So last week – I think it was Wednesday night – I had a complete and utter breakdown over the pants of Chase’s suit, cried a little bit, and threw the mockup in the trash.
The suit pattern I’m using – do you know how many pattern pieces are in the pants alone? About 25. The front pockets are 6 pieces each. 12 pieces all together just for the pockets.
WTF. It was so many moving parts. With such poorly written instructions. I kept reading the same instructions over and over again and just not understanding why it wasn’t working.
SO. I went and dug up Simplicity 8528, which is a men’s “costume suit pattern” that I just bought on a $1 sale a while back to have in my stash. I decided to instead using the pants pattern from that. Because you know how many pieces that pattern is? It’s 7 pieces. That’s it. I’m sure it’s probably not going to be as “nice” as the “real” suit pattern pants, but it’s just pants. Nobody is going to look at the pants. Unless they turn out bad and then I guess lots of people would stare at the bad pants.
ANYWAY. We got the fabric samples for the suit last week and this was the winner:
So this weekend I decided to take a break on working on the suit and went back to my dress. My extra 2 yards came last weekend so I was able to finish recutting the bodice slightly longer.
Just pinned together.
I recut all of the bodice pieces longer (height-wise) and a tiny bit wider just in case I needed any extra there. It worked much better and the new pieces went together much faster than the previous one. (Cuz I already knew how to do it)
I did all my sizing on the lining piece and as I got it worked back in to fit, I ended up losing a LOT of the excess (height-wise) I’d built in. I really only needed the extra length on the front top piece, and then only right underneath the bust line. So the pattern had been really close – I just couldn’t squeeze in the extra I’d needed in the first version since I’d already clipped the curves of that bust line on both pieces.
Also discovered Luna loves to come up to my sewing room – as long as she can come up by the back stairs (which I usually keep closed). So now I keep the backstairs open for her and she comes up and snoops around and then curls up under a chair.
Snooping
So by Friday night I had both the bodice pieces pretty much assembled (outer piece and lining) and then Saturday morning I got them put together.
Then I went to get the skirt attached and ran into my first big headache… trying to get the skirt attached to the top while keep the skirt level. I’d already leveled the skirt and hemmed it, so it was correct on the bottom – I usually do that AFTER it’s attached to whatever top it’s going on, but in this case I’d gone ahead and done it and now trying to make sure it was attached levelly to the bodice was a major pain. I don’t think I was 100% accurate. I think I ended up longer in the front in a couple of spots. But not something I’m going to worry about at the moment.
So that’s where I left off on Saturday day – Saturday evening we ran to Joann Fabrics with a GIANT list. All the other “stuff” we needed for Chase’s suit and I’d made a list of 6 ears I wanted to make for our disney trip and the accessories I needed to get for them. All of the ears are based around fabric I already have in my stash – I just needed things like headbands, ribbons, etc. So here are the ears I’m planning:
1. Avengers Ears
With the cool Avengers fabric I got recently. I’m thinking I can fit 2 Avengers on each side, so 8 all together. I thought since Captain Marvel is not on the fabric I’d do a blue and red bow, and I found a charm that looks like her starburst to put in the center.
2. Porg Ears
I have that Porg fabric (with R2D2 mixed in). Going to do a blue bow with a white/silver ribbon in the middle of it (for R2).
3. NASA Ears
I have some NASA mission fabric, thought I’d use that for the ears, and then… I still haven’t figured out the bow but I got some black holographic sequin trim to put on the bow. Whatever the bow ends up being.
4. Leia Ears
I dug up some white fabric, the white sparkle netting I used for medieval Leia – those will be the ears. And I got some white/silver ribbon and some cool silver metallic trim that made me think of her belt for the bow.
5. Tightrope Walker Ears
I have a ton of fabric leftover from this. I thought I’d do one ear in the purple velveteen, and one in white satin with the flowers painted on it. Maybe trim both in white lace? And then the bow out of the pink chiffon from the sleeves. Ash gave me a really cute Tightrope Walker pin for Christmas, so I thought I might put that in the middle of the bow.
6. Amidala Ears
I really want to make some Amidala ears but I dunno what they’d be yet. Post-Senate ears wouldn’t really scream Padme. I pulled out a bunch of maybe fabric that might work for one thing or another but haven’t figured it out yet. These may not happen because they’re the only ones without a solid idea.
So here’s all the extra “stuff” I got at Joann for the ears. Some of it was “Just in case” and might not be used. Like the FIMO – I grabbed that to sculpt Captain Marvel’s starburst but then I found the charm that looked like it, soooo.
Joann had no packs of plain headbands. Which was like, high on my list. I have 2 at home, but I needed another pack. They only had fancy headbands for $5 a piece. Which, no, that’s too much for stuff I’m just going to cover in my own fabric. I also TOTALLY forgot to get craft foam to actually make the ears LOL I didn’t put it on my list, assuming, DUH you won’t forget the craft foam and then I forgot it. So I went to Michael’s Sunday for craft foam, fabric paint they didn’t have at Joanns, and the headbands. And they didn’t have headbands either. And I forgot the craft foam again. So this afternoon – Hobby Lobby for CRAFT FOAM and headbands.
So like I said we also got stuff for Chase’s suit. I didn’t take a pic of most of it because it’s interfacing, buttons, zipper, thread, you know, boring sewing stuff. But he did need to pick out the fabric for the lining parts of his suit.
