Everytime I have a lot of hand-sewing to do, my fingertips get so sore they feel like they are burnt. That’s how they feel today.
So yeah that’s mostly what I did this weekend. Hand-sewing and beading on Tink. Didn’t use my sewing machine once because everything left had to be done by hand.
Did a whole lot more beading. Hand-sewed down the rest of the mesh along the waist. Sewed the outer dress in place on the back around the eyelets.
Originally I was going to leave the length of each skirt panel and tuck it up to create the tiered effect, but that was leaving me with way too much fabric balled up under the skirt. I don’t even know why I thought that would work. So I cut the excess off and carefully pinned the panels in place, then sewed them down (did some beading down there while I was at it), and sewed the interior edges down.
My ONE problem area was on the right side panel (my right). No matter what I did the front edge did not want to lay straight. I undid my sewing and redid it twice but each time it was the same problem, so I have to assume the problem is with the underdress and past the point of repair at this point. Why couldn’t it have been on the left side where it will be hidden by the side bustle?! Figures.
Once I got the skirts panels done, I went back and trimmed down the excess pieces, got them pinned in place and sewn down.
I decided not to finish the edges of them. They don’t fray badly at all, and I like the rough edge of it.
And also sewed the trim in place along the top.
Late last night I started playing with the side bustle.
The bustle is the one longest piece of the dyed fabric I had leftover, the rest of the sparkle mesh, and a length of the trim from the bustline. The trim at the moment is underneath the mesh so it kinda peeks out. It didn’t look right on the outside.
The other trim I had I thought I’d put on along the bottom of the longest piece.
I’m going to build all of these around a base, which will snap onto the dress (or a hook and eye, I don’t know yet. Maybe magnet?!), so if I don’t want to wear the giant fabric explosion, I don’t have to. I found a really pretty art-nouveau style brooch on clearance the other day, so I’m going to put that at the top of bustle piece.
I also cut 2 pieces off my trim for my shoes!
These dang shoes are too small. Just putting them on and standing in them for 2 seconds left red marks on my heels. I’ve worn them around with thick socks, heated them up with a hair dryer to stretch them…. they’re not leather based, they’re synthetic with an outer layer of satin, so these were the main tips I could find. Somebody else suggested a shoe stretcher which I think we have somewhere, may have to give that a try too. Also going to line the interior with moleskin. I’ll be wearing tights so hopefully between those things it’ll be ok.
Oh! And I don’t have photos but Chase made good progress on my upper wings. Just got to work the lights in and then I can sew the fabric around them.
Other stuff….
Saw Annihilation Friday night. I’ve really been looking forward to it because I LOVED the book.
SPOILER ALERTS BELOW
Ok so right off the bat, I hated that they gave all the characters names. I don’t think it was necessary. A lot of plot points were changed. (did the biologist cheat on her husband in the book? I don’t remember that.) The tower was not in the movie at all. The psychologist’s hypnosis words don’t come up. (ie Annihilation…) The ending was TOTALLLLLLLLLY different.
That being said I still really enjoyed it. The cast was great, I liked Natalie Portman as the biologist more than I thought I would. Area X was GREAT. The bear creature (and its screaming) was SUPER CREEPY and awesome. Even though the ending was different I liked it… the creature in the lighthouse was also super creepy and neat. The music/sound effects added to the creepiness.
The ending to me felt like it was finished up. Like they wrapped it up into one movie and there won’t be more. Chase felt the opposite — but if that’s the case, it seems like a sequel would have to be TOTALLY different than the books because of how it left off. But could maybe work. I’d watch it.
And now I want to reread the book and see the movie again to compare more? It’s been a bit since I read the books.
END SPOILERY STUFF
And otherwise I was home all weekend. I did get this.
Cute.
House talk….
We’ve started packing up non-essential stuff here and there at home. We’ve been looking at houses available online, but haven’t moved to finder a realtor and looking at anything in person yet. We are hoping to move in the late spring/early summer. I can’t remember if I’d said that here already or not! Right now we’re in the midst of a few home repairs before we can sell but hopefully they will go quick — new gutters, new garage door (we knew we needed one because it was cracked; it totally broke just this morning LOL), grass in the backyard, paint, etc.
The biggest thing is — and I think I’ve said this before — is that we’ve just totally outgrown the house. Yes, it has 4 bedrooms – but those rooms are all very, very small. And for a pair of people who have as many interests and hobbies as we do, we are bursting at the seams. (We do intend to get rid of a lot of stuff/simplify as we pack. Already threw out a bunch of stuff in our kitchen junk cabinet yesterday. Going to sell some geeky stuff we just don’t need anymore, probably donate some books/movies, etc).
Part of the biggest problem in the house is that it just doesn’t have a lot of storage space. The pantry and entryway closet are both so tiny I don’t think I could fit in them. Our master bath doesn’t have a place for towels – there’s not even room to put like, a rack in there. The master closet is smaller than the closet I had at my parents’ house. The others are just a couple of reach-ins. We just don’t have enough space to store stuff.
I mean obviously a big part of that is my costumes and sewing stuff. If I wasn’t a costumer we’d probably still have plenty of room. Let’s see… if I removed all my costume stuff that’d probably free up 30% of the garage. Half of the guest room. The entire linen closet. And one entire bedroom. LOL. Oh and some space under our bed and in a shelf in our master closet.
My hope is in the next house, it has a large bonus room where I can fit EVERYTHING. No more sprawling out into every other room of the house.
In fact, just for fun, here’s my “want” list for my future sewing room:
1. A closet big enough to store the majority of my costumes in
2. Enough room for a small couch or chair where I can do hand-sewing. Right now I do it in the living room because there’s nowhere to comfortably sit in my sewing room. I sit on the floor most of the time.
3. Sunlight! I want some natural light! Right now I have one window that I keep the curtains closed – even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t make a difference, because the window is pretty much blocked by our neighbor’s house.
4. Enough room for a fold-down table and a fold-down ironing board.
5. A laundry room big enough for me to actually do laundry in. Ok that’s not sewing room but it’s close since I have to use the laundry room pretty often in costume stuff. Right now it’s so tiny and cramped you can’t do anything but take clothes in and out. I’d like to have a place to actually put our hamper in there, maybe fold clothes and maybe have a SECOND ironing board in there (ooooh).
Other notes in general…
1. Front door is not directly in the living room. I’m a scaredy cat ok? My parents house had a front door in the living room and one night… I’m not going to tell this story now. But it creeped me out and I’d like some separation please.
2. Kitchen is not directly IN the living room. Doesn’t have to be totally closed off but again some separation please, if I’m watching tv I don’t want to hear dish noises. We have this problem now in case you couldn’t tell….
3. STORAGE! BIG CLOSESTS! Why don’t people take pictures of these things when posting pics of houses for sale?
4. Fenced in yard for future pups.
5. Second story. I know it’s stupid but I’ve never lived in a 2 story house and I want to. It’s the 5 year old in me. LOL.
6. I do NOT want a bigger version of what we have now. We’ve looked at several houses and some of them are literally just that. One I looked at even had the exact same fire place. The same stupid “shell shaped” sinks in the bathrooms. The same cabinets, etc.
7. Would love to have a walk-in attic, and a decent sized porch… but those aren’t dealbreakers. Just would be nice.
8. No houses where they are stacked right up against the other houses with the garage in the back and no way to get to the front door except to walk around the block.
ANYWAY I’ve rambled for too long. Fingers crossed we find something and everything goes more smoothly than last time. (IE, hope we don’t have to live with family for 3 months while we fight with the bank about closing on our house…)
Oh and some art. A Breha to add onto the 365 project.
