For this year's ConnectiCon, Remi and I helped Tina of Ramble Rori and Caro of F Yeah Lolita with their Lolita Fashion 101 panel! I'd say it's kind of classic-country lolita, maybe? Also, I'm trying out posting this from my phone because my laptop is utterly unresponsive, so let me know if it doesn't turn out right!

I keep telling myself that I'm done with lolita, don't I? Well, now that I've graduated and am working six days a week, I have more money than usual and evenings with nothing to do but dream of new ways to spend it. It's possible that I'll have a few more of these hiatus hiccups in the next few months - I may even start updating this blog again, but no promises! Anyway, my local lolita group had a meetup last weekend at Olde Mystic Village's international food festival, which is apparently a thing they do but I knew nothing about it (and still know little). It was so nice to get out and see the people I haven't seen in ages, as well as making some new friends, too! Also, being in lolita and sassing the normal folk is something I didn't realize I missed doing.

This outfit's theme became "Steampunk lolita warrior princess" somehow. Here's what happened: I went to Remi's house, complained that I had nothing to wear, she threw things at me until I stopped crying, and then I stole accessories off her vanity while she wasn't looking. I mean, it all has a similar color palate, so that means it matches, right?

Rundown (spoiler: most of it was stolen from Remi):

♥Crown and skirt: Handmade by Remi

♥Cutsew: L'est Rose (old Gyaru brand, I believe?)

♥Gas mask, rose clip, and belt: pilfered from Remi

♥Fawn tights: Ophanim Gothique

♥Boots: Forever 21 (aaaages ago)

♥Purse: Gift

See, here's the thing with my lolita wardrobe. I'm totally uninterested in it now. I never got around to selling off the bulk of it, because I hate posting it all online; I'm going to try and get to a swap meet at some point and throw it at other people, but for now I'm stuck with a whole bunch of clothes I don't want and a far too stubborn disposition to buy new ones until the old ones are gone. Therefore, I reeeeeally like dressing up in the summertime, when my good friend Remi is only a few towns over (as opposed to 2 hours away at school). Remi has a fabulous, fierce style; crazy sewing skills; and just enough patience to allow me to play dress-up in her closet every so often. It works out amazingly for me, and I'd like to believe that I bring to our friendship... well, I'm sure there's something...

and HERE'S REMI HI I LOVE YOU DON'T HATE ME!

We tried to take a group photo at one point. They all ended miserable because we were too busy being idiots. Here is a photo of all of us making those weird kitty-paw-faces:

And um also I ate. A lot. Well not necessarily a lot, just... very animatedly. I just really enjoyed this sandwich. I have no regrets; it was an excellent sandwich. Pretty sure I was only aware of the camera for the first photo, the rest just... happened.

So, despite the fact that the humidity did hilarious things to my hair, I wore almost none of my own clothing, and we didn't arrive until 3 (IT WASN'T MY FAULT I SWEAR ;o; ), I had such a lovely afternoon! It really reminded me what I loved about lolita in the first place: that the fashion is really an amazing gateway for meeting like-minded people who are wonderful to be around and really just all-around sweetie pies.

Also, I got to wear a leather gas mask and Sleeping Beauty crown out in public at the same time. How many people can make THAT boast in good faith?!

See you next time!

And who knows, "next time" might be sooner than either of us planned!

EDIT:

Carol made me this gif of me shakin' my fluffy little rufflebutt! I love it so- I've never been a gif before!

Shake that bustle!

I don't want to say I'm closing my blog, because that has a sting to it that I dislike. I've put off the inevitable for over a year now, but unfortunately, Her Lumpiness - and, indeed, lolita fashion altogether - has lost the spark, thrill, and release it once provided for me. I'm leaving this here, this entry, these articles, this wellspring of information and opinions which I've been trying my damnedest to amass since 2008, but this blog will officially no longer be updated.

I'm walking the curtain call, taking a bow, and exiting stage right.

It's time for me to say goodbye to lolita.

Can you really leave behind a fashion, a lifestyle, a movement that's been a part of your identity for seven years? No, probably not. At this point in my life, lolita is part of my psyche, and it's there to stay. It's part of how I evaluate the world, part of the literature and history I enjoy studying, part of the hobbies I've adopted. I may be leaving the fashion, but I doubt I'll be able to stop being a lolita completely. I've sewn frills onto the hem of my heart.

