Last part of my Nadja costume arrives today – my boots! Yay! I could finish Nadja in a couple of hours at this point –
1. Finish and sew on sash
2. Sew on hook and eye at back
3. Sew hat onto the headband
But I’m now knees-deep in Breha construction so it’ll wait.
My goal is to have Breha done in the next 2 weeks – and then spend the last week of June finishing up Rebels Leia, and the last few things on Nadja. I’ll have 3 completely finished and ready to go costumes by 7/1. Then – working on Chase’s costume for this year, Seven of Nine and Jedi Training Flashback Leia.
Seven will definitely be first because I bought fabric for it. I’m planning to use my TNG uniform yoke section combined with the same side-closure jacket pattern I used for Lady Blackhawk.
Running into one problem with Seven – the borg hand. I’ve found several options for buying the ocular implant set, and I’m just gonna do that, but nobody selling the hand and I really don’t feel like making it. Gonna keep digging and I guess if I have to make it I have to make it. I’ve seen some people say they bought those rubber “witch fingers” and cut them up and painted them so that’s probably the route I’ll go.
Anyway – I didn’t mean to give a recap at the start here, but it just kinda happened.
Oh and here’s my Nadja wig since it just missed being in last week’s post by a couple of hours. I just need to kind of tug at the buns to make them more pointed.
And now let’s talk Breha.
I. did. so. many. mock-ups.
I only did one mock-up of the skirt section because that was pretty straight forwarder. But that top? Jesus. Trying to get the top to fit cleanly with no weird wrinkling and the darts to sit right was a pain in the ass. I think I did a total of 6 mock-ups and 3 paper patterns.
This one above was the last one I did in my scrap fabric – I moved onto the real fabric after this, and ended up not being happy with it, I had to reposition the shoulder seams and completely redo the dart again. I moved those changes to a new paper pattern again (that was #3 I think) and recut the bodice pieces and this time it all worked ok. Finally.
I went ahead and got the cape/sleeve thing cut.
Everything is just pinned together here. Chase printed out a paper copy of my design so I could cut it out and check the size. I was gonna test my HTV yesterday but I’ll get to that later.
I ended up spending most of the weekend on the damn skirt panels.
The part I thought would be easiest. Well, the first bunch I cut of my real fabric (and that’s 8 panels – 2 front/2 lining + 2 back/2 lining), I decided they looked awful because the edges weren’t totally straight and if I tried to make them straight I felt like they’d end up not wide enough.
I decided since I had extra fabric, I’d recut them. I drew new paper patterns instead of using my mock-ups as a pattern piece, made sure all of the lines were super nice and straight, and cut new back panels (again, 4 total – 2 main and 2 lining).
I tried that on (pinned to my bodice) and holy crap it was heavy. That fabric I’m using is very heavy, and having 2 layers of it just made it extra heavy. So I went to the place I hate going to buy fabric but it’s only 5 minutes away vs 30 minutes like Joann and got some matching cotton to line the panels with instead.
And then I recut both the front and back panels + the cotton for the lining. That was the last of my Breha fabric. Wasting fabric for 12 unused skirt panels made me want to jump off the roof. But i’ll use one of those skirt panels for the belt and the rest will go in the pile for future mock-ups or lining or whatever.
Saturday night/Sunday morning I got the new panels and lining cut and assembled and the pic you see above is the finished panels as of Sunday afternoon.
I got them sewn together and tested attaching to the bodice. Looks good, I didn’t sew the bodice and skirts together yet because I don’t know if I want to do that before the cape/sleeve thing. Thinking about it.
The skirts did end up too big – there’s about 3 inches I need to cut off in the back. I’m not 100% happy with the way the back panels are hanging right at the hip, I’m curious if when I take up the back seam to fit it’ll help. If it doesn’t, I’m not gonna stress over it.
Also please ignore the fact my dressform has scoliosis LMAO – I need to get her parts popped back into place.
So last night I was hoping to test the HTV on some of the blue satin lining fabric. Had some leftover red from Wanda – Chase was getting it cut for me, but had to update that the software and firmware so that took a minute. Then neither of the first 2 cuts were deep enough to weed. So hopefully can get a usable cut tonight to test then move on to actually doing the real cape. I’m reallllly hoping I can get through ironing all of these on in the next week and then by next Sunday I’m doing final assembly.
In other news, Chase and Kevin went to see Transformers Friday night. I stayed home to sew LOL
Though I am the one who picked up Kevin beforehand – got to show him the progress on his room here at the house. He liked it!
When I went to the fabric place I don’t like Saturday night I found this…
On clearance for $20! Initially I wanted to get it for Kevin’s room, but Chase didn’t like it for Kevin’s room, so I got it for my sewing room LOL
It fits above the couch really well. I was saving this spot for one of my Leia prints I need framed, but Leia can go elsewhere now.
Sunday we tried a new place for breakfast.
I got this burrata toast and it was YUM.
Anyway I already told yall my goals for this week, so I leave you with Luna in a box.
