Well, our week of Kevin and Skye is nearly over. Kevin went home yesterday and Skye will be going home today. Luna will be happy but I’ll miss them.
Even though Kevin pretty much stayed in his room here most of the time. He was playing the FF7 remake which I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out in his room and watching – reminds me that I need to buy it for myself and play it. I think that will be my reward for finishing Jupiter.
Had some fun this weekend though. Saturday we had to run some errands – drop off some donated items, check on Kevin’s cat, Hobby Lobby, grocery, and we went to Black Lodge to rent movies and then picked up pizza for dinner.
We each picked “spooky” movies and I think our individual choices suit is pretty well.
Kevin’s choice was Addams Family (which I kinda pushed him towards but he was all about it), mine was House on Haunted Hill, and Chase’s was Lost Boys. Kevin and I decided we’re Fester and Gomez, which would make Chase Morticia LOL.
Since we were in the area we also did a mini-tour of filming locations from The Firm LOL:
The house Tom Cruise lived in. Chase convinced me to watch it last weekend, because I’d never seen it (despite going through a John Grisham phase in the 90s – but that was reading his books, not movies). I did enjoy it mostly for all of the great early 90s Memphis locations. But it also dredged up a long-forgotten memory – Dad and I went to an open casting call for that movie LOL. Neither of us was selected for anything. While watching it I was like, dang I could’ve been one of those kids on the monorail with Tom Cruise.
Yesterday we did some yard work, not the most fun but we did clean up the halloween decorations, and I wired the skeleton pieces into the flower bed in front of the gravestones.
We also set up the fireplace to be a spooky photo-op area.
And here is a collection of pictures of Skye sleeping everywhere.
This one is in my work office. She’s a great coworker. LOL.
Poor Luna has been in my sewing room all week. She ventured out once – Saturday morning, she peeped her head through the railings in the upstairs hallway, looking down at us in the living room. Then right back into my sewing room when she heard Skye.
(Luckily the way our house is set up – I can create her own little space between the laundry room and my sewing room. Her litter box is in the laundry room and I moved her food in there, too, and she’s got my sewing room to sit in windows and relax. So it’s not too bad but I know the second Skye is gone she’ll be reclaiming her territory.)
I need to vent about selling stuff on facebook marketplace. We’ve been selling a ton of stuff on ebay, as I’ve mentioned before – but for larger stuff, we’ve been listing it on facebook marketplace for local pickup. The biggest thing has been our old couch, which has been sitting in our entryway for OVER a month now. We’ve posted it for $50, come and get it, we will not deliver… (or free to friends or friends-of-friends). We’ve had so many people ghost us or ask us to deliver it and it’s becoming frustrating. I’m so tired of it (and all the other selling stuff) sitting in our dining room. The other one is a medicine cabinet, which we posted late last week and immediately had a bunch of interest in. The first person who wanted insisted on a call to discuss the measurements ASAP (in the middle of dinner no less) and then decided it was too small. The second person said yes they want it, met Chase at the grocery store parking lot to pick it up, and then decided it was too small. “I know you sent me the measurements but I’M A GIRL so I didn’t realize how small it was.”
Emphasis mine. “I’M A GIRL so I didn’t realize how small it was.” Next person ghosted. There’s got to be a better way. Maybe soon we yard sale.
One more thing I need to type a wall-of-text about, just because I need to vent. I’ve had to stop listening to one of my first and still fav podcasts. I’d never been into podcasts until a friend of mine held his phone up to me and said “Hey, you ever listen to THIS?” And I was like no but I certainly will, and I was hooked. It was when I was working on Bespin Leia so I binged every episode in like a week, I loved it.
And still do! I listen to podcasts pretty much non stop – I listen while I work, I listen when I go take a nap, I listen while I sew. And this particular podcast has been one that, as soon as I see the new episode pop up, I’m listening to it immediately. I’ve always looked forward to it every week, I love the hosts and their personalities, and the specific genre they cover.
