I feel like I didn’t get much done last week, but then I look back at where I was last week and realize… I did get a lot done.
I finished up Bail. I didn’t like the trim I bought for the neckline, so I made some out of leftover Vader pleather. Also added some elastic loops to the bottom right edge that the belt with thread through, to keep the gathers held taught. It’s all probably going to ride up as he walks, but ah well, it’s just for fun.
I mostly finished up my flashback Leia pants:
I still need to hem the bottom and install elastic foot loops to hold them in place, but I wanted to wait til I had my boots to try everything on to do that.
Speaking of boots. I’ve had these brown suede boots for a few years now. I picked them up because they were a great shape for Leia looks – the flat sole, round heel, very reminiscent of huttslayer and very similar to the boots I used for hoth and boushh too. So i thought they’d come in handy for a future Leia costume one day. I almost used them for wedding leia but they were too dark – so when I decided to do flashback Leia, I was like yes, I can finally use these boots!
Well I got them out to put on with the pants, and as I was shoving my foot in, I realized, I have never even tried these on. And then I can’t get my foot all the way in. I sit down and take them off, look at the sole… and they are size 6s, not size 7s. No wonder I couldn’t get my foot in.
So that was a bummer. I thought I was going to get away without having to buy new boots for this costume. I hopped online and found a new pair, and I’ll be selling the suede ones at some point after dragoncon.
I also worked on my Lothal Leia hairpiece a little.
Here’s the base for the bun. But this is the only pic I have, because after I got it covered in hair and tried it all on, I decided to completely rethink the way I was doing this. The braid I was using for the upper part I didn’t like, it just didn’t sit right, so I think I’m going to try to make this all one piece. I’ve got some new base fabric coming in the mail this week (I had used black for the hairpiece here because i didn’t have anything brown. But for what I’m planning now I definitely need brown). So more on that next week.
I also restyled my Scully wig.
When I tried it on last week it was too long on me, and too big, it looked like I was wearing a helmet. So I got it trimmed, and then did a LOT of thinning. Then I recurled it… and as I was finishing up I tipped the steamer too far and dumped boiling water all over it, completely flattening it all out LMAO So I gave it a wash just to kinda start over, get all the loose hair out, and then recurled it AGAIN and that’s where we are at with the pic above. Need to try it on again but I think it looks a little more realistic now. As realistic as a $30 hardfront wig can look anyway.
And now onto the major project of the week – the flashback Leia tunic.
Got my real fabric cut. Here’s the pieces pinned together.
And it was at this point I realized I made a dumb mistake. Remember when I was working on the mock-up for this like 2 weeks ago I think it was… and I said the neck and sleeves were too tight so I modified the patterns? Yeah I didn’t need to do that because I was missing an entire panel of the sleeve, if I’d had that in there during the mock-up I wouldn’t have needed to do those modifications. I should’ve known I was just misunderstanding Jen’s pattern because her patterns are always great.
But of course I didn’t realize this until AFTER I’d cut my real fabric with my modified pieces. So I agonized over recutting all of these panels. I had enough fabric to do it but it felt wasteful. I did test just recutting the sleeves (first thing I did), and then I tested adding on what I’d removed at the neckline, but I didn’t like there being a seam there – even though it’d be hidden by the bandanna at the neck. i decided to just recut, and then I could use the original patched together pieces as a lining if i decided to go that route. Friday I went ahead and got the new tunic pieces put together, inside seams finished and ready for sleeves.
Friday night I spent making the quilted panels for the sleeves.
I used 2 layers of the low loft batting leftover from Vader, backed by cotton on either side with my guidelines drawn in chalk on the back. I sure have done a lot of quilting in the last month.
After those were done, I covered some piping in the leftover fabric from my pants, and got that sewn on to the side of the quilted panel, and then pinned it into the sleeves for a test… and decided it was too big.
So first thing Saturday morning, I took the piping off, trimmed the some width off either side of each panel, and then piping back on. Now I could finally assemble the sleeves.
I felt like just my main fabric alone was too thin to hold up the quilted panel, so I flat-lined each piece in the cotton I’d bought in case I wanted to line the whole thing in cotton. Got that done, got the quilted panels sewn in, and then decided I didn’t like how rough the inside looked, so I made a panel to cover up the raw edges of the quilted piece and handsewed that in. Then finished the edge with some brown cotton that was either leftover from Chase’s Chip jacket or his Luke poncho – not sure which LOL. I kinda hope it was Luke because I like that connection.
This is where I left it Saturday night.
I mentioned lining the body of the tunic earlier – I did play around with that a bit on Saturday. I used the previous tunic pieces and pinned them together and into the main tunic. Tested that out and just felt like it weight the whole thing down too much. So I let go of that idea.
Sunday morning I got Chase up into my sewing room to test out a few things – he tried on all of his Lazslo pieces and we decided the (really cheap) wig we picked out for him was not only too short but didn’t fit his head at all LOL Luna was hanging around with us upstairs, so I threw the wig and her and she had a TIME playing with it.
(Don’t worry, she was totally supervised during this play time and didn’t eat any of it, even though it looks like it. Wig was saved and put away into the stash for future use for something else one of these days.)
Anyway he also helped me get my Nadja sash positioned – all I have left to do is hand-sew the front rosette onto the front.
And we got my new Lothal Leia belt marked to be trimmed down. Once that’s done I’ll get the second belt cut and finally get all that assembled.
