We had a splendid time at Kelham Hall, a couple of weeks ago. We got the chance to go inside as well this time, and it was beautiful. We are going to be lucky enough to be visiting again later in the year for another event, so are very excited about that as well. We also have two other Steampunk events confirmed, Blists Hill Victorian Town and Whitby in July so I had better get cracking with the outfits for those.

I have already started one of them, it is still in its formative stages but all of the fitting has been done so I am hoping to get some time to work on that this week before Ellen comes up. Then we are going to Bombay Stores to try and get some fabric for the other outfit for Whitby. This will be loosely modelled on the Princess Meera ball dress from the Aquaman film. Ellen is making an Ariel outfit so we are going to have a sea princess theme. More about that in a later post.

We did not have the chance to take many pictures of other people, it was quite wet when we first got there so we were all under umbrellas and a lot of the inside time was social distanced and not really appropriate for asking people to pose.

However we did get a couple, of this wonderful purple outfit and this very creative big top inspired one, I particularly loved the top hat. The elephant that had been in the middle had run away as Nellie the elephant did. Actually it was too heavy with the elephant so had to be removed. The creativity of Steampunk always amazes me and I have seen this woman’s wonderful costumes before at Kelham.

We did a little photo shoot of us inside. I had very little time for a new costume so just went with the embellished dinner jacket and red skirt and a new hat. I went for a memento mori theme, and a Victorian undertaker inspired look. Luckily I had lots of the lace left over as I originally ordered 5 yards for the velvet jacket that was abandoned. I also got chance to use my bargain handbag from last year’s Retford charity shop haul at only £1, and my new walking stick which has a very cool dragon head on it.

The interior of Kelham is beautiful with lots of gothic features and painted ceilings. It was built by the same architect who designed the St Pancreas Station hotel and is an amazing place. I am so excited to visit again and spend more time there. The website has a whole gallery of wedding pictures including some wonderful Asian weddings. I have been to one once many years ago and the guests’ outfits were so stunning.

We were able to attend an exhibition of Star Wars inspired work and a brilliant talk on building a droid. There is a Steampunk Star Wars group called Rebel Steam, so at some point Ellen and I wish to make costumes based around that theme. We loved this steam powered mobility scooter as well – so creative!

This week marks my last full week of marking, ever! I also have a lot of meetings finishing off the year and then it is the final countdown. I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but it looks like we have a re-enactment event on the weekend that I retire. So fingers crossed I will be able to spend that Friday evening around a campfire with some of my very best friends, who I have not seen for so long, celebrating that! I am very excited and hope it all gets to go ahead.

Meanwhile I am on the final stretches of small animal construction, there has been lots of things to do around the house this week, and I have been having a social life 😉 so progress has been slow, but hopefully they will be done soon.

I hope that you are having a good weekend, whatever you are doing. Take care, have fun, stay safe and thanks for visiting.