But, over the last couple of months, when I see it pop up, I’ve been jumping right to it less and less. And when I do listen, I now often skip their opening chat before they get to the story they’re covering. And even in the last episode, during the story, I turned it off and haven’t gone back.
The reason? They talk about COVID-19 and the pandemic and their anxiety over it and everything way too much. Which is their prerogative. It’s their show and they’ve always talked about their personal lives and feelings so it’s no surprise they’re talking about it. But there’s so much “remember when we could do this” and “we’ll never get to do that again” and “well that’s never coming back” doom and gloom comments that it makes my stomach go into knots and I feel like I’m going to throw up. It gives me SO much anxiety to hear that kind of stuff that I cannot enjoy the show anymore with those kinds of comments thrown in. I hope this shit is over soon, I’m so tired of feeling like this.
One more vent, none of our mail showed up Saturday which sucked because I was expecting costume pieces for Jupiter. We had 1 letter and 2 packages in our informed delivery email for that day and none of it showed. It better be here today.
Speaking of Jupiter, let’s get into it. She’s almost done!!
I got the leotard made, and then constructed the upper chest piece, which has a neoprene insert for a little more padding. Most time consuming were the little puffs at the shoulder.
The only part I’m not super enthused with is the line of stitching attaching them to the leotard – I think my hand basting looked better. But, it’s not visible once I put the chest panel on so I’m not going to worry with it.
And the chest panel looks better on me and stretched, but here it is. Decided to leave it a separate piece. I finished it once and then tried it on with the leotard and realized the arm holes came out too far and covered up the puff things on the leotard, so I basically had to take it all apart and take the arm holes in, and reassemble it – which ended up being ok because I think I did a better job at assembling it the second time than I did the first.
There’s snaps all over the leotard because I want to make things interchangeable. Y’know, in case I ever decide to make another Sailor Moon costume LOL. The skirt snaps on, the chest piece snaps on, the collar will snap on. Maybe I can eventually make Sailor Neptune like I’ve wanted to – I’d only have to do the skirt, collar and bows now.
Here’s the collar – I had to remake it. I had the first version finished, got the stripes printed on the silhouette and started applying them… and A) they ended up not fitting the collar correctly (they dipped in at the center back), and B) and more importantly, the first roll of white vinyl we bought SUCKED. It didn’t want to cut on the silhouette very well, and then when I was applying it, it didn’t want to release from the backing. I had to scrape the edges off the backing to get it started and that left the ends wrinkled and weird looking, which didn’t bode well for the areas where I was going to have to join 2 sections together. Decided to scrap it before I even got to those areas, remade the collar, bought new vinyl and drew up new stripes that didn’t bow in the back. New vinyl worked MUCH better. Pretty happy with it.
Here she be!
I still have to:
-Get a new ponytail. My old one doesn’t match my hair currently. I thought about going full wig, but didn’t want to spend the money on it.
-3D Print tiara, paint
-Make neckband
-Add snaps for attaching the collar
-Finish the front bow
-Paint brooch setting, attach gem (the gem is one of the things that was supposed to be here Saturday. Better be here today)
-Paint belt pieces, attach gems (more on that in a sec)
-re-iron skirt pleats
Speaking of the belt, Chase designed the belt pieces for me:
I bought pink gems to put in each one, and also bought a clear ornament to put roses in for that part. So assembling that will be most of this week’s work. Sewing is very nearly done.
I’m rushing to finish it this week because next weekend we’re going to do a white backdrop shoot! I’m planning on shooting:
-Sailor Jupiter
-Carrie Fisher
-Bespin Disneybound
-Sleeping Beauty w/new bodice
-Merida (w/new wig)
-maaaaaaaybe Raddus Bridge Leia
We typically only do 4-5 at a time because anything over that wears me out too much. But since Merida and Carrie are pretty easy thought we might be able to sneak in Raddus too.
I took off this Friday, gonna go vote and hopefully do some housework. I’d love to start painting the bedroom. We’ll see…