Got one more Christmas present from Chase.
My work phone needed a case so Carrie Fisher in a garbage can seemed perfect.
Got a good bit of sewing done this weekend. Not as much as I wanted… another storm, another migraine. But made good progress anyway.
More work on the underdress. I decided to change the shape of the top and make it more curved – that straight across cut was not flattering. Even though it won’t be seen! Still want it to be cute. Got the skirt pleated and sewn on, and the zipper finished off in the back. And straps sewn on. Just needs hemmed.
Bodice lining. 2 layers of white cotton (with silver dots on it… leftover from the new panniers I made last year. Thankfully the dots aren’t visible once it’s assembled.)
Got the outer layer assembled and sewn on.
The center seam wants to pull funny when I tighten the back. Probably my own construction issue. I pinned it so it would stay straight and I’m hoping once I have the trim sewn on the front, it’ll stay put. If not, I’ll hand-tack it down so it doesn’t shift.
Creeper Cat. I came downstairs and went into our bathroom to get a hoodie and she was just sitting there like she was waiting on me.
Starting to pattern the “undershirt”. Dunno what else to call it. Will use this mock-up as lining for the shirt portion.
The one in the background is for the sleeves – just going to use that as a pattern to cut it out, don’t want to line the sleeves.
I thought I talked about this last week but apparently not. This was one of the dresses out of my formal collection I was going to keep. I hadn’t really looked at it or tried it on. I just saw lacey dress and was like “oh! Padme wedding disneybound dress!”
Then I tried it on and was like. Nope. Not keeping this. LMAO. Like what is that collar thing? It looks like wedding Vampirella. And the entire dress is see-through. OMG it’s cracking me up.
Been having sewing machine issues for a couple of months. Started towards the end of working on Belle in November-ish? Was just seeing some weird puckering when sewing on anything lightweight. Not really puckering. Like it was pulling some of the fibers and causing weird indentations – like I was sewing on poly chiffon with a dull needle. But it was doing it on anything even remotely lightweight – especially lining fabric, saw it a lot in Raddus Leia’s lining. I was able to pull it out there, though. Saw it in Arwen’s mockup. And continued seeing it working in this new project, especially which such a lightweight fabric in the skirt and bodice. Tried every easy fix I could think of – new needle, checking tension, it would seem to help for a few minutes then back at it. Was worried something was really wrong and I was going to have to take it in!
Then Friday night I decided I gotta just do the thing I’m always scared of doing and disassemble it and oil it. Chase came and helped me because I am terrified of disassembling it LOL. Got everything opened up, dusted out, Chase oiled it for me, and helped me put it back together. There was a lot of lint build up in places I couldn’t see/reach assembled, so I was able to get all that out. Also put on a new needle and…….. it’s fixed!!! YAY! I was so relieved.
But, now I’m sewing on this glitter fabric for the Leia costume and apparently the glitter layer is GLUED to a backing. All my pins and my machine needle are all gummed up and I keep having to wipe down the needle. I’m trying to make it through the rest of the sewing on this thing before changing needles out AGAIN – and I’ll probably disassemble and clean it out again just to be sure it didn’t gum up anything else. Bleh.
Anyway.
Guess who got Sims University for herself for Christmas?
I’ve been playing one family for 4 generations now. It started with Picard and Crusher, who had a son named Will Riker, who married Deanna Troi and they had a daughter Tasha Yar who married Geordi LaForge (and Data also joined the family, he stays youthful through youth potions and is an adept cook, baker, handyman, robot builder, rocker scientist, writer, artist, actor, programming, and video gamer. He has a lot of time on his hands.) Geordi and Tasha had a son, Worf. I had to play for several more days to get him old enough to go to University. Sent him off for his first semester (i’d played around with a random sim to get the feel for it beforehand. Random sim failed her first semester. It’s hard!!) and put him in a dorm.
I didn’t realize that moving him into that dorm would add him to a family of 2 girls in college. Didn’t care about the 2 girls. Let them do whatever. Just focused on Worf, who got all straight As. But last day of the semester one of the girls just up and died, apparently she hadn’t been eating, showering, or anything. That’s the screencap above. The other girl failed and was on probation LOL.
Next semester I moved Worf back home. Which I thought would be easier – it’s hard to get them to get to class on time when they’re living on campus which is weird? It was definitely easier to get him to class from home, but… the last day of his term was on Winterfest. And he didn’t automatically go to classes! WTF! I was watching and got him to 2 of the classes on time, but he had 2 back to back (like, gets off class at 3:55, next started at 4) and he came home and buggered around event though I told him to go to class. He ended up being late – on final exam day.
And guess what, he FLUNKED that class. Like A+ in his other classes, F in that one! How does that work! He did all his homework. He was at class otherwise. He studied. And he gets an F?! That’s messed up.
Thankfully I hadn’t saved in a while so I just backed out and basically replayed the whole semester. All As this time. He graduated and is now an engineer, and he’s now married to Ro Laren. Geordi has passed away, Tasha is still around. (I have all the urns lined up on their upstairs balcony.) Ro is expecting so it’s either going to be Dr Pulaski, Guinan, or Miles O’Brien. That’ll be 5th generation and I’ve never played a family that long.
She likes to squeeze in between my leg and the couch when I’m playing the sims.
Saturday more work on Leia. I decided that, in order to create the seamed/pleated effect of the undershirt in the comic, I’d cut 1.5″ strips of the glitter fabric, sew them together, then sew that to a backing and cut the excess away. It took all afternoon to do all that. Only for all those seams to totally disappear once assembled. UGH.
I may go back and do a line of basic embroidery up each seam just to make it stand out.
Anyway, got the outer layer assembled, lining set in. Going to have the closure be on the front – I need to trim off the excess and figure out how I want it to close. Got the sleeve pieces cut.
Here’s the undershirt as of last night. Still playing with the sleeve attachment. These sleeves change from panel to panel so I’m basically just doing what I want and going for the “look” while also having some fun with it. I’m hoping to have the sleeves/back panel attached tonight, and then I can figure out the front closure.
I THINK I may have to add a panel along the bottom edge of the top with some elastic in it. The top works fine under the bodice in the front – but not in the back. It’s a hair too short, and once I have the bodice on, it becomes too big. (Fits great without it. Didn’t think about the bodice reduction). Adding an elastic panel along the bottom would add just enough length so it would stay under the bodice, and make it fit better with the bodice on. Just gotta figure out how to make this work that doesn’t look janky.
Got all the trim sewn on the bodice last night too. I bought this size and the size smaller of this trim, thinking I needed the smaller to sew onto the bigger to make the trim overall bigger. Did that sentence make any sense? LOL. But once I got it pinned on the bodice, I realized the bigger size was fine. If I added strips of the smaller trim to it, it was going to look too big on me. So I’ve got 6 yards of the smaller version of this trim, that I’m going to experiment with and see if I can make it work for the hair snoods.
And finally – totally random, but:
I had Sailor Jupiter out for a video yesterday and while I was steaming the skirt, saw this… for a moment I was like WTF! Then I remembered. Katsucon 2004. The hotel iron melted part of my skirt. The whole reason I don’t trust hotel irons. Thankfully this is inside the skirt fold but I was mad about it ALL OVER AGAIN last night. LOL.
This week my goal is to finish the sewing on the new Leia. That’s:
-Finish undershirt sleeves
-Put closure on undershirt
-Elastic on undershirt?
-See if bodice front seam needs tacked
-Hem skirt of underdress
-Play with leftover trim to see if they work for snoods
That’s it! Whoohoo.
Then onto my Black Widow dress.
Then I really need to do some house stuff. I want to paint my bathroom.