So this weekend I realized just HOW MUCH there is left to do on our house to at least get it to a state of “finished”! OMG. 2 weeks from yesterday we’ll be having a bridal shower at our house (YAY) and then a week and a half after that Chase’s brother Scott is coming down to visit for a week (YAY)!
Ok I initially typed out this giant block of text about it that I realized was way NOT interesting, so the short version: we need to get the upstairs more finished, the shelving units put up in the guestroom, so I can put the junk that got set downstairs upstairs where it belongs and make the downstairs look better for the shower and more organized upstairs for Scott. Also downstairs need to move some homeless furniture out of the dining room, hang some more art. Upstairs also needs to get more done so I can some stuff out of my sewing room that doesn’t go there.
But before I dig into house stuff, first off, I finished my Crusher lab coat last week!
Fabric arrived Monday. Threw it in the washer to get it prewashed immediately!
I need to stop taking fabric pictures in the kitchen. It really doesn’t show the colour well.
Using the same house coat pattern I used for Dr Forrester.
Changes I had to make were shortening/narrowing the sleeves and the shoulder seam, adding a facing to the front and back collar, and these darts in the back.
Oh and adding these pockets!
It was a quick assembly. I love things that go together this easily! Now to finish the last few things on the suit.
Last week I raided my costume budget, sent half of it off with Chase to be put in the bank so I could make a GIANT order of stuff I needed. I bought the silk chiffon for the Padme lake gown, dye, a pattern, my ST:TNG com badge and pips, 3 wigs, and some extensions. I think that’s it, I can’t remember it all LOL
And the Com badge and pips came earlier than expected, they are gorgeous! Made by XScape Props.
So on my Dragoncon SOTU address, I did finally post that I’m planning on doing Hera from Lore Olympus. I’ve been keeping my eye out for a fabric I like for the jacket, so far nothing is speaking to me. I did take a chance and ordered a swatch of this insane $50/yard fabric from mood:
Thankfully it’s too sparkly but kinda thinking maybe getting one yard (they sent me a 10% off and I have a gift card) and using it in places? I think it’s super neat. But for the whole thing. Starting to maybe thinking of a faux suede? Even though I was trying to avoid something too hot LOL
Oh one more mail thing:
Chase got me the Besame Snow White makeup bag and one of the lipsticks! I tried the lipstick out Saturday, it’s a little bright for me in day-to-day life, but it’ll be great for costumes.
Then since my Crusher jacket was done, I moved onto lake dress.
I’m using a basic white spandex for the underdress. I KNOW that’s not what the original was, prob silk, but I used spandex for versions 3 and 4, and I really liked it, it’s comfortable, easy to work with, takes to the dye nice enough and is much hardier than silk. So I’m sticking with it.
Using a different pattern for the underdress this time around. It’s still a Vogue pattern, but it’s one I picked up a few years ago as an alt for this and decided to try it. I’m only using the front panel and the back panel. Doubling both to use one layer as a lining layer.
I used the leftover triangular shapes (left in the fabric after cutting out the main panels) as insets. In the side seams I’m doing 1 large triangle and in the back seam 2, to widen the skirt from about mid-thigh down.
Front panel sewn together – did a dart at the front to curve the front. Got the back sewn on – no insets sewn in yet – and the lining basting in so I could check the fit on me.
Back looked ok.
But the front was not!
Front edge was too long even with the darts and not curving around correctly – it was gaping too much. I realized I was going to need to take some out of the waist and take a much bigger dart.
Took the darts out and that’s where I left it… I didn’t get to work on it at all yesterday!
Why? Because…
We finally took the big white ikea shelf out of our master bedroom and Chase got it cut down to fit in my sewing room on the angled wall.
And he cut off much less than we originally thought he was going to have to cut off!
I kinda like how it looks like a sims furniture piece that’s incorrectly clipping through the wall.
One thing we’re concerned with is that my nest thermostat is inside one of the cubbies (top middle). Worried it may make it too warm around the nest. Will have to wait and see what happens, but if it messes with it too much, we’re going to take a couple more of the cubbies off.
So now that I had that in my sewing room, it was time to TOTALLY REDO EVERYTHING.
