Despite that title, I’m starting with art today just because I have a bunch to untangle from last week. Including a HOUSE INTRUDER, a LOT OF SEWING, some MOVIES, and DOG-SITTING!
Since last post I’ve only focused on knocking out Clone Wars stuff.
Here’s what I kept calling “Loyalist Committee Lite”
I totally just used the skirt embellishment from my own Loyalist Committee art, I did NOT feel like drawing that again!!
Gold dress:
Trial dress:
I think this one may actually be one of my fav Clone Wars outfits of hers and I wasn’t even going to include it at first! Wasn’t til I dug into the details that I realized how much I liked it.
So now I have 3 left — the purple dress from Senate Spy (working on that one now), wedding dress from AOTC and the one concept one I’m doing.
I honestly can’t believe I kept up with this project!! I’m excited.
So last week was interesting. It was our first week with the For Sale sign out. We had two viewings on Wednesday, though the 2nd person was a no show. The first person liked it tho! Another one scheduled for this week. Last week I had to take Luna over to Nana’s during the viewing and that was interesting. I had her in Indy’s old kennel (so she wouldn’t be cramped in a tiny travel case for an hour), and Nana’s dog Daisy kept wandering next to it and freaking her out and she was hissing like crazy. But Daisy is mostly deaf and I don’t even think she noticed LOL. THIS week will be even more fun because we are keeping Kes this week so I have to take BOTH animals somewhere. I will probably take them to my parents house since that’s easier, I can let Luna out of the kennel there.
Thursday after I got home from work, I decided to do a house tour on my instagram story while the house was still nice and neat. While I was in the entryway, I opened our wooden front door for light (security door was still closed and locked). Then I went back to my sewing room to show how empty it is (it’s barren!) and didn’t shut the wooden back (was just going to do it on my way back to the living room when I was done).
While I was in my sewing room, I heard the doorbell ring. I thought oh crap, I left the wooden door open, I can’t sneak up to look out the peephole. Decided to just ignore it, because 9 times out of 10 when somebody rings the doorbell it’s just a delivery and they always ring the bell when they leave a package on the doorstep. After a minute tho, VERY LOUD KNOCKING (I would classify as BANGING) on the security door, and ringing the doorbell again. Great.
I’m stuck in my sewing room because they minute I’d come out I’d be visible from the door and I’m not in a part of the house where I can get a look out the windows. So after a few more seconds whoever is at the door starts going HELLO?! HELLOOOOOOOOO!!
So I know whoever is at the door is probably just somebody interested in the house and wants to see it. But A) I am not the one to talk to about the house, that is Chase, call the number on the sign. and B) you cannot come into the house right now, Luna is here and I’m not letting strangers in the house when I’m home alone.
So I continue to ignore it but THEN…. I can hear them TRYING TO OPEN THE DOOR. They rattle the handle back and forth.
WTF WHO DOES THAT?!
Ok so I’m definitely not going anywhere near the door. Because who tries to just open the door to come into a stranger’s house? MURDERERS THAT’S WHO.
So I call Chase and ask if anybody has called him wanting to see the house today – nope. So after a few minutes of quiet I peek around the door and nobody is there, so I quickly shut the wooden door and lock it.
Ok so maybe that story makes me sound like an anxious paranoid shut-in…. but I AM an anxious paranoid shut-in. I don’t answer the door for strangers. I don’t like talking to people I don’t know. And most of all DON’T TRY TO WALK INTO MY HOUSE UNINVITED IF I DON’T KNOW YOU! WTF THIS ISN’T THE 1950s!
So anyway. Thursday night I finished my Crait Leia cloak. YAS!
Finished getting the sleeves sewn on, and got the hem closed up. I got it pressed as well as I could on my tiny ironing board.
It has some problems; the fabric isn’t perfect, the sleeves a LITTLE bit too short where they meet the cape at the bottom back and the collar at the back isn’t laying quite right. BUT OH WELL I DON’T CARE this will be mark 1 and I can go off this later on if I find a better fabric.
I had Friday off work. YAY! I slept in a bit, then got up and got right to work.
#1 goal was to FINALLY finish my new TFA Leia underdress. I’d had it MOSTLY finished for a while now — I just need to finish the hem by hand. I’d taken it with me to Nashville in April thinking I could work on it in the hotel room but of course I never did and of course it stayed in that bag since April. So I finally fished it out, and got that hem finished. And fixed one thing on the collar facing, too.
YAY! That’s done!
Next up another thing I’ve been putting off — back at MCFC in November I noticed that one of my sleeve seams was tearing. I was worried it the silk outer layer may be permanently damaged and immediately bought a backup yard in case I had to remake the whole sleeve. But when I opened it up yesterday, turns out I’d just gotten to close to the edge of the silk outer layer when sewing it up, I was able to just unpick the seam, pull it up a little, and sew it back up and it was all fixed. YAY!
And just in case it’s NOT all fixed… I still have a yard as backup.
Then I went swimming with the mums. Fun. Came home, ate lunch, and told myself I could have a nap after I got my Crait Leia underdress fabric cut.
