A 40 MIN LESSON IN FINNISH - AND BURLESQUE

(Long manicured nails and workwear don't go well together. Practically, that is.)

I talk about the contrast between burlesque and the harbour, among other stuff ( I babble on a lot, jeez!), in a documentary about the Finnish burlesque scene. It was shot over a year ago, but aired on TV4 this week. You can catch us backstage as well as members of Helsinki Burlesque / Hula Pirates crafting together, reflecting over burlesque in all its forms, as well as clips from acts in Helsinki and NY. (It's all in Finnish though so why not take it as a lesson in Finnish as well :)

View it here:
http://www.ruutu.fi/video?vt=video_episode&vid=202846

I'm not one hundred percent about weather it can be viewed from abroad so you might have to try it trough a proxy then.

OFF AND AHOY ONTO GALACTIC OCEANS

The Itty Bitty Tease Cabaret space ship crew on yesterday's burlesque fesival Time Machine party.


I've sewn the dresses for us girls. We also had a bunch of patches made for us in the spirit of Elvis' TCB!
The Itty-Bitty Tease Cabaret SHAKE!

TULLE, LACE, CATS AND PEARL RIBBON, STRESS AND SILK

I am once again in a very familiar state - the one where I wish the day had more hours and don't have time for everything. (Or when I wish I were a millionaire with a couple of assistants doing all boring chores for me and me not having to work with anything else than what I want to). I'm still quite proud over the fact that I have achieved a lot so far- a part from getting up at 05:40 every day this week to go to work, I've sewn (and sewn very well!) not only one but two very nice burlesque outfits for my shows and even finding the time for a little lindy hopping in between!

You can see the first outfit in a re-vamped number of mine in Tampere, where I'm heading on Thursday with Lola Manchego and Tinkerbell to perform at the Sweet Jeena & Her Sweethearts record release party! There will be a lot of dancing, americana, swing DJ's, chocolate sweet hearts and lovley ladies on stage. (Getting up before six in the morning and doing the two-hours drive to perform in the late evening is less nice however...)

The second outfit can be spotted at Club Wanted VIII on Saturday!

Next week I'm going to sleep a lot.

WIGGLE IT

Me and my sewing machine have produced the ultimate wiggle dress!

Originally made for a show of mine, it also works great as a party dress and fits like a glove, with buttons all the way up and a soft leopard lining. (But, to be honest, I can't call myself a genius though - I had to add fabric three times in order to be able to fit in and fasten it, which after some minor (read: major) swearing actually turned out rather nice with three fancy seams in the front that looks totally "meant to be". And I have to pin it to my bra I order not to flash too much of what's inside of it... )

GIRLS ON BOARD

That's me and my new (very snug) dress on last weeks burlesque cruise which was a total blast and success!
(The cruise. And the dress :)

Photo by Frej Linna.

The venue was a mix of hula girls, mermaids and sailors. Paula was dressed as a lobster girl in all- red from top to toe, lashes as well. (Even though she actually turned out a crab-girl since she never found a lobster for her hat as planned but had to use a glittered crab instead. Not that it really matters though, we just thought lobster girl had a nicer sound to it.) I wasn't really dressed as anything particular, just inspired by the pacific theme of the night. And it doesn't show in any pictures but I had matched my hair flowers with my dark yellow heels. (I just had to point that out since it looked very good and so I'd be able to sleep better at night. Phew, good, now you all know.)

Oh well, now I'll start preparing for a solo act show I'll do tonight. If you like me, and unlike most others, spend Midsummer in town why don't spend it at Bar Loose with some psychobilly and burlesque?
Either way and anyhow, for those of you that celebrate Midsummer's Day, have a great one!

DRESSMAKING

This fabric is going to turn into a tiki style wiggle dress somewhat inspired by the lovely sarong dresses at Vivien of Holloway!


The fabric dates back from (oh, here we go again...) the hippie days when I hanged out on Bali for a while, a long time ago. Just lying in my closet useless for years it has finally found a meaning - I'm getting a dress for free :)

The plan is to premiere the dress next Sunday at the From Helsini to Honolulu via Hysteria Burlesque party onboard Wäiski! As previously mentioned we and a lot of other gals will be performing there and I'm sure it will be a hell of a night! (I've heard there are still some tickets left so hurry up and get yourself one if you're around town!)

(it didn't start out so well though - I always cut all dresses freehand and this time I cut it slightly too small for myself; it's not always easy with a totally non-stretch fabric... Then one of my cats threw up on what was left of the fabric. But in spite of these minor misfortunes I think it will turn out pretty fine anyway!)

