Well hi. I do actually have costume updates this week. But first let’s get everything else out of the way.
4.5 weeks post-surgery — I feel like 99.9% normal. Remember just a week ago I said crawling around on my sewing room floor to work on costumes left me sore so I needed to take it slower? Well I did take it slower, but I spent a good bit of time crawling around on my sewing room floor this weekend with no soreness so YAY. I’m still making sure I don’t overdo it, but my last post-op appt is next week and I’m kinda using that as my marker – until then I will continue to take it easy and and not push myself. Once I get the all clear all is good I will really dig into costumes.
New computer is doing well. I finally dug into photoshop a little bit this past week and omg. So fast! So one thing I do a LOT in photoshop because it’s part of the white backdrop photoshoots is “object select”. I select myself off the white backdrop — reverse select, and lighten the backdrop so none of the wrinkles or edges are visible. Then I’ll often reverse it back to me if I feel like I need any editing like lightening, colour correction, etc (this is most common with white costumes so I can make sure they don’t just fade into the white background). On my old laptop, “object select” would take a good minute to two minutes to run. I would always just pick up my phone and look at tiktok for a minute while it worked on the selection. (Also, I couldn’t click out of photoshop while it was doing it, or photoshop would crash out) So anyway, I tried an “object select” in photoshop on my new laptop, went to reach for my phone out of habit, and BOOM it was already done. WOW LOL it’s nice to have a computer that works LOL
First costume update, going back to the Picnic Padme disneybound idea:
I got my rose curtain for the shawl (and also possibly ears?). I was originally thinking of leaving the shawl off after trying it all on last week, but I held it up to the dress and I really like it. So I think I will make it, but make it easily removable if I don’t want to wear it.
All of my floor-crawling this week was centered around Troi. I got this pattern out, read through it, made some notes, and then couldn’t decide what size I am. I’m right in between 2 of the sizes listed. My gut feeling anytime I work with spandex is to size down, but since this wasn’t a “big 3” pattern I wasn’t sure if that would be accurate to do… so, mock-up time. I traced the smaller bodice pieces onto some regular paper so I didn’t have to cut out the “wrong” size. Cut that out of some pretty blue spandex I’ve been sitting on for years… makes me sad to cut into it but I haven’t used it at this point, might as well put it to use.
I’m glad I did the mock-up to confirm the smaller size was the correct one instead of cutting the larger and trying to size down. That’s always a mess. The smaller size is a tiny bit big in areas but it’s much more manageable than if I’d gone up a whole size.
At that point I decided since I already traced and made a copy of the bodice pieces, I might as well do the whole thing instead of cutting into this old pattern. So I traced all of the other pieces too, marked the grain lines, etc. Had to run to ikea for more of the “mala” paper rolls I use for patterns but finished up all of my copies last night and packed the original away.
Tonight I plan to get my fabric laid out and maybe cut the skirt pieces. Skirt seems like an easy place to start.
Friday night we ran down to the other Joann. I wanted interfacing and to look at black fabric for linings. I thought they’d be pretty picked over – I was half right and half wrong. Interfacing and notions were picked over, fabric was NOT! Fully stocked on fabric. I got some black fabric for the lining of my scarlet witch top, AND black fabric for the skirt. So I just need some interfacing now and I’ve got everything I need for that except maybe a zipper?
I did spend way more than I planned to though, because they had 5 untouched bolts of this golden yellow tulle. I know I need a new petticoat for this new Belle project – my regular petticoat does not fit over the hoop I plan to use – so I grabbed all 5 to get completely forgetting how much yardage there is on a bolt of tulle LOL The employee at the cutting table said each would be $18 so I put 2 back and only got 3. My plan is to do sort of like that bottom layer of the live action Cinderella dress with the upper petticoat being a regular fabric and the bottom being the insets of tulle.
Also, I did buy fabric for that costume I was on the fence about. So it’s happening. Couldn’t find anything else at Joann that would work for the other parts of it, but I have the main fabric and I’m fine with finding “close enough” for the rest.
Saturday we went to dinner with my parents. Yesterday we got Kevin and took him to ikea to get some meatballs for lunch (and so I could get my pattern paper) and to barnes and noble where he got the hottest latte I have ever experienced LOL We eventually had to ask for some ice to cool it down and make it drinkable.
I did buy a book! Wow! Also birthday cards.
Last night was another storm night so the storm closet was prepped. Thankfully no tornadoes, but we did get some hail. I think when the hail started Luna ran into our bedroom to hide, because she popped out of nowhere at 5am wanting to leave the bedroom LOL
More storms and rain this week. I had really wanted to go to Midtowncon this coming weekend but if it rains… eh. (it’s partially outside) Plus I am not sure what to wear. I don’t think to the point I can wear a lot of shapewear around my stomach, and I don’t want anything that drags the ground since it’s outside. And if it doesn’t rain then it’ll be hot so I don’t want to wear anything too hot. So that kills a lot of my options LOL I thought about my new green Mara Jade, but would anybody know what it is? I thought about regular Leia but I don’t think I could wear the belt for very long right now. I don’t want to unnecessarily put a lot of pressure around my stomach until I get the all clear next week. Jedi Leia’s belt is more comfortable but I feel like I’ve worn that to a lot of local events already. Thought about Tinkerbell without the side bustle, but I don’t want to wear the wings and knock into something or somebody. Disgust needs a new belt made. Looking at my options I think Dr Crusher might be the thing. We shall see.
Goals this week: get Troi cut out, start assembly. Fish out the pattern I want to use for that other costume. Get all of the art prints out of my sewing room so i can use my table. Start designing the pattern for the top for mom’s costume.
EDIT:
I forgot to tell yall about my dragoncon dream. So we arrive at the marriott with all of our stuff, and my parents hadn’t arrived but the lady at the front desk said our room was ready so she could go ahead and take us up to it.
Also – anytime I have a dragoncon dream, it’s always some weird hotel my brain made up. Why do brains do that, when I have the marriott seared into my memory? This dream version of the marriott did at least have the atrium aspect.
So she takes us up to the 3rd floor (and I’m like sweet, 3rd floor without paying more), and we pass by this like open area where they have like a record store/swap meet kinda thing set up. And I’m excited about that because I can go look at the records.
The lady leads us to our “room”, which isn’t actually a room. It’s just a place where the hallway widens and they’ve put 2 couches and a coffee table. There’s a door right behind one of the couches and that’s the bathroom. I settle into the couch right along the railing so I can look down into the lobby. There’s a bunch of pillows and for a minute I”m totally stoked over this “room.” The lady leaves to go get our bellcart.
That’s when I realize, hey this isn’t going to work because our “room” is just 2 couches out in the open hallway. Like where do we put all of our stuff? We can’t just leave our stuff out in the open hallway while we are downstairs. So I say all this to Chase and he gets so irritated with me for not mentioning this earlier. So he leaves to go downstairs to figure it out. And that’s when my alarm went off LOL