Ugh it’s Monday again. At least next week is only a 4 day work week with Memorial Day. Something to look forward to.
Speaking of Memorial Day, I mentioned last week we were going to do a white backdrop shoot that weekend, because I really need Arwen and Eliza pics. But we decided to push it off to July 4 weekend, so we can focus on some house work before we have a Memorial Day cookout here.
Speaking of, we spent a lot of time this weekend working on the back patio. Chase got a new pressure washer and we cleaned patio concrete, the furniture and the back of the house. And we also assembled the swing my parents got us for christmas.
Saturday I took one more stab at dyeing the Bail velvet.
This time I did 3 bottles of DyeMore and as close to boiling water as I could — boiling water on the stovetop and moving it to my biggest bin.
Unfortunately I think we just couldn’t keep the water hot enough in this bin. It’s too much fabric for the stovetop. I think if I were dyeing smaller sections where i could do them on the stovetop, it would’ve worked, like it did with my swatch. But I had to do it all at once.
That being said I do think I did manage a subtle colour shift. It’s not as much as the swatch but I think I darkened it a hair.
And that’s not too far off from how it appears in on-set photos:
So I decided to leave it like this. I think I mentioned last week I did order a swatch as a back up – it came Saturday as well, but it was totally the wrong blue, it was just like a royal blue and not teal at all.
Chase also got the last of his chest armor piece for Bail 3d printed – he’s going to have to tweak one section because it sticks out a bit too far in the back but otherwise looks great.
In Padme news, I actually got a good bit done last week.
First up, I finished my hoopskirt:
My hooping came in Wednesday and that night we got the pieces cut. Unfortunately I don’t know if I read one measurement wrong or Chase heard me wrong – but one ended up being 70″ instead of 79″. Thankfully we had an extra piece and I was able to tape it on to extend it to make it work. Still annoying tho. Next time I need to order boning I may get another piece to replace it.
So it’s like 99% finished – I just need to go in and handsew the ends of the twill tape channels back down – I had to pop them open a bit to get the ends zip-tied together.
Here it is with my wrinkled Anne petticoat over it. This petticoat goes with the hoopskirt pattern so it’s made to fit over it. dunno if I’ll need it for Padme but glad I have it.
Next I got my skirt panels cut.
I used the underskirt patterns that again goes with the same Tudor pattern the hoopskirt and petticoat goes with – though it called for 6 back panels and I only did 4. I didn’t want to deal with extra un-needed fabric when I’m going to be covering this whole thing in appliques.
I got the skirt basically assembled – obviously not hemmed yet and haven’t made any kind of waistband, and it’s just sloppily pleated onto the dressform to fit.
Then I dove into mock-up world for the surcoat.
Thankfully the old 2005 era Simplicity “Peacock Padme” and Leia pattern was a great start for this. I’d already slightly modified it for Raddus Bridge Leia year before last, and it was still pinned together for that, so it was quick to put together. I just needed to change the collar shape:
(Obviously has no interfacing or anything in it so it won’t stand up, but looks good enough to go ahead)
Most of my mock-up work went into the sleeve. Which is why there’s only one. I cut out a basic, really wide sleeve shape, then cut that into panels and cut a second version using the panels, widening each one. Then sewed them together and added the cuff.
It’s a little too long so I’ll have to account for that and shorten it when I actually cut it from the real fabric but it’s a good start.
I’ve got the mock-up pieces ready to cut out of the real fabric:
But at the moment I’m wondering if I’m going to need to flat-line the main panels for shape. I think my fabric is a lot thinner than the screen-used fabric. I’m going to get the basic pieces cut tonight and on the dressform to see how they look on their own.
And in other news I did FINALLY… FINALLY test out cutting the velvet on the silhouette for the appliques. After nearly a year of putting it off. Good news is out of 2 of my floral drawings, 1 was great and didn’t need any tweaks and the other I think will be workable with some redrawing. I already did the redrawing – just need to test it again.
And this point the only thing I haven’t figured out how I want to do exactly is the swirl design on the edge of the velvet pieces. It looks printed/silk-screened? on the actual costume. I don’t really want to do that. Considering trying it on my embroidery machine. Dunno yet. One thing at a time.
So that’s really all for this week. I would really LOVE to have the surcoat finished next weekend and be to the point I can have the silhouette pumping out appliques for the skirt while I’m working all day. And I’d like to get Chase’s bail suit started. But I’m feeling good about things after getting so much done on Padme this past week.