7/9/22 – APPARENTLY I forgot to hit publish on this on Tuesday. Oops. Well here it is now. I backdated it to the date it was written.
yall I am tired.
Last week was spent getting the house ready for company.
We got the backyard cleaned up, lights put up and ready to go.
Friday Chase’s sister and family arrived. We went out for pizza that night. Saturday they went down to the Bass Pro pyramid and I stayed home to do some sewing – that was really the only time I had for it this weekend and I’ll talk more about it at the end.
Then Saturday night while they went to Kevin’s house for fireworks, Ash and I headed downtown for Jesus Christ Superstar!!
We had dinner at the Majestic (yum) and the show was great. I haven’t seen it onstage since we saw it in the mid-to-late 90s (can’t remember exactly when) – but that show was with Ted Neeley and that’s hard to beat. But this cast was great, great singers, loved the staging. And look at our seats! We bought these seats last fall the day they went on sale, and I was able to get our fav spot – dead center first row grand tier balcony.
Sunday we ran a few errands – I picked up some patterns at Joann, they were actually on sale?? That never happens anymore – and then we went swimming.
We cooked out for dinner…
Chase and I split this massive tomahawk steak. It was sooo good and way too much food so I have good leftovers for lunch today LOL
Sunday we got up early and went to the zoo.
Got there at opening to try to avoid the heat and crowds.
We made it about halfway through before we all started getting really hot. Finished up and went to lunch at Huey’s.
We were on the fence about what to do for the 4th that night. One of the local towns was doing a big fair and show so we thought about going to that. Then we thought about going out to my parents house with some sparklers and dinner — and that was good to go until my grandma was having some leg pain so we called it off. We did end up going to the city show – they advertised food trucks but it was just really bad (and expensive) fair food. Looked at the car show and then there was nothing much left to do, so we decided to leave, get some sparklers at the firework store and go home, skipping the big firework show. Turns out we didn’t need to stay for big fireworks. I think every single person in our neighborhood was setting off fireworks, and we could see somebody’s “big show” over the lake from the cove.
We set off our couple of things. Our next door neighbors had a few big ones too. I called it a night before we got done with everything – I felt grimy and gross from sunscreen, sweat, bug spray and dust all day. Went and took a bath and went to bed around 10.
I knew the fireworks were going to keep going, but didn’t expect our next door neighbors to PARTY all night. They had music playing outside all night, were outside being loud… for the most part was annoying and just woke me up a few times but I got back to sleep. Then for some reason at 4AM they turned the music up?? Like wtf? I gave up, got my blanket and went and slept in my sewing room the rest of the night. Chase had to move to the couch. I think I got the best sleep of everyone the rest of the night, I slept in the hallway area of my sewing room right outside the attic door, where the AC and everything was running, so I had some amazing white noise.
But yeah I don’t know what that was about. It was really rude.
Our company headed out to start their road trip home at 6:30 so I’ve been up since then. Went ahead and got a leg up on work for the day so that was nice I guess.
Now tonight we can finally watch the rest of Stranger Things!! We found the Surfer Boy pizza at walmart sunday so we are eating that tonight. I’m excited.
So as far sewing – last week I did the cuffs back on and the insides finished again and I was happy with everything.
And then I messed with my vest mock-up a bit – I spent a lot of time figuring out the pattern pieces for this collar.
I decided I needed to do a mock-up out of something heavier than this lightweight lining material so I got some bottom weight fabric last week and did another mock-up. I got enough I can also use it for the lining of the vest if I want.
Saturday I got the vest fitted, tweaked the shape a little more, and went through like 4 or 5 mock-ups of the collar pieces trying to get them dialed in right. Here it is on my dressform.
And everything so far on me.
It looks a tad long but there’s no hem yet obviously.
I also did a bit with the skirt finally, now that I have an idea of the vest – I got 4 inches cut off the top edge, got it all re-pleated and the pleats sewn down and ready for a waistband. BUT when I went to try it on in the photo above, it was like 5 inches too big?? I don’t know how that happened because I pleated it down on my dressform, so now I’m going to unpick the pleats and do them again so it fits right.
Sunday I took apart the mock-up to move the fit updates to my pattern pieces. Yesterday I had a couple of hours in my sewing room so I was going to start cutting the velvet.. but when I went to put the under-bodice on a dressform for my tiktok update video, I noticed some fraying on one of the cuff edges UGH! I apparently sewed too close to the edge of the chiffon and it was coming undone. I had to partially take that cuff off to the point I could flip it inside out and undo that section. Thankfully it seemed that in that area the chiffon and slipped out of place, so I was able to pull the frayed area away from the seamline and sew it back up. That all took about an hour of just having to REDO work I’ve already done… what, 3 times now? Ugh. but it’s done. I couldn’t leave that frayed area like that obv.
So now this week will be cutting and assembling the vest. I did FINALLY start buying some materials for the embroidered panel so I’m hoping I can get around to starting that this week too. So far we have no plans this weekend – knock on wood – and after losing a lot of time this past weekend I’m really hoping I can just get a LOT done this weekend with no interruptions. I’ve really got to make some headway on the beading/embroidery for both costumes so I can have plenty of time for Chase’s costumes – neither of which he’s bought any fabric for. He needs to get on it!