I am right back in the deep hole of sadness and anger I was in back in like April 2020. Mostly because of the CDC mask announcement last week. I am so tired of all this. Also because my boss let us know last week he is leaving the company and I’m completely bummed over it. And dragoncon announced their guidelines and it’s what was expected but it’s still got me down.
We are still going and are going to try to have a good time regardless. I’m just so frustrated at the world. I took facebook and twitter off my phone again, because the constant barrage of opinions and news-sharing on social media was making everything way worse for me. I also stepped back from looking at IG/IG stories. I just needed to stop going down a covid rabbit hole and focus on my projects.
Although the other day I remembered I can mute words on twitter. So i went in to add every single covid-related keyword I could think of. When I went into the “muted words” area in my settings I discovered I already had one muted word: wrestlemania LMAO. So I did that but haven’t put twitter back on my phone just yet.
I’m just so tired. I just want some… stability.
Anyway let’s get on with the show. It’s all Wanda updates this week.
I finally put my outer bodice shell together last week. I haven’t pressed the seams yet so it’s a little weird looking at each seam but I’ll do that soon.
I spent most of the last few days working on the pants and boots. Didn’t expect them to take so long but here we are.
Initially I was going to use the pleather I got for all of the red stripes. But it was just too dang thick. So at Joann the other day I found a remnant of a red spandex with roses on it – the backside is plain so that’s what I’m using. I got all of it and fingers crossed it’s enough for all of the red stripes. It’s not on their site anymore, and I checked the Jackson Joann too, so I think I got the last of whatever is out there. It matches my pleather really well, so I can still use that for the larger areas. And I still used the pleather on the boots. Only draw back to the spandex is that the roses are kind-of rubberized, and I did melt the first strip I tried to press. Oops. I have to iron it at the lowest heat I can get away with and very quickly.
Initially I started with tubes of the spandex and hand-sewing that to my pants front panel. But it looked bulky. So Chase cut them down smaller for me and I’m sewing them on with unfinished edges. Not the best but it’s whatever at this point. Same with the black pleather triangles – I did go back over those with the machine (I found my teflon foot! it had fallen behind the sewing table) because that looked a little neater than my hand-sewing. But it still looks messier than I would like, but not sure what else to do at this point – can’t use double sided fusible, tried that and it’s not working with the red fabric at all, probably can’t get the iron hot enough, and it does work with the black but I did a stretch test and it popped off. Also tested the permanent fabric tape I got for the boots — it popped off, too. So I’m sticking with the hand-sewing on the red and the machine sewing on the black. It is what it is.
Anyway after I finished getting it all sewn on I put the back on and some elastic in the top. I need to get some thinner elastic to do stirrups with to keep them looking right.
They pass the 10 foot rule, so I’m letting it go.
I made a partial boot cover for the boots that zip up the back,and like I said I did the red stripes using the pleather/fabric tape. Worked well there. Only thing I need is an additional closure at the top back of the boot covers.
I got my second half-skirt put together last night so I put on everything I had so far.
It’s good to FINALLY see it coming together.
I’ve got to start cutting vinyl for the skirt/hip panels/gloves again. It’s going to take a while. Starting that back up tonight, and in the meantime I’m going to focus on making masks to match everything tonight.
Wednesday last week was Mema and Daddy Bob’s 70th anniversary! So we went up to see them Saturday.
Catty Bob is hilarious.
They were in fine form.
We stayed for about an hour and a half and when we said “well we better get going” we of course got “but you just got here!”
They used to do that when we’d come stay the weekend, too. We’d decided to head on home Sunday morning to get some stuff done and they’d be sad we were leaving so early.
Anyway notice the drink on the table there? Chase wanted Starbucks for breakfast before we headed up to see them. Line was crazy long, it took about 40 minutes from getting in line to getting our food/drinks. I don’t drink coffee so I looked at the app’s menu for that specific store and decided on an iced London Fog Latte. I love London Fogs but didn’t want a hot drink so this looked like the ticket. And then when Chase ordered it they had no idea what it was, the poor girl at the speaker was trying to explain that a London Fog is a hot drink, and we’re like… we are looking at an iced London Fog on your menu right now. So then she’s like ok we can make that. I guess they had to pull out the book or something and figure it out, because after we paid at the window we had to pull up and wait another 10 minutes on it. I googled it afterwards and apparently it’s a pain in the ass for them to make. So much trouble for a drink.
Chase ran errands by himself yesterday — we got up and mowed the lawn and it about killed me, and I HAD to get those pants done to feel like I’d accomplished something. he came back with these:
Now to decide if I want to open them or not…
Last little update – I am finally making some headway in the padme overskirt area. Some tests are finally working out nicely, though I’ve had to simplify it a lot. But I’m feeling better about it. Still so much to get done…
just keep swimming!