That said, there comes a time in everyone's life when they have to reevaluate. I'm going to be entering an entirely new phase in my life over the next year. I'm going to be, fingers crossed, graduating with my Bachelor's, moving to the big city, and working towards a career in writing. I'll have less time to devote to hobbies and fripperies and silliness, and much, much more need for any money I can get. Having hundreds of dollars sitting in my closet but not really being used seems childish at best and flat-out irresponsible at worst. No, I won't be selling all of it, but I'll be selling most; anything that doesn't have deeply-rooted memories connected to it will be gone.

And even some that do. Because that's something else, something that not many people know about me: I cling. I have strong ties left over to so many people and things that I shouldn't care about, people who've long since stopped caring about me whom I just can't seem to get over, and I'm sick of trying to figure out which meet-ups they're going to be at so I can avoid them, and I hate seeing memories of them hanging in my closet. I still have one of the dresses my ex bought me, and I tell myself I still have it because it's beautiful, which it is, and I'll wear it someday, which I might. But in the end, there are so many aspects of lolita that sting for so many different reasons, and I just can't have those in my life anymore.

There are so many people who've come and gone in my life because of lolita. Some of them I think about and feel the warmth of happy memories like the exhilaration of new life; some make me feel like my blood is running needles through my veins; mostly, it's a mixture of both. I cherish the growth they've prompted in me, and treasure the things I've learned from them, but in the end, I'd really like to stop being reminded of them every time I open my closet.

Why am I saying all of this? I don't know. I guess because in the end I feel like, while this blog has seen my blood, sweat, and tears, occasionally literally, I still don't feel like it has much of my soul in it. I figure I may as well go out with a bang instead of a whimper.

Though, like I've already said, I know that I can't leave blogging behind. Years ago I set up another blog, more of a journal than this, more personal, and never posted anything in it. I'm trying, tentatively, to publish things which are actually part of me, something like a writing journal, and the feeling is the same as stepping out onto a frozen river: the fear of cracking and crashing through into the freezing current is only abated momentarily by the thrill of doing something new, something different, something which could end horribly- oh, but what if it doesn't?

I am grateful every day which passes for those who have read and followed this blog - for years as well as those of you who've only read an article or two - and all of the amazing people I've met and friends I've made through writing here, as well as through lolita fashion in general. I wish I could tell you all individually how much I appreciate and value your views, comments, and support. To all those who have supported me, I honestly and truly thank you and appreciate you more than I know how to say. And to those who haven't... well, I've never had time for you, anyway, and I doubt that'll change any time soon.

I wrote this post a year ago or more. I keep going back and revising and adding more because I just can't bear to be done with it yet, but I suppose this is where I should leave off. Please know that, even if I'm not blogging anymore, my e-mail address in the sidebar is still active, so if you ever, ever, ever have anything you need to talk about or ask someone, I beg you not to hesitate to reach out to me. I've always been here for my readers, and that will never, ever change. You're all beautiful and amazing, and thank you so much for sticking by me for so long.

Love you all,

♥Miss Lumpy Aly Buttons

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This week's LBC topic: Three Prints I Would Like to See! For these three, I decided to go with one of my favorite themes, "Literary Lolita;" therefore, all of the prints are based off of literature, and are ridiculously detailed in description, because I'm a crazy person. Hey, we all have our passions, right?

So, once again, what on Earth is a Lolita Blog Carnival? Well, it's a group of Lolibloggers like myself who all blog together about the same topic on the same day. The topics are voted on at the Facebook group and a deadline is set, and everyone works on their articles until the posting deadline. At the end, we all link to each others' entries at the bottom of our own, so all of our lovely readers can see what other participating Lolibloggers had to say.