At ikea the other day, I bought 4 more of these cat houses. They’re basically large storage bins with a hole in the front. I used those along the bottom edge to put colour fabric in – reds, yellows, blues, etc. I wish I’d gone ahead and gotten 2-3 more, I had to use a smaller for black (which wasn’t great, I have a lot of black fabric), and also for purple and grey.
But as you can see I started moving stuff over to it. Got almost all my fabric in the bins you see here, and in the couple of cubbies where it’s just folded neatly. I tried to keep all larger cuts out of the cubbies – but the biggest cuts are still over in my blue chest. There’s just not much else that can go in that space in the chest, so I decided to leave them there.
Then since I finally freed up space in the drawers of the chest, I moved all my art supplies back over to those instead of in cubbies. YAY! I also got a lot of stuff out of my wardrobe.
It quickly became a disaster zone.
One thing is I dunno where I’m going to put my serger and the Elizabeth. Obviously at the old house I had an extended desk, but don’t here and don’t plan to. I had them on the short bench I had on the wall where the big shelf is now… for now I’ve moved that bench over to the wall with my thread holder/small shelves. There’s no space on top for the machines there with the shelves over them though… and I’m not planning on keeping that bench there in the longterm, eventually planning to put at the end of the bed in the guest room.
I wish I could fit them on the open shelves in the wardrobe but they’re both too big. They’re probably going to end up in the built-in cabinet somehow… I dunno how. But it’s the only place I can think of currently.
One really FUN thing I got to do was to organize my Disney VHS tapes. At least I thought it would be fun until I realized I’m missing some. (They all just kinda got thrown in various prop room boxes as filler, and there’s still about 10 prop room boxes we haven’t unpacked yet). Bummer thing was Snow White was one of the ones that was missing so I couldn’t even start at the proper beginning.
But they do look nice, it’s nice having a place to finally display them all. (I know I’m missing Snow, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Jungle Book and Lion King at least…)
And also dug into my closet again.
Still have a lot to do… and still have stuff to get from my parents’ house! But I got the majority of them bagged into garment bags and labeled, got some stuff – mostly Kevin’s stuff and a few oversized things of mine put into underbed storage and under his bed. Decided to leave the cubbie thing in there because I started folding costumes that didn’t need to be hung up = but didn’t have room in bins for – and putting them in the cubbies. So that was handy.
Like I said last time there’s a small gap between the two hanging rods – right now my wig box is back there but that’s it. I do need to find a place for all my wig boxes (most of which are still at my parents’ house…) – I’m thinking maybe the top of the guest room closet. Once I move out all the collectible boxes that are up. But can’t do that til we get the shelf up and I can take the collectibles OUT of the boxes and put them away. It’s all just dominos. One thing has to happen before the next one can.
I finally got to hang my Visioncon banner tho! YAY!
etc etc etc…. a few random pics I didn’t mention above.
Remember the old patterns I inherited from the theater, that I posted about last week?
I also got a TON of zippers. All colours. varying lengths. Over a hundred at least. I’ll never need another regular zipper ever again.
This is the pattern I picked up for the Hera jacket. Will need some mods but I feel like it’s probably a good starter base.
Put Dolores on the form…
This bitch has the NERVE to look better on the form than on me LOL
Luna enjoying the ikea cat houses before they got filled up with fabric.
Game of Cookies at ikea
And I have new art!
Rebels Leia!
I have kind of a love-hate relationship with this look. I love that it’s based on concept art. I also think it’s kinda unflattering and weird. But is that going to stop me from wanting to make it? Nope. That mood spandex I got a couple of weeks ago that was the wrong colour for Crusher will probably work for the blue parts of this. I’ve already talked about this in a previous blog post, but I really kinda thought a lot about it while drawing it. Definitely making it 2 pieces – pants and top – and making the top out of something heavier but still stretch. Anyway.
Followed that one up with Jedi Leia. I actually didn’t mean for the background to be that colour… I dropped in my basic background and went to change the hue like I always do and mistakenly hit Ctrol+I and inverted it. And really liked it inverted so I left it. It’s a lot darker than most of the other ones but oh well.