Important stuff! At least, to me it is. ^ ^,

*Scroll to the bottom for progress pics!* ;D

Alright, so things ended up working out just fine, and I'm really happy I didn't go to the con this weekend because I got a lot done on my Palutena! I've been working on it for almost 24 hours straight. XD I just might post some progress pics soon. ;D Although, even though I've made a lot of progress, I've also messed up A LOT. XD What I have finished of the dress is currently hang drying, because I messed up with the stencils and had to do emergency stain removal. D: So, that's the reason why there's no progress pics right now. ^ ^; But as soon as it's dry and I've pressed it, I'll take some pics and post them. ^.^ I'm debating whether I should take a rest while I'm waiting for it to dry, or start work on the wig. XD; I really don't feel as tired as I should. ^ ^; Oh, I also forgot to mention, that about two weeks before the release of Brawl, I finally got some really great Palutena reference pics! Thanks to a really nice person on YouTube. ;D The sad part is that the moment I had a look at them, I realized that I had almost completely misunderstood her design. XD; So I had to almost completely start over on the dress. D: But I'm about back to where I was before, the last time I took a progress pic.  ^ ^; Which still kinda sucks.

In other news, I got a new sewing box! Thanks to my friend Masato for buying it for me. ^.^ It's so freakin' cute!! And it's much MUCH bigger than my old one. Here, have a look:

Old box:img.photobucket.com/albums/v12…
Notice how it wouldn't even shut, I had so much crap in there. XD Plus, the velcro on the latch is about to fall off. The only thing keeping it attached is a single thread. XD

New Box:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v12…
Okay, so it's not that much more organized, but as you can see here: img.photobucket.com/albums/v12… Everything and more fits in there! And the little designs on the outside of the box inspire me to work on my sewing projects more. XD Just the sight of dress forms and bustles makes me want to sew until forever! XD

Oh, and I was going to talk about my cosplay plans for this year, or what they currently consist of...yeah, anyway, so, as many of you may have guessed, I didn't go to Anime Oasis. Not because Palutena wasn't ready, but because when I was going to buy tickets back at the beginning of last month, I learned that they'd sold out in December. D: And they only had 8 tickets left, but they were the $200 lifetime tickets. And as much as I'd love to be able to go to Oasis for free every year for the rest of my young life, I didn't have $200 to spend on a single ticket, and still have to pay $90/night for a hotel room + food for four days. So I decided to scrap that, and just hit a convention in the Fall to make up for it. Which is probably going to be Dragon*Con, because every cool person and their mom is going, and I want to be cool and go, too. XD

I was originally planning on going to Sakura Con at the end of this month, but then I found out that Video Games Live is going to be in Utah on that same weekend. So I decided I'd go to VGL instead, because it'd be way cheaper, and they'll probably never come to SLC ever again. XD Plus, they have a costume contest! 8D And I totally want to enter it with my Palutena! So, it's of utmost importance that I finish her in time! ><! I only have two more weeks! XD;

And, sadly, due to my severe laziness and lack of motivation in recent days, I haven't worked on Zero Suit Samus in weeks. XD; So I decided, because I wanted to have three new costumes by ACEN, that I would just finish her in time for A-Kon. Which I know it's only one or two weeks after ACEN. XD; We'll see how all this works out...

I was also planning on hitting AX, but I heard all these really nasty rumors that it was going to be totally lame this year. But I talked to some people, and decided that if I can find enough people to go with, I'll go.

So, that's all the important stuff I can think of. I'm going to go figure out what I can do right now while I wait for that dang dress to dry. XD Bye!

EDIT: I promised Palutena progress pics, so here they are!
Here's the full dress so far: img.photobucket.com/albums/v12…
As compared to before I got my awesome ref pics:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v12…
So, the top skirt, I scrapped, because it needs to be bigger. I took the darts in the front in a bit more for better fitting, and added a panel to the skirt on the right side. I also cut a chunk off the front of the skirt because there was too much fabric there. Since I started working on it Friday night, I added the zipper, added the top trim, hemmed the raw edges of the skirt, and started the embroidery on the front of the dress. I know, for working on it for 24 hours straight (including meal time and bathroom time), it doesn't sound like a lot of progress. But you have to understand, that I messed up HORRIBLY at least 3 times during those 24 hours. So I guess most of that time was spent fixing my retarded mistakes. XD;

And This is what took me so long to post these pics: img.photobucket.com/albums/v12…
That's right, I hand embroidered that! XD And it took me nearly 7 hours to get just a quarter of the way finished. ^ ^; So, since it's been painfully slow at work lately, and I've been having an incredibly hard time resisting the urge to accept management's offers to send me home, I figure a good way to make some money this week is to just take this dress to work and work on the embroidery there. That way, I should have the embroidery finished by Tuesday or Wednesday. Luckily, this is the only hand embroidery I'll be doing for this costume. ^ ^;

So that's it so far. To be completely honest, this is seriously the hardest project I've ever attempted since I learned to work a sewing machine. ^ ^; But it really is a learning experience. Plus, I'm pretty sure after this costume is finished, all the other costumes I'm planning to make this year will be cake in comparison. XD; Anyway, I'm really happy with how it's looking so far, and hopefully I'll be making much, much more progress this week. I'm so happy to see that it's finally starting to look kinda like Palutena! So excited! ;D 'Kay, that's all!