The Southwest Costumers Guild
is a loose and informal educational society of persons interested in all facets of historical, cultural, science fiction, fantasy, and humor costume. Members are often seen on stage and behind the scenes at Science Fiction Convention masquerades, historical reenactment events, and theatre. SWCG is Arizona's chapter of the International Costume Guild.
Costume-Con 30 is Coming!
SWCG members will host Costume-Con 30 in spring, 2012. Venue, dates,
web page and other details to be announced. E-Mail Convention Chair Elaine at cc30@southwestcostumersguild.org to volunteer or with specific questions.
Index
Newsletter
Upcoming Events
SWCG Activities
Meet the Guildsters - Mail Links and links to Member
Web Pages
Links - Web
Sites of Interest to the Costumer
Hints and other "How To" Articles
Join the Southwest Costumers Guild - Printable membership form
Recruiting and PR Materials:"Victorian Ball" Foldover Flyer
"Science Fiction Convention" Foldover Flyer
"Renaissance Faire" Foldover Flyer
Quarter-Page Flyer
Southwest Costumers Guild has a "Yahoo Groups" e-mail discussion forum. Contact the webmaster for information on how to join.
Click the links below to view sample issues of Cactus Needles, SWCG's monthly newsletter. You'll need the Adobe Acrobat reader, available free from www.adobe.com.
Hint: These are rather large files and may take several minutes
to open with a dial-up connection. It may be faster to save a file to
your computer and open it later.
Click your right mouse button on the logo and choose "save target as"
from the floating menu.
Cactus Needles is released under a Creative
Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States
License. Please print the newsletter and give it to your friends, but
print the entire newsletter and don't make any changes or charge any
money. Go to www.creativecommons.org
to view the license. Individual articles and pictures belong to their
authors. If you'd like to reprint an individual article or picture,
please contact the Editor
for appropriate permission.
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
January 2010
Upcoming Activities
Usually, the Southwest Costumers Guild meets on the last Sunday of each month at a different member's home in the greater Phoenix area. This rule of thumb is often changed to avoid schedule conflict with other events. Guild business is followed by a demonstration or workshop by a guild member or an invited guest. Sometimes we cooperate on a costume project. Sometimes we just socialize. Special SWCG gatherings are sometimes held at science fiction conventions, street fairs, and other public events. E-mail the Webmaster for directions to meetings and events.
Here are some upcoming guild meetings and costume-related public events. E-mail the Webmaster if you know an event that should be on the calendar. A more detailed calendar is included in Cactus Needles.
* Red Text indicates an SWCG activity. Unless otherwise noted, SWCG Meetings begin at 1:00 PM.Green Text indicates events hosted by our friends at SunaCosu.
February 6
thru
March 12, 2010 (weekends plus prez day) – Arizona Renaissance
Festival
Highway 60 east of Gold Canyon, Arizona. http://www.royalfaires.com/arizona/
February
8-15,
2010 – The Estrella War at Canyon Moon Ranch in
Florence,
Arizona. The Society For Creative Anachronism’s annual festival of
armored
combat, arts and sciences with a merchants’ row to rival any
renaissance faire.
http://www.estrellawar.org/
February 24-28, 2010 – Winter Range at the Ben Avery Shooting Range, NWC I-17 & Carefree Highway north of Phoenix. Cowboy Action Shooting event with a fine sutlers’ row and a costume contest at 5PM on Saturday evening. http://www.winterrange.com/costume.html
February 27 & 28 , 2010 – Matsuri: A Festival of Japan at Heritage and Science Park in downtown Phoenix. http://azmatsuri.org/
February 27 & 28, 2010 – Arizona Highland Games at Steele Indian School Park, 300 E. Indian School Road, Phoenix AZ. Admission $15 for adults, $5 for children 15 & younger. http://www.arizonascots.com/05games.shtml
February 28, 2010 – Japan to Scotland* – SWCG field trip. Meet at Burton Barr Public Library at 1221 N. Central Avenue in Phoenix at 9:30 AM to walk the Matsuri Festival and Highland Games together.
March 13-14, 2010 – The Battle of Picacho Peak at Picacho Peak State Park. The new visitor center is finished and the annual reenactment of Arizona’s only civil war battle is back. http://azstateparks.com/parks/pipe/index.html
March 26-28, 2010 – Con-Nichiwa at the Holiday Inn Palo Verde in Tucson, Arizona. A new Animé convention from the creators of Phoenix ComiCon and Saboten-Con. http://www.con-nichiwa.com/.
March 18-21, 2010 – National Festival of the West at Westworld in Scottsdale. Features films, celebrity appearances, music, reenactors, merchants, chuckwagon cooks, mountain men and, of course, a costume contest. Adults $14. http://www.festivalofthewest.com/
March 28, 2010 – Screen Printing* – SWCG Workshop at Jean’s place in Sun City. Gail Wolfenden-Steib will show us a novel screen printing technique.