First and foremost: Antique Library. I imagine this as a richly-colored classical border print, in hunter green, burgundy, plum, cream, etc. It would have regimental stripes going down to about 3/4 of the way down the skirt, where tall, ornate wooden bookcases would begin. Then, closer to the bottom, there would be spindly antique tables and plush leather armchairs. Sporadically throughout the print there may be the silhouettes of lolitas, sitting at tables, reaching for books, reclining in chairs, but I'm not sold on that yet. At the top of the print, the regimental stripes would be decorated with small falling books, as if they're being dropped from the ceiling to the bookshelves below. After trying to find images to represent this print, I've found that JM did a library print themselves, but it's very different from what I'm envisioning!

Secondly: The Secret Garden. This would be a sweet/classic print with the main colorways as muted pastels, such as peach, sage, powder blue, etc. The main print, though, would be bright, spring-y colors depicting, front and center, a large wrought iron gate, Moitie-syle, entwined with large roses of various shades. Flanking it would be a stone wall with a fantastical garden twining up the dress behind it- huge sunflowers, big, ancient oaks, and all manner of vines and flowers twisting up to cover most of the skirt itself. I know Angelic Pretty did a Secret Garden series many moons ago, but this would be a more ETC-style kitschy, vintage look to it.

Third and finally: Love Letters of Great Men. There's this fabulous book I found at a friend's house, and it's seriously just a transcription on various love letter from various great men - everyone from Mark Twain to Napoleon Bonaparte. This sweet-classic print, inspired by BABY's Strawberry Love Letters series, would simply be a collection on there love letters in dress form. It would look like the letters were spread out on a gingham table cloth - or, even better, a wood-grain pattern like a well-oiled antique table - and all would be in different handwriting styles and signed by those who wrote them. They would probably be too small to actually read, but they would be strewn over this table cloth as well as daisies, roses, and various other flowers associated with love. This would come in a variety of colors of gingham (or woodgrain), but the main image itself - the letters and flowers - would hardly have to change per color.

See what everyone else had to say!

Ramble Rori

F Yeah Lolita

Lemontree
A Lace Jail
Good Morning Lovely
Darkly Darling

Secret Window
La Petite Princess
Carnivale Salt
Puppenschloss

Commercially Alternative
Parfait Doll
Toothless Tigers
Candy-Coated Life

Fashion Fairytales and Sewing Secrets

I'm pretty sure every follower of lolita fashion is familiar with the book we so often get likened to. Plenty of us yell and scream about how the conventional definition of the word is completely off-base, and we can tell people we aren't sexually-provocative young girls until our throats bleed, the only way we can truly understand the difference between ourselves and the characters in the book is to, you know, actually read it. That's what I was thinking the first time I picked up the book.I first read Lolita when I originally got into this fashion, to arm myself against what I imagined would be an onslaught of pedophiles as soon as I uttered its name. I went to my local library. I read the first page. I was hooked, and the addiction would last a lifetime.

It isn't even so much that it's a good story. For me, that first time, it didn't even have a story. I was so entranced by the beauty of Nabokov's language, his flowery descriptions and elegant prose, that my first time reading the book I couldn't have told you what it was about. I registered nothing but the words- beautiful words I had never heard of or seen before, in English, Latin, and French.

But then, the second time I read it, I picked up on the plot: the beautiful, heartbreaking, incredibly disturbing plot. You may have heard that Lolita

is a troubling book, not just in the sense of being a mentally-taxing read, but also in that you find yourself rooting for the bad guy-- a bad guy who is so far from most civilized morals that, before reading, you think he's the type of character you could never feel any sympathy for. Of course I won't go into details or give anything away, but anyone who has experience with incest, sexual trauma, rape, or even kidnapping, please be warned that this book could be highly triggering. However, if you're a bibliophile, this piece is practically required reading. It was through Lolitathat I learned to think critically of point of view, that I learned that the narrator is not always trustworthy, that I learned to think outside of the box which was instilled in me during my middle school English classes. When I'm a literature teacher, I'll probably assign this book for these reasons if nothing else.

But I digress. The point is, there's more to this book than racy thematic devices. This piece is an excellent read for anyone interested in vintage fashion (Oh, if I had Dolly's wardrobe!), psychology, literature, or even just people who like long books full of fancy words and beautiful prose which borders on erotica. If nothing else, read this book to arm yourself against the fight our name has destined us for; I can almost guarantee you'll enjoy it.