A LITTLE LITTLE BIT NERVOUS

Tonight is the biiiig burlesque show. The organizers have understood to save the best for last, since our group will be the final performers. Perfect!

This is what I will be wearing tonight off stage :


(Dress - Trashy Diva, Shoes - Bianco)

And this is part of what I will be wearing on stage...




I made five of these sets plus skirts for us all and something for our male performer too! It will be hilarious I'm sure; and visually great since we have nice colours and great props on stage. There will certainly be some great photos taken of the night which I might post here later then...

I LIKE IT WHEN YOU LOVE ME

Thank You Thank You Thank You.

I have been given a lot of awards; one from the darling Alice, two awards (oh my :) from talented Sam and last but not least one from sweet Jess!

Thank you lovely ladies so much for the appreciation! I'm going to be a total bitch (but a very loveable such) and just keep these for myself without passing them on this time.

On top of it all I was given the biggest lollipop in the world by a colleague of mine! It's huge.

Shirt - S&M
Skirt - Selfmade
Grey tights - H&M,
Shoes - Sixtyseven You

PINS, NEEDLES AND A LOT OF LACE

25 meters of lace, 15 meters of silk ribbon, pins and needels and my cats thinking I'm about to play with them every time I lift a ribbon up to cut it... I've been sewing so much today I think my eyes have turned into sewing pins. It takes a long time to sew outfits for five girls, but when they are done, they will be great! So be sure to ocme see the burlesque show at Wäiski November 9th!

Thank you all for the getting better-wishes, but I'm still a bit ill I'm afraid. My head can't really take too much of the computer screen , which is bad since I do have some jobs waiting for me. And which also means lousy updating and no blog browsing either. Oh well, I'll be back in full glory eventually then.

Hope you'll all have a great week!

AN ARTY MISTAKE / A DRESS FOR A BEER

Yes, this picture is an arty mistake but I am mainly referring to the dress in it.

A couple of years ago I strated fixing on a dress for myself - I had been making small drawings of such a dress for a long time already and finnally started with the project by cutting a suitable tunic I found on sale into pieces, colouring the fabric soft black, still with the origial pattern showing from underneath, and finally sewing the pieces toghether again with another fabric to into a dress. Over confident as I often am when sewing, I did not bother to try it on too much in between since I know my measurememnts pretty well by the eye.

Well, this time my project ended up being a reather arty mistake, looking all nice but being way to small for me to be able to wear (after some strange bends and moves I got into the dress but had to take it quite easy with the breathing. Getting out was another story then).

So, hours of works and tens of euros ended up haning on a rack in the fleamarket last summer.

But then Ina came by and said "nice dress", tried it on (fit very nicely) and I sold it to her for the symbolic price of one beer. Not that bad a deal in the end, since at least the other one of us ended up looking great :)
And hey, I eventually got my beer too.


See? Nice. (And yup, I have nice new Marimekko curtains.)



More nice stuff - Ina also has a new nice tattoo, a Matryoshka doll.
It's decorated with strawberries. That's nice.

SINCE I'VE ALREADY STARTED...

(Pose - Stupid)
Jacket - Vintage
Skirt - Selfmade
Shoes - Minna Parikka
...I might aswell continue with the cheating a little bit more.

I found this jacket in a vintage store i Tampere last weekend. It had a matching skirt that would've brought many outfits to perfection but that unforntunately happened to be cut for hips the size of my thigh, so I could forget about that straight away. Sigh.

Oh well, you cant always have everything. I was sad to leave the skirt behind but still happy about the checks of the jacket matching the tartan on my shoes. (And that's already pretty much to ask for :)

I SERIOUSLY BELIEVE MY FEET HAVE SHRUNK A LITTLE BIT

Shirt - Wrangler
Skirt - Selfmade
Shoes - Vintage

I'm wearing my grandmother's shoes from the mid 40's. I have a bunch of them (I'm a lucky girl, I know). I remember stomping around in these when I visited my grandmother as a little girl -they were waaay to big then, of course, but I felt oh so fancy and chic. Now that I'm all grown up and stuff and have these shoes in my posessison it seems my feet have grown slightly bigger than my grandmother's once were (and those few millimeters can be a bit painful, as noticed before). I even took this pair to the shoemaker's once to have them stretched a bit, but they said the shoes were probably too old and the suede to dry for them to want to give it a try.
Even if I quite haven't been able to wear them out and about, I still haven't had the heart to give any of the pairs away though.

So that's why I was quite surpried when I decided to try them on and they suddenly didn't feel bad at all and kept my feet happy and well through the day. I'm quite the Cinderella, huh?