I remembered late last night. I was like, oh today was Monday and I forgot to post on my blog. My schedule is all flipped upside down between the holiday and still adjusting to working from home.
I have a ton of stuff to post so I’m going to break it up into sections.
1. SEWING!
So after last week’s post I got a little bit more done on the Raddus Bridge Leia underdress.
Got the dress sewn together, the facing for the front edge attached (although it’s still gaping and curling at the upper edges, I may just have to take it together at the upper edge), and one sleeve sewn together and attached. I did end up recutting the sleeves. The 2 part sleeve just wasn’t right.
Also made the little belt thingie for the front but it’s too big – it’s tucked over in this photo. I’m going to have to go back in and take it down a bit. Too tall.
Then, even though I wasn’t finished with the underdress – still needed to tweak that belt piece, attach the other sleeve, hem it – I decided I was bored and set about playing with the pattern pieces for the robe. I’m using that Simplicity Padme/Leia pattern from the 2000s – the Padme robe pattern is a pretty decent starting place for this.
I did have to eliminate a couple of the seams though – the robe had an upper yoke, so I moved those down to be attached to the body, and also had to absorb the collar piece.
Two judgey ladies
Went through a couple of mock-ups of the upper robe/collar section with some scrap fabric before transferring that over to paper (seen above) so I could use that as my pattern for the full mockup. I had some grey lining material in my stash that worked great for this mockup – it’ll also eventually be lining for the real thing. Here’s the pieces just cut out and pinned onto the form.
Sleeve pattern from the Padme piece was a little too long but otherwise super close to what was needed.
Hey it looks like a real thing!!
I used some interfacing leftover from Crait to interface the sleeve and collar. It helped me visualize everything in the mockup better. I was going to leave it in place (since this is going to be the lining) but I think I hate this interfacing. I think I’m going to go get something a step less stiff, and maybe also not iron on. We’ll see. It comes off easily, at least.
So once I realized the mockup was working pretty well – it needed some tweaks at the shoulder/collar, needed to be taken in a bit – I went ahead and cut my real fabric. And that’s where I’ve left it for now – I need to go get that other interfacing before I can move on.
But overall I feel like I accomplished quite a bit over the long weekend. So that’s nice.
2. Thanksgiving
YAY for 4 day weekend! Thursday we went up to Jackson for thanksgiving.
Your typical Thanksgiving day.
Came home, had left overs for dinner. Normally I decorate for Christmas right after Thanksgiving, but I’d already done it this year! I still haven’t taken photos though, because I still haven’t put ornaments on the tree… trying some orange peels under the tree to keep Luna away. So far seems like it’s working pretty good, so I may get ornaments up this week.
I thought the Thanksgiving section would be longer… oh well, next…
3. Other weekend stuff
Friday we did some yard work and that took up a big chunk of the day. We had so many leaves in the cove, you couldn’t tell what was pavement and what was yard.
So we did a lot of leaf blowing, raking and bagging. Otherwise it was a very lazy day.
Saturday was photoshoot day but I’ll get to that next. Sunday we ran a couple of errands – including checking out the hobby store’s new building which is nicccccce and they also had a bunch of Amidala dolls I wanted but Chase said he’d go back for christmas shopping.
Crazy cat
4. Photoshoot!
So after TWO YEARS we finally got to do a new white backdrop shoot!!! With packing up to move, then moving, then living with family, then moving into new house, and unpacking… there hasn’t been a space to be able to do this since September 2017!!
But now that we had my big sewing room to use, Chase went all out and got a new backdrop and a revised set up and it was great. I got my costumes ready the couple of days before, ironed and all. We shot 5 costumes.
Walking into my sewing room with the backdrop set up.
So far I have 3 sets back – Belle, Crait Leia, and Dr Crusher:
Restyled the wig before the shoot!
And did a few pics with the skirt unbustled.
Easy enough to bustle this on the fly – just don’t to go from bustled to unbustled, or that cotton will be wrinkled like crazy LOL
Crait Leia
While I was steaming it I noticed an issue at the sleeve attachment, along the back shoulder, where the stitching didn’t catch. Will have to fix it later.
And as happy as I am I kinda sorta made this wig eventually work for this… I think for Raddus Leia I’m going to finally restyle my Custom Wig Co wig. Wish me luck.
Crusher
Looking at pics of this has made me realize the suit is still just too big. Despite all my attempts to take it in. I’m so tempted to take the whole thing apart, cut each piece down by 2-3 sizes, and reassemble it. I don’t really want to buy more spandex, but with all this seam placement, it’s really hard to just keep taking it in.
The legs and back are the biggest culprits, currently. We are thinking of going to a Huntsville con next April – and they just announced Gates McFadden as a guest! – so I want to get it fixed up before then. I think if I could just get the hips/legs cleaned up a bit it would help a lot.
I still have jedi Leia and Cinderella to get back and uploaded, so I’ll include those in the next update.
5. Tiktok
omg tiktok. I’ve posted a couple of my videos here since I started being active on there about 2 months ago. But lately I did 2 “dressing” videos that both got a decent amount of attention – one was the process of getting in my pink georgian gown and the other was the process of getting in my 2009 Anne Boleyn costume. Most of the comments on the pink one were fairly normal with an oddball here are there. The comments on the Anne dress were just… off the wall. They all fall into 1 of 5 categories:
1. Fiona from Shrek. There are at least 20 comments saying it’s Fiona from Shrek. I thought it was gonna be Fiona. Nah this is a Fiona costume.
I generally don’t mind when someone wants to say a costume reminds them of some other costume (got a lot of Charlotte from Princess and the Frog with one of my pink georgian videos), but the fact that I really don’t care for Shrek made it irritating in this case.
2. Haunted Mansion wallpaper corset. OMG yes. It is a haunted mansion wallpaper corset. I got the fabric from spoonflower. How many times do I repeat this…
3. It’s not historically accurate. They didn’t wear that. It wasn’t like that. #1 it’s a costume from a movie, so yes I’m going to wear a hoopskirt with it whether it’s historically accurate or not because otherwise it won’t look like the costume from the movie. #2 I made it 10 years ago and it’s not the best thing I ever made. Learned a lot since then. Part of the reasons I made Anne #2 in 2014 because I knew I could improve on the 2009 dress.
4. How do you go potty? Imagine having to go the bathroom. What do you do when you have to go? First off you go before you get in costume. Second off if you really have to go, it’s not like it’s inaccessible down there. All you have to do is lift everything up.
5. I wish we still dressed like this now! And the people arguing that you’d have died of smallpox. No lots of people lived long lives. No they didn’t.
This was basically me at my phone all day Friday and Saturday.
Anyway, I sound like I’m complaining, but I’m not. I’m finding all the comments mostly amusing and I’m having a good time with it. I feel like on instagram I’m preaching to the choir, on tiktok I’m reaching a wider, new audience and it’s fun.
Here’s the Anne dressing video, I apparently didn’t upload the pink one:
And here’s a few costume ones:
Boushh looks so stinking good on the form. Makes me motivated to finally do my upgrades and new helmet next year.
Honestly got no plans for sewing this week. I’m sure I’ll do something, but I want to get new interfacing first… and probably won’t do that til the weekend. Maybe I can get Chase to go to Joann with me so he can start looking at fabric for some of his upcoming projects, because I’d like to get things done EARLY… which is why I have been hustling on things with no particular end date.
Also YIKES Christmas is 3 weeks away?!!? I haven’t even thought about it.