So guess what! I actually did some sewing over the weekend. Not a lot. And I didn’t take any pictures. So uh… does it count? I’m not sure. Haha. But I’ll get to that in a minute.
Ok so first order of business is I saw a news story that The Princess Diaries is getting a 3rd movie. And that made me nostalgic for the books. I LOVED the books! I went to a Meg Cabot book signing back in the day. I was not a giant fan of the movie. I liked it ok I mean. But so many weird changes from the book. But over time I stopped keeping up with the series, I think I fell off around book 6 or 7 and never read the whole series! So I decided I really want to reread them and finish the whole series this time. But I didn’t want to spend $40 on a bookset. So that led me to the library and I discovered I can check out kindle books at the library online!! WHAT! I had no idea. So I’m on book 5 now. And I’ve been telling everybody I know about the fact you can just download library books online. (I feel like I should’ve known this, but considering I just finally renewed my library card last year after almost 20 years of not having one, I’m still playing catch up.)
So this past week has mostly been more house work. I got Kevin’s room a bit more unpacked and organized. But I can’t really do much until we get the right bed in there and set up. Unpacked a few prop room boxes and set them up on the shelves in Kevin’s room. I’ve GOT to go through the 30-40 vintage quilting books I inherited and cull the herd.
Every day this week I put a new costume on the new form, for an instagram post. That was fun.
(First time putting pants on the new form!)
Ok so Donna was just on my old dressform but only because I was loving Bespin Leia on the new form and didn’t want to take it off yet.
For Anne I got this crazy idea, what if I bring her out to the front steps and do the photos there? So I did. I thought my staircase had a sort of Tudor-ish feel to it.
I kinda wanted to leave here there because if anybody came to the front door they’d see her looking at them through the front windows. Spooky!
Speaking of spooky… oh hang on, let me finish my dressform photos.
Mom gave me this vintage dress a couple of weeks ago. It’s not in great shape – the tulle is damaged and pulling away from the waistband. But it’s so precious.
Also SO TINY! The waist just barely fits my CHILD dressform! So I was kinda thinking maybe it’s a child’s dress – but the bust was WAY too big for the child’s form (it’s folded over like 4 inches in the back). So just a tiny gal! Or great undergarments.
Excuse the fact this was on my panniers instead of a round hoopskirt but I wanted to take stock of it. This is the Civil War dress my mom made back in like 2004-2005? for a project at the school she taught at. She gave it to me last year and told me to use it for parts. I’m wondering if I could reuse it for anything. The white fabric has an embroidered white-on-white floral motif all over it. It’s got one spot in the back where a seam is separating. I’m kinda thinking about maybe reworking the neckline, taking it in a bit, replacing the plastic boning and switching it to a lace-up back and… I dunno what it would be. Disney Princess Leia maybe? Open to other ideas.
Cat tax. I was cutting out a pattern ( literally the most pattern pieces I’ve ever had to cut out, I swear it was like 40 pieces and there was only 2 I was not using.) and she was realy enjoying the scraps. I was tossing them to her as I cut them away.
So the spooky story. So Friday afternoon, I got home from work, did a few things in my sewing room and had just laid down on the couch in the living room to listen to a podcast and doze off for a bit. When suddenly I hear a sound from the entryway, right around the corner from where I am. It was the “ringback tone” you hear when you’re calling someone and waiting on them to pick up. It rings 3 times, and it definitely sounded like it was IN the house. Not like outside at all. And of course the only phone in the house was mine, in my hands, because who has a landline anymore?
So after 3 rings, I hear somebody pick up and say “Hello?” again sounded just like they are standing right in my entryway or at least talking very loudly at my front door. I jump up and whatever else is being said is obscured by me forcing a cat off my lap and tossing my blanket off and running around the corner.
As I make it into the entryway I can hear the tailend of the conversation – something about “the resident” and then “ok bye.” And the click of a hang up. Obviously there’s nobody in the entryway. I fling the front door open and nobody is out front. Not at my front door, not on my porch, not in my front yard, my driveway or anywhere in front of my house.
Because it sounded like it was RIGHT there from our living room I was wondering if maybe somehow our security system picked up one side of a phone call? I texted Chase and he looked into it and discovered it’s basically impossible for that to happen. Sometimes we DO hear our neighbors to the left of us (who we finally got to meet Sunday and she was super nice!) but it’s never loud enough that it sounds like it’s IN our house?!
I mean we’ve been there for a month at this point so I’ve gotten used to the way things sound. All I can think is that the house catty corner from us in the cove (two houses to the right) is for sale. Sign just went up this weekend. When I looked outside there was a car in the driveway, so maybe that was the realtor talking on speakerphone in her car (considering “the resident” has already moved out and the house is empty), and it was just really loud and the weird acoustics of the cove amplified it?
