Once Upon a Time...

A little about me:

My name is Clara and I’m a 21 year old design and animation student living in California (northern or southern depends on the season). I am a full time student which means I take at least 12 units per semester and am working on my final semesters here in college. I work part time at Renaissance Faires around California as well which is partially how I got into sewing and how I found Serenata- a women’s musical group in which I sing Mezzo Soprano.

As a kid, my mother (a clothing designer) never let a Halloween go by without an amazing costume and as I got older, I developed a love for costume design but lacked the necessary skill. Through faire I was presented a sort of sink-or-swim opportunity to learn how to sew. Because of the environment, I’ve developed a love for historical costuming and found a community of people who would support me in an endeavor to create new clothing and costumes -from to historical to practical.

I love fairytales, folklore and stories. The best way to shut me up is to tell me a story and most of my communication is through storytelling. I come from a storytelling family and to this day, I surround myself with storytellers in all shapes and forms. My bookshelf is filled with anthologies including the Thousand and One Nights, Grimm's Fairy Tales and the Book of Virtues and I grew up with these and know them probably better than any other work of literature to date. In an extension of this, I love comics and video games and a lot of what people would consider nerdy. A lot of my sewing is fueled by a desire to bring the  fictional costumes and designs that come with these worlds to life.

I’m quite talkative in real life with a tendency to provide my roommates and my friends with (in my opinion) informative and entertaining lectures about whatever has got me going that day. I have a tendency to fall in love with a topic and research the hell out of it. This is the primary reason I created this blog: I wanted a place to put all my costume research as well as the creation photos I take to document the work I’ve done. I also do a lot of drawing, painting and crafting in my spare time (what little of it I have) and hopefully these pieces will make it here as well- not all costumes need to be sewn, after all. This blog will also hopefully document my triumphs and failures as I learn how to drape and alter on my own (with a lot of help from some fairy god-sisters) and potentially be a place for you to laugh, and cry and curse along with me.

TL;DR: I'm a research nerd, I like stories and I'm a nerd-nerd. This blog is for costuming/research and whatever else comes with the territory. Welcome and enjoy!