Saturday, April 24, 2010 (Tentative) – Apache Dress* - SWCG Workshop at the Glendale Cascade Mobile Home Park community center, 5747 West Missouri Avenue, Glendale. Cindy Trail will show us some basics of traditional native american clothing.
May 7-10, 2010 – Costume-Con 28 at the Hilton Milwaukee City Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. http://www.cc28.org/
May 14-16, 2010 - LepreCon 36 at the Phoenix Mesa Marriott Hotel in Mesa, Arizona features guests of Honor George R.R. Martin, Charles Vess and James A. Owen. http://www.leprecon.org/.
May 27-30,
2010
– Phoenix ComiCon at the Phoenix Convention Center and
Hyatt
Regency Hotel. Guests include Jonathan Frakes and Jim Steranko. http://www.phoenixcomicon.com/
May 30,
2010 – Duct
Tape Dummies* - SWCG Workshop at the
Glendale
Cascade Mobile Home Park community center, 5747 West Missouri Avenue,
Glendale.
Build a custom dress form using packing peanuts and the handyman’s
secret
weapon.
June
27, 2010 – Corset
Fitting* - SWCG Workshop at the
Glendale
Cascade Mobile Home Park community center, 5747 West Missouri Avenue,
Glendale.
July 9-11, 2010 - Random Con at the Grace Inn Ahwatukee, 10831 South 51st Street, Phoenix. A convention for all manner of gamers. randomconarizona@gmail.com (web page coming).
July 25, 2010 – Sweatshop* - SWCG Workshop at the Glendale Cascade Mobile Home Park community center, 5747 West Missouri Avenue, Glendale. We’ll build some cloaks and other garments for a fundraiser.
August 29, 2010 – Pool Party* - SWCG Social at Chuck & Tasha’s place. Our annual costume party by and in the pool. Theme to be announced.
September
4-6,
2010 – CopperCon 2010 at Windemere Hotel and Conference
Center, 5750 East Main Street in Mesa, Arizona. The Guest of Honor is
Stephen R.
Donaldson. The con features a masquerade directed by our SWCG veep,
Nyki. http://www.coppercon.org/.
September 26,
2010 – Fabric Swap* -
SWCG meeting at the
Glendale
Cascade Mobile Home Park community center,
5747 West Missouri Avenue, Glendale. Sure, that piece of fabric,
notion, or
tool seemed like a good idea at the time, but it’s been sitting around
for
years. Maybe someone else has a better use for it. Maybe they have
something
you can use. Let’s barter!
November
12-14, 2010 - TusCon 37 at
Hotel Tucson, 475 N. Granada in
Tucson, Arizona. Guest of Honor is Jim Butcher, Author of the Harry
Dresden
novels. http://home.earthlink.net/~basfa/ or http://www.tusconscificon.com/.
January, 2011 – MythosCon at the Tempe Mission Palms Hotel in downtown Tempe, Arizona. This is a convention for fans of H.P. Lovecraft and his works, hosted by local author and fan of note, Adam Niswander. https://www.mythoscon.org/
Return to Index
Recurring Events:
Third Saturday of the Month, 10 AM - Personal Projects Workshops* at the Glendale Cascade Mobile Home Park community center, 5747 West Missouri Avenue, Glendale. Bring along whatever you're working on for a stitch & b---stitch some more social session with the guildsters.
Here is our events information in the form of a Google calendar composed by Margie:
Guild Activities
We had a fine turnout for our Barbecue Mixer in April, 2009, with folks from SWCG, Sunacosu,
CASFS, Arizona Ghostbusters and The Rebel Legion. Photo by Mike Contos.
At the Arizona Renaissance Festival, February 2008.
Walking about the Glendale Glitters street fair in December, 2007.
A Duct Tape Mannequin is a useful tool for patterning
custom-fitted
garments.
Mucking about in Victorian attire at CopperCon 25. A little image magic by Mike Cassidy shifts us to a more appropriate setting - a table setting.
Meet the Guildsters - Mail Links and Web Pages
Click on the highlighted text to send an e-mail message or visit a personal web page.
SWCG President Frances Burns.
(president@southwestcostumersguild.org)
.
Vice President Nyki Robertson
(vicepresident@southwestcostumersguild.org)
Treasurer Lyn Jeppesen
(Treasurer@southwestcostumersguild.org)
Archivist Jean Palmer
(archivist@southwestcostumersguild.org)
Webmaster and Newsletter Editor Randall Whitlock runs MoiRandall's
featuring his "Randwulf's" line of sewing patterns.
webmaster@southwestcostumersguild.org).
Member Anna Caggiano shows how she built her Galadriel gown at www.fivemilecreek.net/anna/anna.htm.
Last updated February 9, 2010 by Randall Whitlock.