It’s dad’s bday today! We went out for dinner Saturday night to a new korean bbq place. It was ok. Not like the one we had in NYC.
I don’t have a lot of costume progress to show this week. I’ll chat about it at the end.
New pin for the collection!
A friend gave us some irises back in 2021 – this is the first year one has bloomed! Hooray!
A little bit of a consolation since nothing else bloomed. None of our flowering bushes in the front bloomed at all; the weather has been too weird.
Since being away last weekend, Luna has been spending her days hiding somewhere that I couldn’t figure out. Not a few days at least. I’d walk around the house calling for her and she wasn’t in any of her usual spots. Finally discovered she was sleeping in one of my under the bed storage things – the one I keep my swimsuits, tights, etc in. That’s where she used to get when she was in a really bad state back around the time of her bladder stones. Her feliway had been out for a few days, so we got a new one just in case she was having some anxiety without it. also got her some “Meowijuana” at the pet store and she looooved that.
She’s still sleeping in there at night but she seems a lot more playful and not hiding in there during the day anymore, so hopefully feliway is back to doing its job.
This weekend was busy with costume stuff! Probably my last costume-heavy weekend for a while before dcon.
Saturday I got up and did my hair and makeup, packed up Ceremonial Leia and headed out to Selmer for the Carl Perkins Superhero Day.
The Star Wars gang
It was a great turnout
I did as long as I could with my hair up – I swear I’ve had a migraine 3/4 of April with the weather constantly going back and forth.
I got to pet a baby goat!
I did also take some photos for RL submission while I had it on, because I finally finished the bracelet.
But I’m just not sure they’re good enough. The flash is super strong and creating a hard shadow to my left and they’re kinda grainy.
Just considering I usually enter high quality white backdrop shoots these feel like a huge step down – Chase didn’t bring a big setup to this event, just our little point and shoot. It IS better than iphone pics at least LOL
So just gonna sit on it and may throw them at the RL and see if it sticks. Dunno when I’ll feel like doing that hair again otherwise.
Since I had costume make-up on still, after dad’s dinner recorded some dressing videos for tiktok (wedding Leia and Star Trek).
Sunday I did a few small things to wedding Leia – after wearing her at HSV Expo and then for the dressing video, I decided to take the lining layer of the skirt to the front edge of the chiffon skirt. The lining layer kept wanting to stick out. So I did that. I also sewed some of the leftover ribbon to the bottom side of the center back of the train – just trying to give it some more stability, because when I walked, the train just collapsed in on itself and completely hid the back design. I think the ribbon helped give it some more structure to help it not collapse in.
Besides that, and cleaning up my sewing room and putting everything away from Huntsville, I got nothing done Sunday. But since it was finally NOT RAINING and not wet out Sunday, we decided to go out and take wedding Leia pics at my parents’ house. Here’s a preview:
Chase should be getting the pics to me tonight so I’ll include them in next week’s post.
Ok so now let’s talk about the Rebels Leia shoe situation.
So I bought this wedge boots for Rebels Leia 2 weekends ago:
I know she doesn’t wear wedge boots in the costume, but I decided that’s the direction I wanted to go – a little bit of extra height looks better on me when wearing something as tight as that costume is and figured wedges would look better with the overall costume look than regular tall heels.
Painted the heels white – which took several rounds of paint, like seriously I spent 2 nights painting the heels. I thought i was done after the first night and could start working the second night, but then decided it needed a couple more coats.
I also cut the front edge off so there wasn’t a harsh line there under the boot cover, and stitched the top edge to keep the lining layer from separating from the outer layer.
Had fun making a tape form – figured this would be faster than me messing around with scrap fabric making a pattern that way.
My leg!
Kinda cool
Did a mock-up with a pattern I made from that.
Got my fabric cut – 1 layer of the scuba and 1 of the suede. I thought the scuba would be enough to hold the upper shaft section up ok.
Got my layers all basted together, sewed one cover together at the front seam and put a zipper in the back. Hemmed the bottom edge. Started trying to get it attached, only to realize I couldn’t get a needle through most of the shoe – the heel and toe capes were rock solid. I hated having to glue it on but looked like that was what I was going to have to do.
But as I kept messing with it and trying it on, I realized the upper section/shaft was not going to stay up on its own. Like at all. It was nice and tight being stretch fabric and a zipper to fit and it looked great when I put it on and pulled it into place, but the second I started walking it would start to droop.
So my options were:
1. Attach the boot covers to the pants. How? Hook and eye? Definitely not velcro, I avoid that with spandex. Snaps? It seemed like every option felt like it was just going to put pressure on the pants and possibly weigh/pull them down, because they are just one layer of spandex.
2. Make an upper shaft for the boots. That seemed like the better option as of Friday, so I dug around and founds some heavy black vinyl that felt like it should stand up on its own pretty well. I cut out upper sections and start pinning them into the existing boot cover just to see how it looked on Saturday.
3. Scrap these boots and start over with boots that are actually the correct height. That’s what I decided to do. I found a knee-high pair of wedge heel boots on amazon for $20. I’ll have to trim them down and maybe install a new zipper along with the boot cover but I think in the end it’ll be MUCH easier than all the gymnastics I was trying to do making the ankle boots work.
So that’s where I’m at. My boots don’t arrive til Friday so everything is on a pause there.
Going to move back to Nadja tonight and finish messing with the skirt mock-up, because my new swatch arrives today. FINGERS CROSSED! I put some of my costume budget money in the bank last week in prep to order this fabric this week.
May also play with starting to pattern Breha’s top this week. I ordered the pleated fabric for the pants last week. Gonna scope out joann and see if they have something usable for the rest but I’m guessing not.
And then that comes to my other Dragoncon project – will it be 7 of 9 or Jedi Training Leia?
I’d planned on it being 7 of 9 because that was the easier project. But then Chase started printing the helmet for Jedi Training Leia and now I dunno. I ordered swatches for the tunic. Guess we’ll just see how the summer plays out.