the final frontier

We’re past the halfway point in the first season in our Star Trek TNG watch/rewatch! (rewatch for me – watch for Chase) I’m enjoying it sooo much. And Chase is too which is making me really happy!!

So anyway.
I think this week I’ll start with sewing.
So last week I left off not being able to decide between the fully gathered panel or just doing half of it. Part of my hesitation was that I didn’t have enough fabric left. So on Monday I drove down to the other Hobby Lobby and found another yard of this material. And out of that, I made a fully gathered panel so I had both options to look at.

Fully gathered – closer to the movie inspiration.

Half gathered – I liked that this kinda made it look like a dirndl?

I got 4 opinions and all 4 said go with the fully gathered like the actual one. I couldn’t do it EXACTLY like the original one since I’m still working in a heavier cotton, but I did 8 (or was it 9? I can’t remember now) lines of gathering stitches across it and then sewed it down to a backing panel. My lower right edge of the gathering got kinda funky and I was not about to redo it to fix it, since the apron will cover it anyway.

Luna has been CONSTANTLY IN THE WAY during this project. And gets mad and bites me when I have to move her.

So after I got the new front panel sewn in onto the outer layer, I realized I was having some weirdness at the bust line – it was too wide/big, especially in comparison to the lining layer, so I ended up turning the two front darts into full seams to take out the extra fullness through the bust. Then I realized it was still too big through the waist – both the lining and outer piece – and that pulling it in tighter at the back wasn’t helping (so I couldn’t take it up at the back seam, essentially). I had to do 2 more sets of darts on either side. It helped but that front panel is still not wanting to conform to my shape – it wants to tent out under my chest in the front, which I don’t think is the fault of the gathered panel – I think it’s just the pattern and the fact it was too big. I’m tempted to do sort of a “waist stay” – but right under my bust line to pull it in. Might play with that idea tonight.

Anyway.

Got the sleeves cut

Helping!

The sleeves, like everything else, were way too big. I had to cut about 4 inches off the end and about 3 inches off the inside seam. I added elastic into the cuffs so I can push them up by my elbows like the inspiration dress is worn. Mine will always look bigger and puffier due to the heavier fabric but oh well.

Helping!

Last night I REALLY dug in. I got the skirt gathered and sewn on, trimmed and hemmed. I got the excess cut off the back seam and the zipper in. Other sleeve on. Took up the shoulder seams. Got the lace sewn on at the neckline.
Still needs to be pressed but — it’s wearable now! Like I could wear it in the play right now and it’d be finished and fine, but I have a few more things I want to do to it. Namely doing that “bust stay” I mentioned earlier – seeing if that helps the fit. I’m also going to do some simple smocking stitches on the front gathered piece from the underbust line down. Nothing fancy but trying to make it look a bit more like the inspiration dress – the way hers is gathered changes underneath the bustline. I thought that would help sort of mimic that while still adding some visual details.

I’m also going to paint the roses onto the skirt. Picked up some fabric paint yesterday.
Oh I forgot, here’s a pic of me in it before I took up the shoulder seams, added the other sleeve and finished the skirt.

I also bleached my apron fabric yesterday. It was way too dark – a brick red. I thought bleaching it would lighten it to what I needed and give it some splotchy spots, like it had actually been used a lot as an apron. Splotchy spots worked out great – I got some areas that bleached down much further than others for whatever reason (when you count on a mistake and it actually happens!!). But it bleached down to an orange instead of a pink. I should’ve figured. But I have some pink dye I’m going to throw it in tonight and see what happens. If it doesn’t work I’ll just get new fabric.

Also need to get some kind of shawl and make a kerchief for my hair. I tracked down my Dolores wig – I’m going to wear that with her at the Ren Faire because I know my wig I’m actually getting for it won’t be here in time.

Ok so now onto everything else.
Did I mention in my last post we were trying to decide on this house we liked? We went and saw it again tuesday night. We still really liked it but with the storage issues we decided it just didn’t feel like “the one.” So we passed on it.
We had another one we realllly liked and wanted to go see but it was already under contingency. Boo.

We went to 2 different Spirit Halloweens over the last week looking for the Sanderson Sisters pops. No luck there but it was fun anyway. I got a Hocus Pocus sticker for my new bin. We also went to Gamestop where I got some Sailor Moon blind bags!!

Saturday night we had a cookout at my parents house and Ash got me this!!

I love it!! I’m running out of pin room on my bag. I hope I get my ita bag soon!

And yesterday Kristie took me to this resale place that was sooo full of neat stuff. I couldn’t take pics of it all. But I did find one thing I ended up buying – it was $20. Obviously not in working condition. Missing whatever cabinet or stand it would have sat in, no presser foot.

But for $20 it was so pretty, I decided to get it and clean it up and just use it as a display piece eventually.

I just love the beautiful green deco designs on it.

I can’t find much info about it. Looks like it was possibly manufactured in Japan. Found pics of similar machines (though not exact) without a lot of information about them.
Doesn’t really matter beyond wanting to know it’s history. It’s doubtful I’d ever be able to get it to a working state again. So it’s just for pretty.

Oh I have to post art before I go. Just one today.

Another concept one… I wasn’t going to include this one at first, since the only image is drawn fully from the back. But I decided the headpiece was so pretty it was worth figuring out how to do it. The dress feels really similar to the family dress with its cut-out back but long sleeves/collar/skirt. In my head I wanted to keep it as a red silk, very slinky, and the gold at the bottom of the skirt would be gold metallic flakes. The hair pieces were all different shades of gold metal with embroidered tassels hanging from them.

Working on another concept one now.. it’s one that has no colour to it so I’m using these sketch ones as a chance to sort of fill in her colour story — she doesn’t have a lot of green, so I’m doing this one green, and another one yellow. And the 3rd sketch one as browns, coppers, oranges.
Those 3 are technically the only “unused” concept art left I’m doing. I do have 2 concept arts that WERE used – one is the battle handmaiden from Ep 1 and one is the packing gown from Ep 2. But they both ended up fairly different that I’m considering drawing them closer to the concept. We’ll see.