Good grief I can’t remember what I posted last week except that sad dog, I’m going to have to go back and look to see where I left off….
Ok. Now I’m on track.
Last week I said I was going to dye that silk on thursday well I did it Monday night. I put both my excess fabric (meant for the sleeves) and the skirt in some “emerald green” dye and smidgeon of blue to help combat the yellow tones. It did cause the silk to loose some shimmer and some body but that was the trade off.
Original undyed fabric to the left, dyed to the right; definitely more of a blue-toned green than the original spring green.
Makes me sad because I did love that spring green but it definitely goes with the other fabric tones better now.
Skirt dried and pressed:
After this I decided to recut the front panels of the zone front section to eliminate that seam in the front. I would end up recutting these pieces I think 3 more times? As I decided to redo the stripes…
Wednesday I stopped on my way home and picked up some fabric paint and some masking tape. Did a test stripe on some scrap fabric, using just black paint, and to test out the masking tapes to see which worked best.
Thursday I was off work so I spent the morning painting on stripes. The first set I didn’t like the tone of the paint I used. It was a mix of some green and black and a touch of yellow from just standard Tulip fabric paint from the craft store, but on my cotton the stripes were looking weirdly BLUE. Didn’t like that, so I scraped them and started over, this time digging around in my paint drawer and finding a jar of the Jacquard emerald green I used for my previous belle painting project (the underskirt for the pink gown). That worked much better, so I recut new front panels and did one more test of it. These ended up being a little messy – I think because I didn’t fully push the tape down.
I still had plenty of fabric left so I decided to just recut again and start over, this time making sure the tape was fully adhered and also using a bigger brush.
Had an old piece of cardboard from the garage underneath since the paint really leaked through the cotton.
Both front/side panels!
Then onto the back panels…
I got these lined up with the stripes on the front panels by pinning all the pieces together, taping out my lines and then carefully unpinning it all and pushing the tape into place. It didn’t work 100% but it’s close enough.
Back stripes
Back and front done and pinned together!
Overall pretty happy with how it’s coming along. I do wish I’d done the stripes SLIGHTLY smaller but oh well. I ran out of paint so I ordered another jar to arrive over the weekend so I could jump back into once we were home.
Pinning the zone front section to the under bodice… I cut the zone front area a bit taller than the underbodice so I had some fabric to cut away once I got them matched up.
And one update on the Arwen front. The velvet swatch came in and it’s too light.
But that’s a big enough swatch to have some fun with later down the road – maybe some ears for our next disney trip? Dunno what character it’d be for tho.
I ordered 2 more swatches of different colours so we’ll see what they look like soon…
So that’s where I mostly left off sewing for last week. We flew up to Minnesota for the weekend for Chase’s mom’s memorial. First off it was COLD up there. Like OMG. We went from 90+ weather in Memphis on Thursday to flying up into the 40s? YIKES.
Not going to post most of my pics from the weekend because I’m sure people don’t want to be on my blog but here’s some sweet babies I met over the weekend.
And I did get to go to a fabric store!
It was fabulous but I hadn’t really made a shopping list – and we didn’t have checked bags so I didn’t have a lot of room to bring a bunch of stuff back!
But I did buy 6 yards of a grey knit for the Raddus Bridge Leia underdress that I managed to squish in my backpack.
So let’s switch over to the “Upcoming Events” portion of our show.
Tuesday was AWFUL I was an anxious ball of stress monday night and tuesday morning waiting on the marriott rooms to drop for Dragoncon. We were back to trying to get a room because Chase wants to come back next year, which means just crashing with Cath doesn’t work (too many people in the room without a guaranteed bed type). But I managed to snag a room. HOORAY! I’m so excited for Chase to come back and he’s already planning projects and costumes for next year, so between that and our Disney trip we had to sit down and make a list of everything we are working on for the next year. My costume/project list is HUGE and I know I’m going to have to drop some of it but we’ll just see how it all shakes out.
This week we’ve got a 501st event which I’m still kinda tentative on, it’s probably really going to come down to how I feel that afternoon.
MCX is not this weekend but next, I’ll be helping out with the costume contest. At the moment looking at wearing jedi Leia Saturday for working the contest because it’s comfortable but still recognizable. Dunno about Sunday yet. Looks like the weather is scheduled to be nice that weekend – upper 70s – so I may go with something cooler than Jedi Leia if it’s hot. Maybe ewok Leia since it’s still out and about from ABC?
MCFC is November and I have no idea what I’m wearing for that yet. Might do that as a “go to the con for a couple of hours in the morning/white backdrop shoot the rest of the afternoon at home” day? Been almost 2 years since we were able to do a white backdrop shoot and I’m getting quite the backlog. Maybe I can wear the new Belle if she’s done? I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t be by then.
Speaking of which, yesterday when we got home my new jar of paint had arrived so I started painting the stripes on the skirt panels. And that one jar didn’t even last through one skirt panel. It got about 80% of it. UGH. So I ordered 2 more. I’ve got 2 more skirt panels to do so it’s probably not going to be enough but I like to be optimistic?
So since I was stuck on that, I got the front of the cotton section sewn onto the velvet underbodice, and next step is going to be getting the boning into the lining and getting the lining attached. And once that’s done it’s all downhill from there – skirt assembly, attaching skirt, bustling it, getting sleeves in, finishing the underskirt.
Then I need to figure out shoes. No idea what I’m going to do for shoes.
And now onto the video portion of the show.
I’ve been having fun making costume videos for tiktok lately.
Amidala
I really got carried away with Edith. It started with “Ooh I should turn the lights off.” and then “ooh i should take it out and put it on the stairs” and then “ooh I should get the fake candles out”
LOL
And some slow-mo Edith action back in my office.
And Sleeping Beauty.
It’s just made me realize how few videos I have of my costumes. Most of the ones of me IN my costumes are me spinning for boomerangs. I need to take more videos.
And now random stuff, first look at my still life with cat.
I want to paint this LOL
Mum helped out at the “Blessing of the Pets” over the weekend and took that pic of Luna to have her blessed too. I said good, she needs it!
Also look how cute my parents and Skye are.
So that’s it for this week. See you next week!