Like a friend of mine on IG said that sounds a little bit like the old “oh that ufo you just saw was light reflecting off a weather balloon…” but I mean I don’t know what else it could have been at this point.
To be fair, it was not spooky. Even though I labeled this as a spooky story. It was definitely more WTF who am I hearing more than OMG ghost.
Because after staying there by myself for 3 weekends in a row, the only thing that creeps me out in the house is just the giant windows at night – and that’s more about what’s outside than in. I’ve never felt creeped out in the house, only felt like I was wearing a warm comfy blanket – if that makes sense. You know, just the “feel” a place gives you. I feel good in the house, no creepy vibes anywhere.
And just in case it was a ghost, I told it I’m cool with you making phone calls, just please don’t stand at the end of my bed at night.
Saturday Chase was filming so I did some more stuff around the house, and eventually got into my sewing room and started sewing! YAY! But like I said I have NO pics. I’ll try to take some tonight. I was making pretty good headway on the dress I’m making for myself… until I ran out of thread. UGH.
I’m using Butterick B6094, which is a really cute vintage dress (I’m making a dress for our Victoria and Albert’s dinner for our April Disney trip). It has a built in petticoat, so I got the base of the petticoat put together (hem is just pinned tho – I ran out of thread before I could finish it), and I got the ruffles cut and sewn together. Couldn’t finish the hem of the ruffle though, because, again, no thread. So the thread debacle put an end to my sewing for the day.
I’m using some fabric I bought back in November for this project – I was hoping the fabric would work for the whole dress, but it was way too cheap looking to ever be an outer fabric. But it ended up being JUST enough for the petticoat and ruffle with enough leftover if I want to line the bodice with it. So that was good. I ordered some new fabric on Saturday so here’s hoping it works. The only concern I have with it is it may be too thin to properly lay over the petticoat ruffles without looking weird.
I’ll take some pics of the project this week for IG and here.
Sunday we had a family lunch for birthdays!
Skye loves Mema. (And whipped cream from one of the dessert pies!)
Somebody found this old… thing. I think they’re called keychain viewfinders? You used to get them at touristy places, they’d take a pic and put it in one of those little plastic things and you could look through it and see the photo. They apparently still make them because I just googled them LOL. But it was from our family trip to St Louis, like 1995 or 1996? And it was all of us at Six Flags. I decided to try to take a photo through the viewfinder with my phone.
Kind of a neat effect, with it reflecting on the other sides of the viewfinder.
Then it was TOUR TIME!
We had Mema, Daddy Bob, my aunt and uncle from Jackson, my aunt and Cath and Rach all came over to the house to see it. We had 3 tours going at once, LOL. Chase was kinda leading Daddy Bob and my aunt and uncle, I was leading Mema, and Cath and Rach kinda leading their mom behind us LOL. Then after they left, my parents came over with my other grandma, Mama Gin, about 10 minutes later. So we did another tour! With the puppy also running around. (Luna was SO not into all these strangers in her house AND a dog now too?!). About an hour after they left, my other aunt and uncle came over and toured too!
WHEW! That was tiring. I think everybody has pretty much seen the house now so I can stop the frantic unpacking trying to get it set up as much as possible.
Then we ran to the grocery store to pick up stuff for dinner. We were going to have hamburgers and hot dogs for the Superbowl and CHASE FORGOT TO GET THE HOT DOGS. I was bummed. But after we ate I went back upstairs to sew some more.
So you saw where I mentioned I was making my own dress for our Victoria and Albert’s dinner? Well. I’m also making Chase a suit. OMG.
So I started the mockup last night. And… holy crap are these pattern directions trash. I figured the jacket might be a little intimidating but I could make it through it… it was the pants I was concerned about. But I started on the jacket mock up and… nope. Honestly I don’t think it would be so bad but the directions are AWFUL. “Place the piece between the two large circles” – while the pattern instructions clearly show it placed between the two darts and nowhere near the other circle?! WTF. “Please the piece on the seamline.” THERE IS NO SEAMLINE ANYWHERE NEAR THIS AREA!
I tried finding some blog posts where somebody else had figured out this pattern but no luck. I’m going to have to just suffer through it on my own. At least I have plenty of muslin for doing mockups until I figure it out.
Ending with a sweet kitty and a sweet puppy.
And art!
Funnily enough 2 of the like 10 concept pieces I have left to do show Padme holding a bird. LOL.
My colour inspiration for this one was moss on a tree. Decided to go a little more deco with the embellishments than the usual art nouveau style. The motif on the front panel of the skirt is based on the one from the flame handmaiden gowns.
9 more to go!