The Cthulhu Project

Before I go into any plans, I feel that I should lay the groundwork first. If you can't already tell, I get a bit obsessive over things I'm interested in. This is something I have interested in for a while, so I feel a background in the subject is appropriate. 

About ten years ago, I watched a movie called Dagon. 

Dagon is a horror movie about half fish people. It is loosely based on HP Lovecraft's story, and it definitely stuck with me. In 2005  I found a band called Dagon with an evil looking mermaid on the cover of their CD. I fell in love with the mermaid artwork, and the guy at the record store was awesome enough to let me keep the cover without actually buying the CD. A few months later I got the mermaid tattooed on my upper back. Unfortunately I can not find a picture of the art for the life of me.

I decided I wanted to read Dagon. I went to the library to get it, and while I was there I saw this, also by HP Lovecraft: 

I was absolutely amazed by the artwork on the cover, so I checked the book out along with Dagon. I read Dagon, but never ended up reading anything from this book. It is full of short stories, and I had no idea where to read about the giant monstrosity on the cover. 

Over the years I never forgot the art. I really wanted to get this tattooed as well, but could not think of a less graceful thing than a giant squid like apparatus on my back. Over the years I did things to get try to get it out of my system so that I wouldn't get it tattooed; I traced over it a couple times, I even tried painting it. Nothing really worked. 

So recently I started researching it a little bit more. I found out the artist of the portrait is Raymond Bayless. I also found out that the monster is called Cthulhu. Researching it more I found out that it is apparently the god of Lovecraft's characters. I also found out that the book has the story on Cthulhu, which is appropriately titled "The Call of Cthulhu". Metallica's song from Master of Puppets called "The Thing that Should Not Be" is based off of Cthulhu as well. I've heard that song dozens of times before, and I had no clue! 

So what do I do? I decide to turn this art work into a lolita skirt. 

By using Spoonflower, I will be able to print this portrait onto fabric.  Cthulhu and his cavern will be on the front of the skirt, and the rocks will be along the bottom of the fabric the rest of the way around. 

My first step in doing this was buying the actual book. My dad said I needed a high resolution photo instead of pulling it off of the internet (something to do about pixels). That version of The Dunwich Horror has since been discontinued, so I had to order an old library book from Ohio. I'm glad I did, because I was then able to read the Call of Cthulhu. According to the story, Cthulhu was sent down from the stars and has been around for eons. He's been in suspended in time, dead but dreaming, waiting for the right time to awake.  By reading the book, I found other things that I'll be incorporating into the skirt: 

Lovecraft developed a language for the Cthulhu cult (the cult are the people who help Cthulhu awake when the 'stars are aligned properly') This is their chant: 

Ph'nghui mglw'nath Cthulhu R'ley wgah'nagl fhtagn

It means, in his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming. 

I want to put the chant on the bottom of the skirt, underneath the rocks. I want it to be in some nautical looking script. 

I also found the latitude and longitude coordinates for R'lyeh, which I want to incorporate into the skirt as well. I am still kind of stuck about how to do so. 

I know of a couple girls in the lolita community who can sew, so I'll be seeing if one of them can help me turn the fabric into a skirt. 

As for the coord,  thats an entirely different story. The color scheme is going to be pale green and gray. I see this having the potential to be both a pirate and mermaid coord. 

Either way, I'm pretty excited. I can actually say that I'm content with my lolita wardrobe in a way that I haven't been before. I don't feel the need to buy new stuff anymore, and all I have left to do is sell off most of my old sweet stuff. I'll only have 3 JSK's and 2 skirts, but I feel that's enough. My wardrobe is still versatile enough to wear sweet when I want. 

Oh, and the Royal T meet next week, I don't know what to wear yet! 

What I Bought Selling my Dreams Away

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had sold Candy Treat and Jewelry Jelly (my first dream dresses). I took the money I made from those two dresses and replaced them with things to adapt to my changing style.

St Mephisto Cathedral in iris by Alice and the Pirates:

This dress is a lovely color and print. BUT there are a few things I don't like about it. For one, the bow and lace right dab in the middle makes it look more childish than it needs to. Also the straps are a bit short. However I may be able to remove the bows/lace and get the straps extended. Until then it goes wonderfully under my black pirate jacket.

Amelia's Locket in sea foam by Atelier Enchanteur

This skirt is an absolute treat. It is definitely one of my favorite pieces. The amazing thing about Atelier Enchanteur is that it's just one dedicated girl in Maryland. She even sent me this as a free gift: 
How cool is that?
Anyway, this skirt is amazing. When I was putting together my Melty Mermaid Princess coord, I was trying to achieve a mermaid theme, but no matter what I did it kept coming out pirate-y looking. But this skirt is so whimsical that I'm easily able to put together a mermaid coord out of it with my blonde Rhapsody wig. It's also versatile enough to go pirate with my Farrah Showstopper wig.

I also picked this up for my Wonder Story coord:



More stuff that I'll be selling that I've blogged about:
Milky Berry (after all that work, I decided I've outgrown the print. At least I got to wear it once!)
Aurora headband
An*tai*na blue rocking horse shoes
Chocomint love balloon
Bodyline soft cream skirt in black
GLW pink x blue split
Bodyline "mint" shoes


I'm in the process of making a sales post, who knew it could be so much work?

Brewery Art Walk Lolita Meet + Other Stuff

On Sunday, I attended a meet up in Los Angeles at a place called the Brewery.
The Brewery is a lot of hundreds of artists lofts. They open them up two times a year to the public, and so a group of us went out there!

I had a lot of fun. I wore my OTT pirate coord with my new Rhapsody wig from GLW. The coord was a mix of pirate and mermaid!  The best part about it was seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

Here's a closeup of my outfit, kind of lol



I felt far more comfortable in this coordinate than any of my sweet ones. I felt more my age too. So I'm definitely switching styles.
I sold off Candy Treat..won't forget about my old obsession with that any time soon.

I also sold off Jewelry Jelly. It's still in my closet at the moment, but there's someone paying for it via payment plan. After searching for it for months and finally finding and buying it, I don't consider it mine anymore. I've seen too many bad pictures of myself in it.

I considered selling Merry Making Party too, but after seeing this photo I decided to keep it around for last resort OTT coords:



 As for Milky Berry, I think I'm going to keep it, just because of the mint and red clash. Plus it took me around 8 months to get the coordinate together, so it would be a shame to let it go.  I'll keep Wonder Story because while it is a sweet print, it's a tad more sophisticated and grown up than some of the other sweet prints I've had.
Chocolate Chess is definitely sticking around, because I love it too damn much to let it go.
I am so grateful that I never bought Decoration Dreams.

Now that I have loads of money from my  sales, I am going to invest in Alice and the Pirates. Melty Mermaid Princess is by that brand. The really cool thing about that skirt is that I can wear it as normal clothes, and no one thinks anything weird of it. I figure that prints that, as well as ones a  little more on the classic side are a little more adaptable into every day wear. It makes spending the money far more justifiable.


Well, I'm off to bed!