It’s been raining like crazy here the past couple of weeks. Which means it’s been migraine city as the weather shifts back and forth.
This weekend was rather uneventful. I mostly worked on Chase’s suit since I was waiting on the new fabric for recutting the top of my dress. New fabric came in Friday but I was on a good roll with the suit so I didn’t pause to mess with it.
I was REALLY hoping to have suit jacket mockup #2 finished this weekend but Chase monopolized my time Sunday and I didn’t get to finish. I really need to get it finished so I can move onto first mockup of the pants. So hopefully I can get to that this week.
Mockup #2 is made of some Star Wars cotton I had in my stash. I didn’t have quite enough for the whole thing, so the lining is muslin.
Frigging FOUR welt pockets on this sucker. I found a video tutorial on youtube of someone’s way of doing these pockets, that uses the same basic pattern pieces – SO HELPFUL! I switched to doing it her way and it was a LOT easier than the pattern’s convoluted instructions. Still a pain in the butt. And getting the collar put together and turned and looking nice was scary.
But it’s getting there.
Saturday night I got the sleeves assembled and pinned in.
I realized the shoulder seams were sitting too low, raised them up a bit before sewing the sleeves in and it all looks much better.
I don’t have a pic of the sleeves sewn in – did that yesterday afternoon – but all I have left so far is the sleeve lining (I have not read ahead in the pattern at this point. I don’t understand why I still have sleeve lining pattern pieces when the sleeves are already assembled and in. But this pattern is nuts so who knows what surprises are coming next) and finishing the bottom edge at the back, and then button holes.
I played around a bit with a couple of other small things this weekend too.
Chase bought me this fabric last year and I’ve had it sitting around since.
I thought I’d make a cover-up/shrug with it. This is the wrong side in the photo – which I like better than the right side. The right side is more vibrant but also much shinier. I like the more matte, watercolour-tone wrong side.
So I’m thinking of doing it like I have pinned here – creating a shoulder seam at the top reaching to about midway down, where I’ll have some sleeve openings. And then just hemming the whole thing. Keeping it long.
Also considered folding it in halfway, longways, having the fold be the shoulder/sleeve line and sewing it together along the bottom to create a Dolman shrug like my Leia Disneybound one. The result would be a shorter and probably more wearable shrug but would fold the colour “around me” whereas I like having it all in one long piece.
So I dunno. I don’t think I’m going to wear it a ton either way, long or short – it’s going to be a Disney/pool thing and I think I like the drama of it being long. Thinking on it before cutting.
The other little thing I missed with this week was my comfy Ariel shorts. I bought these last year intending on wearing them with my comfy Ariel shirt I made for our December trip. They arrived and were like 3 sizes too big!!! I was about to send them back and tell them they sent the wrong size before I looked at the amazon page again – they had 2 different size charts. I’d gone by the one by the size selector, but if you scrolled down they had an entirely different size chart below. So I’d gotten the “right” thing but I complained to amazon about them having 2 different size charts.
So then I was stuck with too big, really unflattering shorts… but it didn’t matter because it ended up being too cold on our trip for shorts. So I wore my comfy Ariel shirt with jeans. I’d been kinda shopping around for a new pair but yesterday I decided why not try taking them up… if I screw it up, oh well, but if I can fix them I’ll save myself some money.
The biggest issue was not with the waist – I think the elastic could stand to be tightened a bit but it wasn’t dire. It was mostly in the center seam/length. There was too much fabric in those areas and it bulged out in an unflattering way. I took apart the center seam and the inner leg seams, and cut the cuffs off, since it needed to be shortened anyway. Took up those seams as much as I could and it made a big difference. Hemmed them back up and calling them done.
Not perfect but they are at least not butt ugly anymore!
I really don’t have much else to post today. Luna found a sunny spot in my sewing room yesterday morning and styed in it for a long time.
And last night I wanted to watch the Oscars to cheer for Ruth Carter so I took my skirt downstairs and finished the hem by hand – I sat down to start on at 6 and finished 4 hours later just as the show was wrapping up. Good timing. Also GEEZ that took forever (I did take a break to eat dinner in there though.)
I only have one new art thing to show this week.
I try to shy away from concept art that is super closed to the finished costume. But I’ve loved the original concept art for the family gown for AGES (had it saved in my “maybe make this costume one day folder” for years), and I wanted to include it. Turning the family gown black with different embellishments really changes its tone, and I kinda love it. Like maybe Padme liked her blue family gown so much she went back to the seamstress and was like, hey make me one in black for date nights. LOL.