbow, Matching Bolero
• Making a Matching Headbow Out of Waist Ties
• Bodyline's Best Bets - Pieces Sure to Satisfy Even the Most Picky People

I also hope to join the Lolita Blog Carnival, and over the next two weeks or so, I'd like to debut my own webshop for handmade Lolita accessories and jewelry! I've toyed around with different branding ideas and names in the past, but I think I finally have something that I'm happy with, and I'm really excited to get started. I will also be remodeling my crappy sewing room over the next month or two and turning it into a proper Lolita sewing room with white furniture, curtains, and decor. :) I'm going to post lots of pictures when I finish!

d00d! Fr00tz!

After the past few posts of mine being all super serious, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to post something fun and a bit frivolous. Anyone in the Lolita community who knows me IRL knows about my obsession with cherry and strawberry prints. If you look around a Boston or RI meetup, and you see a girl all decked out in a fruit print, it's probably me. I don't know why, but there's something about fruit motifs that really strikes my fancy. Ever since I was a kid, I really enjoyed cherry prints, and now that they've become a common and popular motif in Lolita fashion, my enjoyment has bloomed into a preoccupation of sorts. While I'm not going super out-of-my-way at the moment to collect fruit prints, they do  The past few summers' releases have done nothing to help this obsession, nor have a number of fabrics that are currently available for purchase at JoAnn Fabrics or Walmart. This Tumblr, called "F!Yeah Fruity Fashion," also doesn't help me, because it gives me new things to drool over on a regular basis.
That being said, I'm going to start doing a review of a fruity dress or accessory every Friday  whenever the mood strikes me. Fruit Friday will cover the good, the great, and the just plain "WTF Burando?" Yes, it's biased, and highly subjective, but I'm doing this for fun. :D While it's not possible for me to post all of the  cherry / strawberry releases that have come out over the years, I can post the popular ones, the absolutely awful ones, and some of my favorites, too.

In the meanwhile, can anyone tell me what this dress is? I've been searching all over Lolibrary, but my search-fu seems to be failing me. As far as I can tell, it's AP, and a slightly older release, maybe 2009ish.  Next Fruity Friday: AP Berry-Chan JSK!