Hi everybody!
I’m back from my four day weekend. Did I do everything on that to-do list? HA. Of course not. The point of a to-do list is to look back and see everything you DIDN’T do. But I’ll get to all that. As usual, let’s start at the beginning…
Friday night I picked up Kevin and we ran to the fabric store. I got the new linen for TFA Leia, some other little things I needed, and tried to find something similar to the fabric I used for the Luke tunic last year… nothing. I ended up with some more linen for him which thankfully ended up super cheap thanks to coupons (yay 60% off!). We went to Memphis Pizza Cafe for dinner and then home so I can knock this tunic together:
This linen just doesn’t hang the right way though. It worked ok for now. Hopefully the real one turns up eventually.
Saturday was busy!
First up we headed out to the grand opening of the new Bricks and Minifigs in Collierville. They had a huge turnout!
Kevin was still getting over his sinus infection so after a while he was getting overheated and worn out. So we headed off. I put all the photos into a new Trooping 2017 folder since I had a few smaller events that didn’t warrant their own album.
Then we had a few errands to run – went to Target and let Kevin pick out his bday present (a video game, go figure).
We found pool noodle lightsabers:
I asked Kevin if he wanted them and he said no. Well ok then.
Freak Nasty!!
Kevin is a newsie:
Then I took Kevin swimming for a bit, since I hadn’t gotten to do it for his birthday last weekend. I forgot to bring him a change of clothes tho. So to keep him from getting my car seat soaked, I put him in my cover-up LOL:
Then we headed over to his house for the 4th of July festivities.
He would not go anywhere near the edge of the dock because he thought I was going to push him in. I have never pushed him in the lake so I don’t know where he gets this LOL
The boat broke down so we just watched from the dock. Still a good view.
The best part of the night was that, across the lake, they had a Pink Floyd tribute band playing. And they played through the fireworks. It was an awesome soundtrack.
Then we headed home because we were EXHAUSTED.
Sunday was running some more errands… work around the house, sewing day! I’ll get to all the sewing at the end though. Had dinner with my parents. That was about the most exciting thing.
Monday was photoshoot day!!
Luna behind the backdrop.
Chase said I could shoot 3 costumes – so I picked the pink georgian of course, Misato (before it completely disintegrates), and Janet Snakehole.
Started with Janet Snakehole since she was the easiest – though I realized afterwards I forgot to put my necklace on. Oh well.
Love how these turned out. I’ll have them up on her portfolio site soon.
For Misato, I shot it a few different ways – I used different shoes than what I usually wore with her, and I used a natural tone wig AND a purple wig – shot both. Did some without the hat and some with. Did some without the jacket, too. Lots of options.
And then we got to the Georgian. Had to lace in tighter than usual to make it fit… and then it took Chase a while to figure out the bustling which we eventually gave up on. I was getting overheated VERY fast. We finally got it bustled to do a few shots, and I started getting tunnel vision and realized I really was on the verge of passing out. Sat down on the couch and Chase undid my corset while I drank some water. Was a little shaky after that for a bit. It was disappointing. Hardly got any photos of it bustled. I look uncomfortable in every photo before that. And the edge of my stomacher wasn’t tucked in properly. š Hopefully some will be usable.
We had wings for dinner and watched part of our next AFI movie.
Tuesday Chase was off shooting a film so I slept in as much as I could. Went swimming with mom and Ash and her mom. After lunch and a nap it was back to sewing the rest of the day.
So now here’s the sewing segment.
TFA Leia – got NOTHING done except buying new fabric.
Bespin Leia – nothing.
Mon Mothma – nothing.
Pink Fluffy Thing – YES!
Ok so first up – on Friday I got the rest of the materials I needed for the bodice – bra cups, grommets. So I got the rest of the lining cut, all the layers sewn together, boning in. Joann’s didn’t have the bra cups I usually use in my size. So I picked something close but they caused a lot of problems that I now can’t fix.
(The 3 layers)
The problem was is that they were much “lower profile” than what I usually use, but I thought they still looked ok initially and went ahead and installed them, and cut the bust seam to fit the curve of these cups. I trimmed out the excess, clipped my curves, all done. Everything looked fine — I had kinda held it up to me and pulled it back and it looked ok like that. So I went ahead and put my grommets in, too, and closed up the bottom edge. Then I tried it on again finished and… there are no boobs whatsoever. It’s totally flat. These cups did nothing. The ones I normally use still give a nice shape even once the bodice is totally tightened up. I went and pulled out my DCNU Wonder Woman and pulled the old cups off those (they were just sewn on the back so easy to take off and put back on) and tried putting those in instead. No go – because I’d flatted that bust seam down so much to match the curve of the flatter ones, there was nothing left to save. I’d have to totally redo the entire thing – redye the fabric, remake the outer part, buy new grommets and restructure it. Which I reaaaaaaaaally don’t want to do.
For now I’ve left it… It doesn’t look that bad…. I could live with it. It’s just disappointing because the shape I wanted is the shape I usually get when I make a bodice like this. All because Joanns only had the smaller size of my preferred cups.
I’m pondering recutting JUST the two front panels and seeing if I could manage to dye them close enough to match the other panels… It would be hard to reinstall those two panels even if I could get the dye to match. I might play with it this week and see. I think by next week it will be too late to do anything else about it.
ANYWAY that was a whole chunk of text with no photos to break it up. Let’s move on to my pocket hoops which DO have some photos.
I had some cotton leftover from my Tightrope Walker parasol project that was enough to use for this – and I had hooping leftover so YAY being able to make something without buying anything. I used the pattern from Jean Hunnisett’s book – I found it a little difficult to follow ONLY because the directions were on one page and the pattern was on the next. So I kept having to read “sew B to A and K to J” and then turn the page and find B, A, K, and J. And I kept getting mixed up.
But I managed. Here’s the bodice with it’s smushy boobs and the first pocket hoop. They’re pretty sloppy but I’m not worried about it for a first attempt that is never going to be seen – they do the job well enough.
I finished up the second one late Monday night, I was feeling very accomplished…. and then I realized I sewed the bottom on the wrong way LOL. So I redid it Tuesday.
Once I got those finished up, I started piecing together the skirt. That was the easiest part of this so far. I finished the seams on the interior since they might be seen.
This is NOT pleated correctly, I just did that so it would stay on. I think I will just do a cartridge pleat over on the sides so it stays flat in the front and the back. Once I get that done and get the skirt attached, the basic part of this is done… then it’s all just decoration. Whoo.
Starting to feel a little under the gun about getting everything done, but then I realize I’m actually in a pretty good place. Yeah I have basically everything left on TFA Leia but I think once I get the dye working right it will go quickly. Mon Mothma is done except the necklace and the wig (and finding shoes). The pink one is coming along. Got a few things to fix on Bespin and Dolores. I think it’s fine.