I had sinus stuff all last week (with accompanying sinus headaches) which transitioned into a migraine on thursday and then I had a migraine all weekend, bad enough on Saturday that I laid on the couch nauseated and feeling awful a good portion of the day. Every once in a while my medicine would kick in and I’d be able to go do something but then it’d stop working and I’d be back on the couch.
And then Saturday night somebody broke into my car. In our driveway. Well “broke in” isn’t the right term because it apparently didn’t get locked when we came home that afternoon (which we are usually very good at keeping the cars locked), and they probably just walked up found a car unlocked and grabbed whatever they could – which was my power brick, phone power cord, my AUX cable and a bag of change I keep in the car for tolls when we drive to Florida. Thankfully they didn’t touch my hoodies in the back, LOL. Seriously we got off easy I guess, but it still feels pretty violating that someone walked into our cove and grabbed stuff out of a car. Eventually once we have the garage cleaned up (it’s still a disaster from our move), we’re going to have room for me to park my car in there, which will feel safer. Sucks none of our security cameras were pointed in that direction.
Anyway, that was all the bad for today’s post, I think. Now let’s move onto to fun stuff.
I didn’t get just a TON done last week after my post, but I did get a bit done on Crait Leia…
Both sleeves are assembled, and I have one MOSTLY sewn on. This thing is now so heavy I can’t maneuver it through the machine by myself – Chase had to come hold part of it up for me while I sewed the one on. It’s sewn from about the armpit down – above that is still just hand-basted so I need to go back and try to get that part thru the machine next. The other sleeve is basted in the same spot and just pinned from there.
So I just need to finish getting the sleeves attached… press the whole front edge again REALLY good and see if that helps it look crisp… if not I may try to sneak a top-stitch in. Which I know it’s not supposed to have but I’d sacrifice it for having the front edge crisp. Then I just need to hem it and it’s done.
Then I have to tackle dyeing the wig. UGH. I’ve been researching how to do this for a while, because the colour I need for a Crait Leia wig is not really a standard colour. I looked into painting it with watered down acrylic paints – so I could mix up the exact colour I needed and apply it by hand so I can get darker in some areas and lighter in others. I figured if it makes it stiff it doesn’t really matter, since it’s an updo. But I had so many people tell me NO DON’T DO THAT on instagram so I was kinda at an impasse. Was going to just do it anyway but then I decided to just “sleep” on it for a while – AKA 2 months – and then was looking at RIT’s website one day and found a colour in their dye chart that looked like it may work. Ordered 3 poly dyes – graphite, apricot and… I think brown? I can’t remember now, I ordered them a while back. I’ve got the mix breakdown written down somewhere, I’m going to take my old wig apart and try dyeing it… see what we get. I mean like I’ve said before, if I mess it up, it’s just the kick in the butt I need to make myself restyle my amazing Custom Wigs Co TFA Leia wig into the Crait style.
Sorry for the wall of text. I try not to do that!
So also in last week’s projects, Chase got my ceremonial/jedi belt finished up for me:
The two new plates my dad made riveted in place, button covers on, and new snaps in. WOOOO
You can also see the shape difference between my ceremonial belt and my ANH belt. (ANH belt was out to copy the snap placement)
Also decided to play dress up a bit. Put Romana on the nice form.
The fur cape is still somewhere at my parents’ house.
Saturday we bought all the stuff needed for my costume closet!! But we haven’t done anything with it yet. Maybe this week. I’ve got to pull everything out of there first.
So as you guys know in my post last week I posted a pic of all my Crusher teal fabric I’d bought trying to figure out which one to use. I had 2 yards of spandex from mood in there – I bought 2 because it was surprisingly cheap – and in last week’s pic it looked pretty good – but I noted that the colour in the pic wasn’t true. Here’s a better shot of it:
Compared to the spandex I dyed. You can see how pale blue it is. Didn’t work for Crusher at all without massive dyeing. BUT…. I’m thinking with a LITTLE dye… I could have enough to do the blue parts of the Rebels Leia costume.
I think it just needs to be a tad more blue. A few minutes in some kentucky blue with maybe a touch of graphite and it’d work?
I’ve never particularly cared for that costume mostly because I think it’d look… not great on me. But I love that it’s based on old concept art. I’m thinking if I make it in two pieces instead of a 1 piece spandex suit I could make it a bit more flattering. Pants and a top. Built similar to the padme battle suit. Maybe do the white/grey parts in a heavier stretch material than spandex so it’s a bit more structured? Maybe a stretch suede for texture? Just thinking outloud. I haven’t really thought about it past “maybe I can use this for that” and “i should make it 2 pieces”
Anyway, it’s not a dragoncon project, it’d be for later, so not important now.
Saturday, as I said, I was in a migraine, so I didn’t feel like fighting Crait Leia through the machine, so I switched back over to Dr Crusher. After watching a Crusher-centric episode the night before (“Remember Me” from season 4), I decided I was happy with the colour of my spandex enough to move forward. So I finally started assembling.
And despite my migraine it moved pretty fast!
I had one small issue in that I started out sewing the seams in a zig-zag, which I always do for stretchy fabrics. That made doing that point on the front of the contrast fabric a MAJOR PAIN. I realized to get a clean point I was going to have to do a straight stitch, but I’d already clipped the edges trying to clean up the point. So I had to take the zig-zag stitch out and then move my stitch line back a bit and redo it in a straight stitch… The extra amount it got “taken up” in that redo looked fine on me so I wasn’t worried about it, but now I’m having to essentially do the same on the back so the seams line up. But that discovery was later down the road so I’ll get to it in a moment…
By Saturday afternoon I had the whole front assembled, and then got started on the back.
