A Very Merry Christmas, and a Happy SWAP year!

Merry Christmas, everyone! So, you know that lovely SWAP plan I posted about a month ago? Well, it's a goner. Not a complete goner, mind you, but at least a partial goner. As I watched Christmas-y things (ok, and not-so-Christmas-y things like the new Star Trek movie) with my family tonight, I was browsing the web and kept finding lovely things about Steampunk, and my little brain started a-whirring. For those of you unfamiliar with the term (as I was until recently), steampunk is a style of clothing (and, for some, a lifestyle) that combines old-fashioned, Victorian styles with a mechanical sci-fi tech of such things as time machines, dirigibles and ray guns. It usually looks a little like this:

Isn't that cool? As those of you who read this have probably figured out by now, I really like Victorian-styled clothing, and I really like sci-fi, so this style is a natural fit for me. As such, I'm moving my SWAP towards a steampunk feel, with lots of buckles, hook-and-eyes, keys, and gears. (I've got my eye on a large set of watch parts on eBay right now, as a matter of fact.) I'm ditching the blue and making it gray, black, and white, with one plaid that has a hint of brown in it. But never fear-it won't be boring, I can promise you that!

I'm actually not starting sewing on my SWAP until January 5th, because I'm going to Atlanta tomorrow to visit my lovely distant cousins/best friends, (Hi, Cody and Suzanne!) and I won't be back until the 3rd, then I'm going to stay with my brother in Denver for a day to do a little shopping and have some fun together. That's ok, though, because unlike the last SWAP plan, I won't be able to just pop color in some pattern line-art and call it a day- I'm modifying/inventing almost every pattern I'm using in this SWAP, so I'm going to hand-sketch and color in all of my designs. It'll be a great way to kill time on the plane, and I might draw the designs on cute little chibi characters just for the heck of it. I haven't drawn in a while, and once I started sketching out ideas for this SWAP, I was surprised by how much I had missed it, so y'all might be getting some crazy-elaborate art pics serving as a storyboard when I get back from Georgia.

How crazy am I about this idea? Well, here's a picture of one of the skirts I want to copy:

I really, really don't like installing zippers. They kind of scare me, so I avoid them whenever possible. In the past, I have made fitted non-stretch woven dresses without a zipper. This results in the necessity of painfully pulling them down over my boobs while sucking in and completely displacing my strapless bra (if the dress requires one) in such a way that I have to reach down and pull it back up lest I go through the day looking like I have mutated and sprouted a second pair of bosoms somewhere about my bellybutton every time I put it on-just so I won't have to put in a zipper. And yet, here I am, really, desperately wanting to make a copy of a skirt that has not one but three completely unnecessary zippers. Installed in LACE, yet. And I'm actually looking forward to making it! Yes, I am insane. But you all knew that already, didn't you?