Steampunk, how I love thee.

Okay, so for the 5 people left on the interwebs who haven't heard of Steampunk, let me 'splain. No. There is too much. Let me sum up: it's a blend of goth/Victorian era style, plus gears, robots, pocket watches, chains. Throw in some balloons (hot air variety not helium) and dirigibles and you've got a basic idea. It's a pretty popular theme in Japanese Anime. Maybe it originated there? Can't swear to that but it seems plausible.

I am totally enamored with this style. Like, crazy in love with it. My style tastes really run the gamut, but two of my favorite themes are Asian influenced and gothic influenced. Steampunk definitely falls into the gothic influenced category, and since I watched Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland last night, I definitely have goth on the brain.

Cue me wasting hours on the internet looking up Steampunk related fashion, weddings, accessories and cakes. The end result? I am now convinced that I need to sew some Steampunk clothes. Yeah. It's like that.

I should preface this with the fact that while I own a sewing machine, it's old. Like 1972 Singer teaching model, old. I use the heck out of this machine to sew (and occasionally quilt) quilt tops, but it is not a user friendly machine. It's old and cranky and makes my hands hurt because I have to wrestle with the fabric. Another fact that bears mentioning: I have never sewn garments. Ever. I have *knitted* garments, but that is decidedly not the same. So what does this mean to my new Steampunk obsession?

That I've decided to sew my own corset, dress and bloomers, naturally.

Hear me out! In my defense, I have sketched no less than 3 separate designs this morning and bought a book on Amazon about how to construct a corset. First step in any new creative journey? BUY STUFF! I'm trying to decide what to do about fabrics and such, but I think I'm going to go to my local fabric store and try to find some scrap pieces so I can see how different layers will work together.

One of my favorite inspiration photos (courtesy of Jen at Epbot):

The bloomers plus ripped tights? Love it. Add a funky underbust corset, a frilly white shirt and some chains and I'm yours. Plus some distressed boots (leather-free, of course) to seal the deal.

There are tons more fun inspiration outfits on the Epbot blog, so definitely check it out. And incidentally, Jen also runs the infamous Cakewrecks website (which has made me snort liquid out my nose on more than one occasion) and featured some fantastic Steampunk cakes. These postings combined have really gotten my creative juices flowing. And possibly salivating...

In the process of sketching out the designs I have in my head, I have realized that I am not an artist... Hrm. I might work on that a bit as it could get costly to try to actually *make* all of these ideas. Particularly with my "skillz". Next stop: Googling "how to draw fashion designs".