And had it assembled by the time I called it a night.
Also those two pics show how different the teal can look in different lights… it’s bluer in the natural sunlight and greener in my yellow lights. So that’s what has made me happy with the colour.
Next step was the collar, which meant I had to get my piping ready. Originally I was just going to keep my piping as it was – it was fairly close but a much brighter, greener teal than my dyed fabric. Saturday night I was just… nah, I got dye let’s do this thing. So 11pm Saturday night I was getting dye going again LOL. Chase was like WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!
But it turned out pretty good. That’s a scrap of my fabric I brought downstairs as a guide on the left, and my piping on the right. I was glad I did it, and it was ready to go in the morning.
Oh, I almost forgot. Saturday afternoon we ran a few errands which included goodwill, where I found some maybe-Dr Crusher boots and some maybe-Leia boots (as in the soles/heel/toe looked good and I intend to skin the whole thing and build my own uppers out of leather eventually…)
An absolutely GIANT 70s/80s era picture book about squirrels. I’m holding it right up to my face, that’s how big it is.
Oh and also once I got the shoulder seams sewn together on my starfleet uniform it looks pretty cool.
Kind-of a weird deconstructed dress.
Like, now I want to make like a starfleet gown with sleeves like this.
Sunday I got working on the collar…
And then I hand-basted the zipper in and got it mostly machine-sewn in place after checking it. I had one spot at the bottom where the seams aren’t lining up (the teal seamline that runs through it), so I unpicked it slightly to tweak that – I think it’s due to the fact I had to take up those seams a bit so they’d match that seam in the front I had to take up after the zig-zag incident, it left those back seams a little funky. I just need to take up one side a bit so it looks clean at the zipper break.
And that’s where I stopped yesterday. It was at that point that – migraine hangover be damned – I had to get into makeup for the Dream night event last night.
YAY! I was super excited to finally wear this.
Also please note I managed something I’ve never managed before. I actually got mascara on my lower lashes. Its such a trademark of Leia’s look and I’ve never been able to pull it off, everytime I try I just get mascara all over my face under my eyes. Been practicing using a piece of tissue paper under my eye and last night finally accomplished it. Tho it felt WEIRD all night. LOL. And my eyes tend to water when I’m in costume so having mascara on with watering eyes was maybe not the best idea. But it stayed put, thank goodness.
Chase took some “good” pics of me with the real camera that I’ll get uploaded later this week when he sends them to me. In the meantime here’s iphone photos that I went in and added lightsaber effects to.
So I dunno what the mix-up was… but our call time was 4. We got there at 4 only to find out the event wasn’t at 5, but at 6. So we had to sit around for 2 hours. Which for me, with my hair all pinned up and on the tail of a migraine was… a bit brutal. Even when I don’t have a migraine, for me, as soon as I put a costume on, the clock starts ticking and there’s only so long I can stay in it. Yes, even at dragoncon… where when I get to that “I’m done” point I just go to my room, change, drink a coke, and put on a different costume that hurts in a different way. LOL So by the time the event started I was already drained and struggling. BUT! It was a great event. Got a lot of very sweet hugs. Glad most people realized I was Princess Leia. Got to see a penguin up close and personal.
Here’s a group pic I stole from Tammy on facebook.
One thing is for sure… it’s been a LONG time since I held a lightsaber at an event and I’m sorely out of practice. (2007 Timothy Zahn booksigning was probably the last one? Mara Jade) I only hit one person tho, so that’s good. Ha.
The best part was walking into “animals of the night” and discovering I absolutely glow in black light LOL
Of course had to do a spinny video.
Towards the end of the night looked down and realized one of my buttons was coming off on my belt. I thought it was my “problem child” button – the one to my right of the center which has come off 3 times now – but nope, it was the one on the left! I was able to grab it before it fell off but it’s not in any of the later photos. I’ve always had problems with this only with this belt… dad thinks it’s because he used shorter rivets so there’s less for the glue to hang on to. So that’s one repair I need to make before dcon, but that was the only issue I had. Yay!
After a while I had to get those bobbie pins off my head and get home to my imitrex so we headed home. I mentioned if somebody handed me a donut right now I’d shove the whole thing in my mouth (partially because I was starving and partially because i didn’t want to get donut on my dress). So Chase swung into Gibson’s and got me some donuts LOL
Which I also had for breakfast this morning. 1 1/2 donuts and my leftover pizza. And a coke. I’ve been really good the last 3 weeks now – I’ve cut out my daytime weekday cokes. Water for breakfast and lunch only. I still get a coke for dinner and I’m still having one for a snack at night – I don’t drink all of either so it probably works out to 1 a day. Weekends I’m still chugging. But even just that little bit I’ve seen a difference – I’ve lost, and kept off, 6-7lbs just from doing that. If I could just cut back the weekend cokes to 1 a day as well and get to exercising more I may be able to actually hit my Dragoncon goal for the first time in years – I only have another 8lbs to go. That’s not nuts.
To end this weeks’ post, since I have no art, here’s some Luna pics.
she was twitching
camoflauge
Goals this week: Finish Crusher suit. Pick out some fabric for jacket.
Dye Crait Leia wig
Finish Crait Leia sleeves
Prewash Belle fabric (got my cotton for the upper part in Friday!), see if I have dye that will work? If not order some
Work on closet
So tempted to take a sick day so I can have a full day of sewing. I have a day off requested at the end of this month tho. I’ll try to hold out for that.
Ooh hey maybe if I get Crusher done in time I could debut her at ABC? I could go wigless if I haven’t gotten a wig yet, if I curl my hair overnight it MIGHT stay in place for a test run at least.