It’s not going to be seen a lot, it’s literally only in the sleeves and the interior of the pockets (the front is a same-fabric facing and the back is not lined). But it’s still pretty cute.
Ok so now the pattern drama.
McCall’s was on sale for $1.99/pattern, limit 10. They had a bunch of new costume ones I didn’t have, so I picked out these 8. We had a ton of stuff in the basket, so the cashier is just ringing stuff up, I’m not paying attention, and then I give her my coupons and the final total is WAY higher than I expected. Like, double. I don’t do like, hard math when I’m at the fabric store, but I keep an estimate going in my head based on yardage/price, and everything I’ve picked up knowing what it usually costs, you know? And I’m usually fairly close, sometimes I’m off, but never like, double the amount off?! But I figured Chase’s interfacing and lining and everything had really added up and I hadn’t kept up with that as well.
But then I got in the car and I’m like, surely NOT. And I pulled out the receipt and started going over it to see what was so expensive.
Four of those McCall’s patterns had rung up for full price. Um no ma’am. That was $70 just for those FOUR patterns! So we turned the car back around and Chase took them back in with the receipt. I told them if for whatever reason THOSE particular four were not on sale, I don’t want them, return them. But the cashier that helped him was like “Oh no those should have been $1.99, I’m glad you caught that, that was $70!!!” So she refunded the difference no problem. Yay but also wtf in general.
Will keep a closer eye on you in the future, Joann.
In the mailbox Saturday were my new Leia extensions.
They look like they will match pretty well!
Since going back to red last summer I’ve just been spraying my roots darker to match my previous extensions. But I don’t want to do that at Disney World! So I got these so I can still wear my buns/Leia Disneybound in the parks without dealing washing out dark brown hairspray at the end of the day. Or worse, sweating it off…
Saturday night I ran into the second headache with the dress… getting the zipper in evenly. So the pattern called for an invisible zipper, which I’ve only done a handful of times because A) I don’t have an invisible zipper foot and B) I HATE THEM. But I stumbled through it and… the seams at the back weren’t lining up with the zipper in evenly. I can only blame my cutting the bodice pieces longer/wider and then working them in to fit, resulting in my seams not lining up at the back.
But the bigger problem was the skirt. I had assumed the skirt would sit at the natural waist and it fit SNUG there but it would work. But once I got it placed on the dress, it dropped from the natural waist by just over an inch. And now… it was too tight. There would be no closing it there.
I put it aside for the night and got back to it on Sunday.
I ended up having to do the WORST thing EVER and make an extension piece on either side of the skirt so it would close. So now I’ve got a lovely pair of seams right along the zipper. UGH. Then I monkeyed with the bodice seams until I got them to match up as close as I could. I got the zipper installed where everything looked ok on the top – not great because of the stupid extension – but now my back seam was janky because it didn’t match up. One side had a hump in it because it was longer. OMG. I had to take out the back seam and redo it so it laid evenly.
Chase made me do errands in the smack middle of the day and dragged me all over the planet so I didn’t get back to it til later that night. Got the sleeves in and calling it done.
It fits ok. I feel like a little bit of a chonk in it. If I want to drive myself crazy I MIGHT try to get the skirt evened out but it’s really negligible at this point. I’ll save it for once I get the suit done – if I have time to monkey with it some more, I will.
RANDOM FUN STUFF!
Saturday I was waiting on Chase to finish getting ready to go to Joann so I decided… I think I’ll open up my Belle nendoroid! Chase got the Belle and Leia for me last year, but I left them boxed until we moved, because I didn’t want to lose any small parts. They’ve been sitting on the shelf in our bedroom, staring at me, waiting for me to open them. SO!
I unboxed Belle!
She’s precious!
And then Sunday I unboxed Leia!
SO CUTE!
We have 3 of these square box shelves, used to have just random stuff on them in the bedroom. They’re not very big, they’re like these. So I thought I might cut the background of the Nendoroid’s boxes out and set them up in them like little shadow boxes. Belle in like the medium sized box maybe (since her Beast cut out is fairly large) and Leia in the small one. I thought that would be cute.
I also got some stuff in frames in prep for hanging some stuff in my office!
ART!
I thought I had 2 today but I only have one.
So there’s a story to this one. This one is based on some ROTS-era concept art. I’ve had this one hanging around in the folder for a while – it’s one of the last colour ones I have left (the rest are black and white sketches at this point). But I’ve put it off because it’s ANOTHER nightgown and I’m tired of her boring nightgowns. I thought about combining it with another ROTS-era concept I had – it was the original concept for the Peacock Gown headpiece and it was only from the shoulders up. So I thought, what if I put this interesting metallic headpiece with this kinda basic gown and try to make it interesting?
Well I tried it. I drew it up and it did not work. The two ideas did not mesh.
So I cut the head with the metallic headpiece off and dropped it into a new file, to draw a new body to go with it. And I drew a new head on the nightgown one. And that’s the one you see above. I tried to spice it up a bit with some beading on the neckline, a motif on the bottom of the skirt, but it’s still pretty mundane.
I’ve nearly got the other headpiece one finished, but not close enough to wait on this post to include it unfortunately. But once I have that one finished, I’ll be 9 away from having 100 Padmes and then I will be done.
