Week 27, dressed to the elevens

Factors working against me:  It had to be done (and dry!) in time to wear to the Sac Steam Ball on Thursday.  I had to purchase new nail polish with which to paint the gears because I couldn't find my big bag of them (still can't).
Factors working for me: I probably ended up with a better color-match this way.
At this point I would like to take the opportunity to tell you what exactly I am talking about.  As I was trying to decide what to wear to the Sac Steam Ball, it occurred to me that I had a pair of opera-length gloves that I really never wear because they're too flashy for everyday wear, even for me.  So I planned my outfit around them.  As it happens, my brother had recently given me a hat he didn't want anymore which had a purple band that went with other things I was wearing.  I had intended to sew in a lining to make it a ladies' hat anyway, and I had some of the same fabric I used for the gloves left.  Then I painted one of the vacuum-formed gears I was working with to match and added some feathers (I bought a mixed bag at the craft store, which turned out to have more colors than I had expected).
Results:

 

Bonus: I also made a matching pin to wear at my throat.

Week 46

Factors working against me: Time.  I also was working with a type of material I'd never used before (Timtex), so I didn't know how well it would work.

Factors working for me: I knew what I wanted to make: a hat to wear on the weekend.  But first I went internet shopping for Edwardian blouses and brown leather waist cinchers.  I couldn't find anything that looked how I wanted, so I decided to make a simple instant steampunk waist cincher.
Results:  It's a rectangle with belt loops.

Just add belts.

After wearing it on the Sacramento Steampunk Society/ Great Basin Costume Society steam train excursion, I realized the belts all tend to slide together, bunching up the fabric, so I'm going to add some boning.
Bonus:  I ended up finishing the hat I originally wanted to make for this week's Thing in the truck on the way to Carson City Saturday night.  I still want to add flowers, but I wore it as-is so I'd say it counts.

Week 23; an April Fool, me

I made myself a cunning disguise!
First I sculpted it from air-drying clay:

Then I vacuum-molded plastic over it:

Then I cut it out:

And for the final step I painted it with acrylic paints.
Then I took it to the Sacramento Steampunk Society meeting and took pictures of all the attendees (and the owner of the Karma Cafe) wearing it.
Speaking of which, since neither my father nor Admiral Macabre were in attendance this week it fell to me to make our April Fool's Day meeting interesting.  So I replaced our regular "Steampunk Meetup" sign with this one:

I also had everyone fill out Steampunk "Census Forms" in lieu of a sign-in sheet.  I think they found it amusing rather than tedious, so, mission accomplished!  Also I printed out ten forms and we had exactly ten people at the meeting, so hurrah for my estimating skillz!

Week 19, for the silver screen

I've been putting off posting for so long it's getting ridiculous.  So I'm just going to post what I've got as fast as possible.
Results: On Wednesday night I was thinking about what to wear for the next day's Steampunk invasion of an Alice in Wonderland screening.  It occurred to me it might be appropriate to make some concession to the titular heroine's iconic hairstyle (which I haven't actually seen on her in any of the production stills. . . but that's neither here nor there).  So here is my version of "Alice Bands".  I deliberately made little attempt at neatness for a bit of a mad look.

Bonus:  I used what was left over of the single scrap of faux leather I had to make a matching wristband.

Week 7 got turned up to eleven

Factors working against me: I wanted to take it to the Sacramento Steampunk Society Meetup on Wednesday, which meant I only had half a week.
Factors working for me:  I was pretty motivated to make the meetup cool since it was the first one and we wanted people to keep coming.
Results:  I made a letterhead for note-taking.  My dad saw it and asked me to do something similar to his sign-in chart, so I did that too.  I had everything printed up by 3:30 Wednesday morning, which makes this the earliest completion yet by far.
Bonus:  The Thing was actually just the note paper, so bonus #1 is the Guestbook pages.  Bonus #2 is something that occurred to me later in the day Wednesday after I woke up: a table sign to let people know where the Steampunks were, in case they couldn't tell by looking for people in costume.  Here's a photo of everything:

We ended up putting the sign in a fancy picture frame (which I had to glue because the back was falling off):

I'm also making some Christmas presents, so I haven't had time to finish the Things from weeks 5 and 6, which are racking up some SERIOUS overtime.