So Friday we got snow!
Not a lot but it was enough to make driving a little scary. Unfortunately we didn’t get a snow day 🙁 I worked all day, Chase most of the day.
So besides that I have two sets of costume updates – Bespin Leia (AKA the bad) and Dolores (AKA the good). Which do I start with? I’ll start with Bespin.
So I was making really good progress last week.
And I was pretty happy with how everything was looking.
There was a big problem though. And that big problem was that I really hadn’t looked at my reference (outside of what was in the star wars costume book) in over a year. I had to pull them up to confirm a colour… and bam. I was hit with the realization that the pattern I’d made was not accurate, specifically the little shapes between the spires.
And it wasn’t like I could take them out and redo them. They were wrong on my original pattern I’d made, and traced, onto the fabric. Traced onto the fabric in non-removeable ink.
So it was a crisis.
THANKFULLY I had bought way too much fabric and I had enough to start over. But it meant I lost a week and a half’s worth of work (AND part of that work was what I did over the 5 day weekend over New Year’s.) I just couldn’t deal with losing that much time, so I buckled down, altered my pattern, and got all 5 of them transferred over to the new fabric Saturday night. It was honestly grueling and awful. I started at 8:30 that night and finished at 2AM and my neck, back, and legs were killing me from leaning over it for that long.
Sunday I got started embroidering again. I have no photos of the start of the second version, but I did make some progress – got one of the large flowers on the bottom done to see how it was going, and a few of the little shapes in between the spires. This is when I decided I really liked how it was looking better with the stabilizer.
I was using tear-away stabilizer in the first version and realized afterwards that it’s too hard to tear off in between some of minuscule stitches. So on the new version I tried to go without and I’m just really not happy with how it’s looking without the stabilizer. It’s taking longer too. So I’m going to try water soluble stabilizer tonight… we’ll see how that goes. BLEH
So now onto the good.
I worked on Dolores a little – not a lot, but enough to make some progress and be really happy with how it’s looking.
First up last week I bought a wig! It should be here today. Fingers crossed it’s decent. I took a gamble and bought something from amazon. It had decent reviews, so I’m cautiously optimistic.
Saturday we ran by Tandy and picked up the stuff for my belt – the belt with the design on it, the dye, and a buckle to use as a base. I’m hoping I have enough scraps in our leather bin to make the pouch without having to buy something else.
(Belt!)
Then to Hobby Lobby to hopefully find some trim and buttons. I actually found buttons at Tandy I liked better but it would’ve been like $30 for 6 buttons and I was like hell nah. So I found some at Hobby Lobby, and roughed them up with some sandpaper and painted them.
(Original on the left, weathered on the right)
They’re good enough.
They had some velvet ribbon trim that wasn’t the right colour – it was like a lilac, but I decided to get some and try to dye it. Had to do the same with the white rickrack (they didn’t have a pale blue). I did get yellow rick rack that was generally right, and some lace to put underneath everything. Dyeing the velvet ribbon and the rickrack went well, and I’m really happy with how the velvet came out. I didn’t take pics of any of it yet — I’m going to get it all attached tonight so I’ll have pics tomorrow.
Now that I had my buttons I could finally do the button holes in the top – I got that done which was thankfully painless (though I’m still waiting to see if my fray check is going to stain this fabric – I left it drying overnight and forgot to check it this morning. Hopefully it doesn’t so I can fraycheck these button holes without issue. I’m thinking it’s not going to stain but I wasn’t going to take the chance.)
Got the buttons sewn on and was finally able to put it all on without pins! I’m like 95% super happy with the way it’s turned out.
(Ignore Chase in the background playing video games. And our laundry on the bed. I feel like everytime I take mirror photos lately Chase is always in the background playing video games and there is always laundry on the bed LOL)
I’m really pleased with the way it’s fitting. My only nitpick is that the back neckline up through the shoulders is a TINY bit big. I MIGHT take a dart back there if it works out, but if it doesn’t it’s not that big a deal, because it’s not really noticeable.
The skirt issue I DO need to tackle, though. It’s a little wrinkled in the above pics because it’s been laying on the floor the last couple of days LOL but even with a good pressing the pleats in the back are not laying right. I think a big part of the problem is this fabric tends to cling to itself in weird ways, so I’m going to try a few different things, and my last resort will be tacking the pleats down to make them stay in the right place.
So anyway, I was thinking about what kind of boots I wanted to wear with this – I have several options in my costume closet, but in the end I picked these:
I’d say from about 99-2000 up through 2006-2007ish these were my FAVOURITE BOOTS ON THE PLANET. I wore them all the time. To school, to work, out shopping, on my first date with Chase! But I finally had to stop when I realized the faux suede exterior was beginning to harden and crack and crumble 🙁 SAD TIMES. I didn’t get rid of them though. They have stayed in my closet anyway because I loved them so much and I never wanted to get rid of them. I always played around with the idea of striping the rest of the faux suede off, remove the accessories, and rebuilding them out of leather.
But I decided they’d be great for my Dolores boots. They’ve got a little heel but nothing crazy, they’re super comfortable and I love the chance to get to wear them again. So there.
Oooooh hang on I forgot the good part of Bespin Leia.
My tunic and pants fabric came in!!! It’s so pretty!!
Not touching it til I make a mockup first though, so it’s staying folded it up in it’s pretty little mood bag for now.
Also coolness, last time I ordered from mood I got a Swatch “end of the bolt” sticker, which was cool. This time I got a sew in “made with mood” tag! I’m going to use it!
And last thing, I saw this lovely needlepoint on the clearance rack at Hobby Lobby and had to share.