After that, back to work on the tunic…
I cut the facings from the original tunic panels I didn’t use. So they did get used just not in their original format LOL. Got those interfaced and sewn in, top-stitched it all (yall I used to topstitch everything, all the time, but eventually stopped. I can’t remember the last time I topstitched anything, so this was exciting LOL), and did the decorative stitches up the front.
All that is left now is to finish the inside of the facings by hand, and hem the bottom. It’s all pinned and ready to go so I’m hoping to have that done today.
Also, oooooh pretty.
I decided after that to get started on my boot covers, but after making a base pattern that fits over my new boots, I decided I didn’t like the colour of the fabric I had for the wraps.
Here’s everything together so far with my new boots.
The fabric I was going to use for the wraps is the same as I what I used for the quilted panels on the tunic, but holding it up between my boots and the pants, it just looked too light and too yellow. So I decided to throw it in some dye even though I am trying not to do a lot of that this summer.
I put it in some charcoal grey which helped but still felt too yellow, so I added a little bit of navy. Let that dry while we went to family dinner for a while, and when we got home I decided the blue over the yellow-ish-ness hadn’t neutralized it but it had gone green. So I put it in some marigold I had leftover from Jessica, and that’s where it was as of this morning. I took upstairs to take a look and it still looked too green.
So I decided a fresh start was needed, and this morning I threw it in some dye remover and took it back down to the original colour. Then I did a mix of charcoal grey (to darken), a touch of navy (to fight the yellow) and a touch of pink (to fight the green). Weird combo but I was trying to use what I had on hand LOL
It’s out drying on the line right now and I felt like it looked like what I wanted now. We’ll see in a few hours.
Last night after dinner I got the bandanna made and some snaps on the back for a closure so I don’t have to tie it everytime. It may be a little to tight on me after looking at my reference, but I’ll figure that out when I try it all on later.
So that’s it for the last week.
OH I had a dream Thursday night. I was at SDCC, walking up to the convention center (with Kate McKinnon and Dora the Explorer…) and as I got to the con center, there were all of these marketing postcards and brochures scattered all over the ground. One was shaped like a bookmark so I stopped to pick it up because like, hey free bookmark right? Well the bookmark had a picture of Cath on it, and I woke up right after this and was like… I have to go recreate this in photoshop IMMEDIATELY before I forget it. This is what the bookmark looked like:
A black and white pic of Cath with script text that said “No, Nickelback… I said YOU need to practice, not WE — I am already perfect.”
I have no idea, but I was rolling laughing making this.
Ok so now to-do list:
Rebels Leia:
Trim belt
paint accessories
attach
make hair bun
make hair piece
Nadja:
finish sewing on sash (half done)
test vampire fangs. dunno if they’re gonna work with non-standard teeth
Breha:
Paint buckle/attach
trim bottom of pants
Seven of Nine:
finish glove (I did this!)
trim wig
add snaps to top
Scully:
recurl wig
take up blazer
find new id badge
Bail:
sew trim on edge of cape
tack front edge of “sleeve”
(all done!)
Vader::
Make inner robe (waiting on him to be done with the chest panels)
Beefsquatch:
install new zippers and shorter straps
Jedi Leia::
finish assembling pants
hem bottom of pants/add elastic
make upper boot sections
cut and assemble tunic
make panels for sleeves
finish edges on tunic
paint belt
make belt buckle
A month to go – I’m in darn good shape.
Oh also I decided I want to take my pink Belle gown this year, and wear it with my blonde Marie Antoinette wig for an 18th century barbie look. It’s a lot to take just for a “fun” costume but I want to play Barbie with everybody this year too!!
On that subject, i tend to kinda of categorize every costume by how much room they take up when packing.
1. Small – I can fit almost all of this in 1 large ziplock baggie, even the shoes. Like Ms Marvel, or Fires of Pompeii Donna Noble. I don’t even really think about these when figuring out packing because they take up so little room.
2. Medium – Part of this fits in a large ziplock bag, but there are larger shoes or parts that don’t. Something like Journeys’ End Donna with her jacket and boots that take up more room, or regular Leia with her belt and boots, or something like Tightrope Walker where I’m not putting it in a garment bag, all of these pieces can fold and be put in a bin, with the accessories in the ziplock bag.
3. Large – This has to travel in a garment bag, but things like wig, accessories, shoes are in the bin. Like Edith or Eliza.
4. Extra Large – This has to go in garment bag, and has a styled wig that has to travel in a wig box. Packing Padme and Jessica both fall into this category.
5. Oversized – These are particularly stupid large costume and I don’t do a lot in this category – but things like Gaga that can’t even fit in the bin and have to just kinda be jammed in the car, or Kingdom Come Wonder Woman with her giant foam wings and helmet and suit that has to go in the garment bag. I haven’t done one in this category in years because they are a pain in the ass both to pack AND wear.
So yeah thats my categorization, and at the moment I’m at
Small – 1 (Scully)
Medium – 3 (Trek dress, Lothal Leia, Seven of Nine)
Large – 3 (Wedding Leia, Nadja, Breha)
XL – 4 (Packing Padme, Lady Jessica, the pink dress, and I guess technically flashback Leia is going here because of all of her accessories and the helmet and the tunic I don’t want folded up so it’s going in a garment bag.)
Anyway I’ve rambled enough – time to go check on the dyed fabric.