Anju Maaka #2

Currently watching: Avatar season one episode #3: The Southern Air Temple

So far I’ve cut almost all of the pieces for the petticoat. First off, 20 panels to create the skirt.

The panels were made by cutting 17″ long pieces, then cutting them in half along the foldline. Eventually there’ll be five layers of four panels each.

Then I trimmed the sides of the panels.

Because they taper at the top, they’ll flare out more at the bottom.

Lastly, the ruffles and the trim.

There are 20 hem ruffles, each 6″ tall and as wide as the fabric width, and 6 ruffle detail pieces, each 3″ tall and as wide as the fabric width.

Now comes the real fun part. I have to hem all twenty ruffles, gather them, and sew them to the panels. It’s going to take me all night, seriously. So this is probably my last post for the night. Check back tomorrow to see what’s going down!

Anju Maaka: #1

Here are my glorious supplies in all there glorious…glory.

12 yards white satin ($1 a yard at Walmart!)
6 yards black cotton
1/2 yard interfacing
One package 1 1/2″ wide elastic
Small black snaps
12 small black shank buttons
Remnant of white bias tape
6 yards 1″ wide black grograin ribbon
Spool of black thread
Spool of white thread
Pieces 1, 2, 3, and 7 from McCall’s 4948
Avatar: The Last Airbender seasons 1 and 2
Arrested Development seasons 1 and 2
Tin Man

All I can say is thank God for Walmart.

I’m missing some 1/4″ wide elastic, but I’m okay at the moment. Hopefully I can either scrounge some up or send the ever-loyal fiance Patrick to find me some. Or I can walk to Walgreens. Either way, I’m easy. Wait, no. Not that kind of easy…

Introducing my obsession with overly huge projects!

MTAC, the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention, is coming up. I’m not like “woohoo, cosplay, OMGGGG!” but I do like me some fun anime costumes. I want to do one big one, so I’m going to be Anju Maaka from Chibi Vampire Karin.

Chibi Vampire Karin is a very fun anime about a girl named Karin who is the middle child in a vampiric family. The only problem? Instead of sucking blood, Karin produces blood. It’s some great, funny stuff. The anime’s on Veoh and available on DVD. I recommend it highly.

I am going to be Karin’s younger sister Anju. Anju is a full vampire, very solemn and adorable, and carries around a talking puppet/murderer named Boogie-kun. I like playing younger, but usually I end up as one of the loud, outgoing, constantly-on-a-sugar-high children. So being a grave Lolita will be fun!

Here’s the episode where my dress comes from. (For specifics, go to 15:00 and watch from there). She only wears the dress in that episode as far as I can tell, but it’s my favorite and it’s pretty simple-looking to make. Just…time consuming. So while I’m home for the weekend, I’m going to knock out this costume while watching all kinds of glorious DVD boxsets. Wish me luck!

First posts and introductions…

So…hello everyone.

I’m Caitlin. I’m 21. I want to teach high school theater, English, and home ec. I’m getting married on March 13, 2010, and I can’t wait. I love rainy days, new clothes, strawberries, good movies, bad TV, and giggling.

Why this blog?

-I love writing.

-I’m inspired by reading so many great blogs that I wanted to try my own.

-I’m a showoff

Why this title?

Widgets mean all kinds of useless gadgetry. I love sewing, so a lot of this blog will be for my projects. And “Gidget” refers to a 1950s-1960s movie series about a really short girl who’s known as Gidget because she’s a girl midget. As I am quite short, I thought that fit.

So there we go. I hope it’s interesting!