I can’t believe Christmas is next week. I feel like we just had Christmas 2019. With nothing happening this year, not going anywhere, not making any memories – March-December 2020 feel compacted into just a month or two.
I’m not feeling Christmas-y. It’s been really hard to make myself think about presents (both giving and what I want). I have enjoyed decorating the house, I love having the house decorated with all the lights. But that’s about it.
Anyway I’ve been trying to be more conscious of the media I’m consuming lately. I’ve never been a big news-reader ordinarily, but this year I’m checking the news multiple times a day. I told Chase it’s like I’m waiting on something to happen but I don’t know what. And the media is fully focused on the negative, the click-bait shock titles to get you to click so they get their advertising money. So I’m trying to wean myself off of it. It’s not easy.
I think I talked about it before but earlier this year I also went on a “social media diet” – not a break, but I stopped mindlessly scrolling through facebook, twitter, and instagram. All they were doing for me at the beginning of the pandemic were feeding into my anxiety. (Altho they were replaced by mindless scrolling on tiktok LOL But there was a lot less serious-ness on tiktok than constantly being bombarded with shared news stories, opinions and stuff on the other 3 platforms). I deleted facebook and twitter from my phone which helped enormously with that anxiety – I don’t post much on either platform so I didn’t need them. In spring I barely looked at them but sometime in the summer both were back on my phone, and while I’m not looking at them near as much as I used to, I am looking at them again.
Got a bit ramble-y there but my point is I’m consuming all this negative, anxiety-inducing stuff and I don’t feel like that’s a good thing. I need to find a balance of being informed/connected without overdoing it.
So anyway let’s get into some actual content.
Finally hung my Hobbit print in my bathroom:
And my makeup boxes arrived! Chase is designing front plates for them so they match my light switch covers. Then they’ll get painted and then my LOTR bathroom will be mostly finished finally.
Wednesday I went to see Starry Nights with Nana, Kristie and Kevin:
Kevin did NOT get car sick this time, thank goodness LOL.
Starry Nights was so much better than previous years! Lots of new lights and effects. We all really enjoyed it so much we clapped at the end LOL. (Starry Nights is a driving christmas light experience in one of our biggest parks/greenspaces. They’ve had it for ages now at least since I was a teenager)
This was the only pic I took, everything else was boomerangs for my IG story LOL.
I was off work Friday – did some work on Eliza and decorated a new wreath we got. Luna had to be in the middle of it.
I thought we were going to make it through a whole week without her having another episode, but last night she just randomly started hissing at me again. It’s like she’s fine all week and then on the weekend has an episode. I dunno. Last night the theory was it was my socks? She’d been fine til I went into the bedroom and put some socks on because my feet were cold, and when I came back out is when she started hissing. LOL Grasping at straws…
Speaking of Eliza, I got a decent amount of work done.
Last week I decided to make a bum pad:
Using the Simplicity pattern that is the under-things for the Outlander-ish costumes.
I made it a bit bigger than the pattern called for but that’s it. I’m probably going to regret it because it’s a bit big for me now LOL.
See it gaping at the back? I need to try it on with my stays and see what it looks like. I haven’t closed it up yet in case I need to add/remove any stuffing once I see it on with the stays, and I may need to take a couple of darts back there to make it fit better.
Main fabric was some scraps Kristie’s mom gave me – I thought they had a nice 18th century look. The ruffle is from the cotton lining of the curtains I’m using for Eliza. Together they look like a really horrible 80s tablecloth but nobody is going to see it LOL
Here’s what it looks like with a skirt thrown over it:
Which looks about right.
While I had that Outlander-ish underwear pattern out, I decided what the heck, I’ve got all this cotton leftover from the curtain linings, let’s make a chemise so the tiktok kids stop asking me where my chemise is. (I’ve always just worn a tanktop to prevent any irritation from the stays. Never wanted the extra bulk of another layer of chemise)
I got it almost done, just needed sleeve and bottom hemming… when I realized I sewed the facing on the wrong side. (Actually technically I sewed the side seams and sleeves on the wrong side since I did those after the facing, but the facing is what will be fixed). At the moment I don’t have the energy to worry with fixing it. I mean I’ll make myself do it eventually but ugh.)
Also figured I’d make a petticoat too with the cotton. This is just roughly pinned together. I think 2 panels is too much bulk, so I’m going to cut one in half.
Doing that though was a great test run for how much fabric I’d need for the actual skirt. The silk outer panels are bigger than the inner cotton ones, and seeing 2 of the cotton panels like this made me realize 2 panels is plenty for the skirt portion and 1 for the bodice is more than enough. So I’d only need to dye 3 panels instead of all 6.
Friday it was in the mid-60s with a storm incoming bringing a cold front. I figured I’d better do my dyeing before it dropped into the 40s.
Did one more test strip on one of the loops and then dived right in. I used water heated up on the oven (but not boiling), dumped into this bin outside. It was “very warm” but not so hot I couldn’t put my hands in.
I let the 3 panels hang outside for about an hour before the wind picked up and it looked like it might start raining, so I brought them in and put the in the dryer on low heat, low tumble for about 15 minutes and that was enough to dry them totally.
And I’m SUPER happy with the result.
I worked on my bodice mockup a bit this weekend – got my JP Ryan pattern tweaked to have the back opening and the front angled seam.
I tried it on with my stays last night, fit pretty well. But I think I’m going to do 1 more mock-up – full on sewn together and hemmed with a lace-up back just to check.
I’m kinda feeling that I need to thin on the front bottom shape a little more – hers is very thin there. I thinned it out quite a bit from the original pattern and figured I’d lose about half an inch on either side – but even then I think it’ll be too big. And I feel like the angle of the seam up the front might be too straight – those are both things I want to check in a more “done” mockup. I ran to Hobby Lobby saturday and got some heavier cotton to using an interior layer, and I got extra so I think I’ll do my next mockup out of that.
I really didn’t do any sewing saturday or sunday. Saturday morning we actually had a yard sale with Cath and her mom. We were up at 5:30 AM to put up signs and start setting up. Ran the yard sale from 7:30-noon. We did decently well! Made about $100 and got rid of a bunch of stuff we’ve been trying to sell on ebay for ages. One guy who came early bought the entire table of various toys and random comic issues for $30. It felt both good and bad – bad in that I spent way more on that stuff than $30, but good in that nobody in a half a years has bit on that stuff on ebay and I’m glad to have it out of the house.
Sold a bunch of other stuff too, but unfortunately the couch did not sell. The main reason we wanted to have the yard sale! We went ahead and put in an AmVets request to come pick it up for donation and just have it in the garage for now.
The day started out actually kinda warm. At 6AM it was comfortable outside and I was in a t-shirt and had to put my hair up. But as the sun rose it got colder. By noon I was in a hoodie, with the hood up, wrapped in a blanket and freezing.
Afterwards we took a long nap, ran some errands, picked up dinner and were lazy the rest of the night.
Sunday I woke up with sinus mess. Snotty and sinus headache. A tylenol sinus headache helped get me on my feet but I feel like I need some dayquil today and we don’t have any. Anyway, wrapped presents yesterday, ran a couple more errands, cooked dinner at home and played sims the rest of the night.
This week I’m going to focus on the “full” mockup of the bodice and also fixing the chemise facing. I’m off again this friday so I’m hoping by then I might be ready to cut everything for the actual dress. I’d really love to squeeze Eliza into 2020 and not 2021. 2021 is shaping up to be a redo of my 2020 costume list LOL. (Year in Review will be up soon. Already wrote it, just need to finish adding in pics and formatting).