I had a hard time finding a pattern that would work for the underdress. Honestly I just wanted something super easy and straightforward after the pain of patterning the cloak myself. And of course I didn’t have/couldn’t find anything that was straightforward and super easy. I ended up using Butterick B4827, which had more seams than I wanted, was more fitted than I wanted, and had more of a train than I wanted. But it did have the neckline and sleeves I wanted.
So I eliminated the front side/princess seams and the ones on the back, too, and just folded the back panel over to eliminate some of the fullness/length of the train. Ended up working well. My underdress fabric shed EVERYWHERE, little black bits that looked like eyelashes all over my bedroom and sewing room floor LOL
I just pinned the front panel on to get an idea.
Then I had a nap, got up and went and picked up Kes from my parents. She’s staying with us this week while my parents are on vacation!
Chase & I got home at the same time and we decided to go see Incredibles 2! We wanted to use our moviepass so we went ahead and went straight to the movie theater to get our tickets for a later showing, then we were going to go to dinner. Well it was all sold out for the all the showings all night! One had 2 seats together in the very front, but when the cashier went back to get those for us, one was gone! Boo! So we just decided to go to dinner and see the movie later on.
After that we ran to Target and I finally got a new full size ironing board. YAY! I had wanted to try to wait til after we moved (one less thing to move) but I had to have one to properly press this Leia cape. Trying to do it on the mini board was insane.
I also got…
JEFF GOLDBLUM
I couldn’t pass it up.
Then since we were home earlier I decided to do a LITTLE work on the underdress. I decided I would just go ahead and run a line of stitching around the edge of each panel — since the fabric was fraying so bad I thought it needed it. So I got that done and then decided — ok, gonna do just one more thing — let’s get my lining cut. I decided to just use plain black cotton for the lining so it’d be breathable and comfortable. So I got that cut. Then I decided, ok, just one more thing, I’ll get the lining attached to the front panel – got that done and pressed and got the hem of the lining finished (I only lined to the knee). Then I was like ok one more thing – get the lining attached to the back, too. Then I was like, ok it’ll only take me a minute to put these panels together, so I sewed them together. Then I was like this hem would be easy so I went and ahead and hemmed it. So by the end of the night I had a nearly finished dress.
Wasn’t expecting that! It went so quick!
All it needed was the side seams pressed, a zipper put in, and the sleeves finished.
Saturday we got up and ran some errands. Then came home and I tackled finishing this underdress.
Here’s a close up of the fabric.
And here’s the dress finished.
I can’t remember the last time I completed a sewing project like this start to finish in less than a day. I’m really happy about it.
So by mid-day Saturday I had to just kinda step back and be like…. ok…. well, it’s done. I’m done sewing this.
So I just put it on a hanger and took it into the other room and hung it in the closet. It felt so weird to just… finish something and put it away. But I don’t need it til Dragon Con.
I do still need to figure out the bracelet, the wig, and the ring.
Then since it was only Saturday afternoon I decided to pull out that one project that is constantly haunting me – the pink Georgian.
I spent Saturday evening playing with ways to gather/bustle the skirt up. Finally figured out a configuration I like. One in front, one on the side seam and one center back.
Got the cords sewn in and snaps attached at the waistline for them. Yay!
Then yesterday we had Father’s Day lunch and then I came home and tried it on. Annnnnnnd no luck.
Last time I wore it (white backdrop shoot), we had to lace the corset so tight that I ended up very nearly passing out and had to get out of quick to catch my breath. I had Chase lace me into it not so tight this time and — it would not close over my chest. Not even close. Dangit.
It’s always been an issue right thru there from the start. So I decided ok — it’s time to try to make this thing wearable. Even though I know that anywhere I have to UNSEW this is going to leave damaged fabric visible (dang silk velvet). But it’s either that or I have a very expensive, very time-consuming costume hanging in my closet that I’ve never gotten to fully wear or enjoy.
My plan of attack is thus.
1. I’ve removed the stomacher. I had it sewn on one side, and hook and eye closure on the other side. This was always difficult to deal with. So I took it off and it looks like I can squeeze about an extra inch and a half out the previously sewn on edge/removing the eyes. I’m going to go with the more traditional way of attaching a stomacher – I’m going to sew tabs on the sides and pin it onto my corset, and then pin the dress to it.
2. I’m going to loosen the pleats on the outer bodice. The left side one is already straining a bit so I’m going to cut them loose, make them a bit more shallow (I think I could probably free up half an inch between both sides). On the inside lining I’m just going to cut an opening and patch it to match the give created by loosening the outside pleats (since the lining doesn’t have the pleats).
3. I’m going to take the sleeves off and reattach them. They have never looked right at the back shoulder. I’m hoping to make them look a little less weird.
4. If between steps 1 and 2 I STILL don’t have enough room in the chest, I’m going to open up the front edge and see if there’s any wiggle room there. I’ll do that while I have the sleeves off so I can get it at it without too much trouble.
And then hopefully it can be wearable for once. I’m hoping I can wear it to ABC Sunday.
Last night we went to see Ocean’s 8 with Ash. It was cute!
Chase already has 3 people wanting to see the house this week. Here’s hoping he can line them all up on one night so I only have to take the dog and cat out of the house once this week.
That’s it for this week’s post!