Spent the last week going to play practice, having a migraine, and working on the nun.
The robe isn’t much to look at.
Followed the pattern exactly for this — I did make it a little bigger because I’d rather work down than have it be too small.
This is a really thin black satin and I there are times it’s almost leather-like, especially when interfaced, so I think that’s pretty neat.
The collar is also satin.
This is collar #1. It looked ok when it was on wider shoulders than my dressform:
(Chase has been very patient trying things on for me this past week.)
But I wasn’t all that happy with it and felt like it really needed to be interfaced — it looked ok if you smoothed it all out but a slight shift and it looked droopy. So I remade it and interfaced it and it lays much nicer all the time now.
We wanted a very specific “boxy” shape for the veil. I played around with several things – craft foam, felt, buckram – and none of it was stiff enough to not droop under the weight of the fabric. (Wish we had some place local that carries worbla.) Here it is with a piece of leather in place that worked…
But it was a REALLY thick piece of leather and very heavy. So I had to go back to the drawing board.
In the meantime I made the rest of the head-pieces…
The “cowl” piece I didn’t use the white satin for – I had some leftover 2 way satin stretch (from my Aelsa gloves) – it was close enough to the regular satin that I decided to use that so it would be more comfortable and easy to get off/on. The pattern I was using didn’t have anything like this, so I patterned it out of some scraps, got it fitted to Chase’s head and it worked fine.
The “cap” piece is straight out of the pattern.
For the veil, I used the pattern piece that came with the pattern, but didn’t use it exactly like the directions said. I lined it in white instead of doing a facing, and since I didn’t have to tuck over some of the top edge to make that facing, I was able to keep it longer, which is what my friend wanted.
As you can see this absolutely does not fit a wighead. Nor my head because my head is about the same size as a wig head LOL. So once again, Chase to the rescue..
While I got some white satin baby blanket binding for the edge of the veil, it looked too different from the rest of the satin. So I decided to just turn back the edges instead. I can use the binding on my next Padme lake dress, so no great loss.
So with the leather being too heavy, Chase found a piece of plastic in the garage that was a nice weight, cut out the same size for me and that worked MUCH better.
Glue wasn’t working well with this fabric, so instead of gluing it in place, I hand-stitched around it.
After I got that sewn in I sewed the white edges back, closed up the other end, and pressed everything. Now I’m trying to get the velcro attachments put in place. I’m hoping to be done with it all by Wednesday. Tonight I’m focusing on the velcro and tomorrow going over and pressing everything again and making sure it all looks ok. I think there might be a couple of places on the veil I might want to restitch and I need to check the arm lengths on the robe… just little things.
In other news…
So on Thursday I deposited a check and had some money to spend … first up I bought the Tiki bird dress I had wanted to get back in April when we went to WDW but it was sold out. YAY!
Then I ordered 9yds of jetset (for a new Leia dress!) on Joanns and I did store pick-up, since our local store had 40 yds and thought surely within that 40 yds will be one uncut bolt (8 yds) or at least 4 yds and 4 yds. Well the next day the local store called and said they only had 2 cuts, one of 7yds and one of 2yds. I might have been able to get away with 7yds but I was so annoyed at the system being wrong (where’d the other 31 yds go? what’s the point in displaying that online if it’s not right/kept up with?!) that I was like, no that won’t work. So they just straight up canceled my order.
So Chase called Joanns customer service for me. They said maybe try the Southaven store, it says they have 35 yds. So even though the system was apparently totally wrong about the Memphis store stock, we got up Saturday morning and trekked down to Mississippi to go to the Southaven store
(Also I’m very annoyed by the fact our only Joann store is in South Memphis, and then the Southaven store is right south of the state line. Why are they both in the same general area?! Why isn’t there one anywhere in the north part of the city?! Nevermind me I’m still salty from Hancock closing.)
So thankfully the Southaven store did have 35 yards spread across 4 bolts. The biggest bolt had like 7.75 yds on it, so I got all of that, plus one extra yard for the hood. YAY!
So I’m not rushing this project…. mine 2006 version is still wearable. But I’ll probably start it after I get the nun done.
Things I want to change in the new version:
1. fabric thickness. Well I’m not really changing this, but the jetset I bought in 2006 is MUCH thicker than the current jetset (I noticed it when I used the jetset for Romana in 2013). I think the thinner stuff will look a lot better.
2. Sleeve openings at torso – always felt like mine were too big, raise them up a little.
3. No top-stitching
And once I get the dress done, I’m going to have dad help me make a new belt, and then eventually new boots. Replace it all slowly.
Anyway. After Joanns we ran some errands then headed back towards home for my grandma’s birthday lunch.
It was nice, I ate a bunch. Didn’t take many pics except for:
(I didn’t write that! I think dad did!)
Then Sunday we had my OTHER grandma’s birthday lunch! Didn’t take pics there either except for a snapchat video of Kevin:
Ran some errands after that too. My foot has been acting up, in the place where I had the half needle removed in 2011 (LOL) – it’s done this a couple of times but I was limping around everywhere Saturday and by Sunday I was still limping but now my calf was aching from all the limping on Saturday. Is this what it means to get old? Still limping around today.
Luna wrote her name on the carpet.
And last thought. This is the time of year when it’s totally pitch black when I get to work. It’s super creepy.
Even creepier since I don’t turn any lights on for the first hour I’m here. I just sit here in the dark.