Yesterday, Ryan and I joined the brother/in-law Ross and his girlfriend Jane for an outing to the Gainesville renaissance faire.  Since we didn’t have any rengarb, we opted to go as sightseers in Victorian garb.  I figured that if we were supposed to be ‘stepping back in time’ for a medieval faire, then it’s not such a stretch that we stepped back from the 1870′s, while everyone else stepped back from the early 2000′s.   Cheesy, but provides a valid excuse to dress however we (I) wanted to.  The rest of the crew were good sports so I didn’t have to dress up by myself, which I deeply appreciate.

Our initial arrival at the faire was rough.  The parking situation was insane and poorly managed.  We waited in a long line just to be turned around and routed back on the main road to go to overflow parking.  It might have been more efficient to put up a sign a few miles earlier and we (as well as several others) could have just gone to the overflow parking to begin with, which would have saved a major traffic backup of people going to the regular entrance, being looped through, then sent back out onto 39th ave.

After we got through that process, and managed to park, it was time to wait for a bus to get into the faire.  This was something of a free for all, with one person attempting to herd people into lines for each bus.  Overall, it was fairly quick once the herd of buses got back and picked up folks.  (All the buses seemed to move at once, rather than being staggered with 1 or 2 buses every few minutes.)

Once we made it in, the fair was pretty great!  Very crowded, with lots of people in costume, way more than I expected to see.  I highly recommend the Johnny Phoenix Danger Show (we’ve seen it both here and at the faire in Tampa) as well as the Barely Balanced acrobatic show (we had never seen it before).  There were several guests dressed as pirates, many of whom liked my hat, and I theirs, which was fun.  I want to make a pirate jacket some day, and more hats.

We bought fancy soda in big blue bottles so that the fellas can reuse them for beer.  I also picked up a pretty cameo and have been thinking about what to make to wear with it.  (It has some pretty gold and coral tones, I think it would look nice with dark brown, burgundy or purple, maybe with coral or a dark orange-y gold as an accent color.)

I’m also thinking about making something victorian involving pink and cranberry for Valentine’s day…maybe with a bunch of black as well…this would be particularly relevant if we go to Tampa again this year, I could wear it to the gothy club.  I have some awesome pink lace from old curtains that I could put to good use.

In the meantime I’m resuming work on the girl genius costume, which I’m pretty excited about.  I’m hoping to get all of the skirt done within the next week or so…even though that means figuring out how to make, and making, several clocks.  I did already plan how to attach them to the skirt and draw up the related diagrams, so at least that is done.

At the faire we learned about a convention (metrocon) in Tampa that’s going to have a steampunk theme this year, so we’re considering attending.  It would be a great chance to wear fun things.  On that topic, we did pass a group of gentlemen in attire that I feel is best described as gothic steampunk.  We nodded politely.

Being married now means I no longer have to worry about getting things done in time for the wedding, so I’ve been really enjoying spending the time instead thinking about things to make just for fun.