(EDITED TO ADD AFTER POSTING: I did not realize until I posted I used 2 Mr Bean headers in a row. Not mad at it.)
Another productive week, though it took me longer to get some stuff done than I had planned.
Here was my to-do list last week — with updates:
-finish bottom edge of bodice
-pleat skirt to fit and attach to bodice (may have to shorten skirt at top edge, need to get it on and try it on to see)
-closures on front of bodice
-hem skirt
-add buttons to cuffs
-make the other costume piece – lining fabric arriving today. Will be a fast project, only take an hour or so. I’ve already mocked it up.
-Make the apron. It’s just a big rectangle, easy enough.
-when trim fabric arrives, cut it all out, finish the edges, sew onto the dress.
Good progress! Although I changed some stuff up.
First, I just did not like the skirt attached to the bodice. It was too heavy and was straining the bodice and pulling it out of shape.
Especially on the sides, it was just make the whole thing look weird.
So I gave up on that and decided to make them separate pieces. It meant my bodice is a little bit shorter than I would’ve liked, but it’s ok, it’s all hidden under a vest anyway. I did open the bottom of the bodice back up to clean up though – the back and one front edge were a little bit longer than the other side.
So I got a new adjustable dressform last summer – and I still have never even adjusted it to my size LOL. I measured my waist and bust and finally did that. Then I pleated the skirt around it. (Also I opened up the back seam to add a zipper. Had a bright green zipper in my stash, threw it in some graphite dyemore and it came out a perfect match.)
Tuesday night I got my pleats sewn down and put the zipper in, and also cut a waistband. I just cut it out of some of my black cotton scraps, I wanted to make sure it would not be bulky and I wanted it to be rather tall to help bridge the gap between the top of the skirt and my rather short shirt.
And when I went to try it all on again, that’s when I ran into a weird problem. Everything was too big. That’s kind of a normal problem I run into with pleating skirts, they always are a tiny bit big, but this was a little more than usual. So I unpicked some of the pleats and just made them deeper to take it in.
I double checked my waist measurement on myself again, and it was an inch smaller than I’d measured the night before. Ok, clearly I measured wrong the night before right?
But then I put the bodice on with it to see how it was all looking together and my shirt seemed bigger than I remembered through the waist – even with the now added skirt underneath. I pinched the sides and I could take them up by probably 3/4 of an inch on either side and still be comfortable. What the heck. I spent the week before making that thing FIT so that the front panel would sit evenly.
I don’t even know. So weird. I opened up the top again and took it up and closed it back up. Got the waistband put on the skirt, and some hook and eyes added (thankfully I hadn’t done that yet before realizing the skirt was too big)
Spent the rest of the week hemming the skirt, and adding the top closures. I ended up using some black snap tape I had. Took a bit of finagling to get it placed right – I machine sewed down the side that’s underneath, and hand sewed the other side that’s on the outer piece so it wouldn’t be too noticeable.
Friday and Saturday I worked on the vest.
Got the vest panels cut from my green velveteen I had leftover. I had ordered a yard of green lining fabric online and it came on Wednesday, so I got that cut too.
Sewed the velveteen layer together and tried it on – it needed some tweaks, the back panel was too long. Took it up at the shoulder seam and also changed the shape of the arm opening. Copied those alterations to the lining layer, then got them sewn together. Sewed the shoulder seams closed and finished the back neck opening by hand (that’s where I flipped it).
Added a snap closure though it may need another one. I’ll make that call after I finish the belt. Tied my tape measure on for this pic just so I could get a visual of what it would look like.
Really happy to see my vest kinda fading into my black shirt. If I don’t have the flash on it’s hard to even tell it’s a different colour. And that’s the way it is in the source material – I nearly bought black velveteen for the vest. I could tell in close-ups it was a vest and different material but it looked black on screen. But then found a behind the scenes photo and it was 100% green. Glad I found that before I made a black vest instead of green.
Saturday night I made my apron – it’s just a square of my linen leftover from my top, pleated onto a bias tape waistband. It’ll need a hook and eye or snap closure at some point but I didn’t feel like doing that Saturday.
Today my new swatch for the trim arrives. Fingers crossed it’s sized correctly this time. Once I can confirm that I’ll get my yardage ordered and I can finish this costume. With spoonflower’s time line and the hand-sewing I need to do, I imagine this will be finished next month. My prediction: weekend of June 7-8 I’ll have this finished-finished. (“finished” is major sewing is done and it’s wearable. “finished-finished” is everything else LOL)
(Also, I do think I am going to wear this with another petticoat, one of my longer tulle ones. I just haven’t dug it out of my closet yet. But I think that’ll make the shape of the skirt look nicer. Will probably wear both the quilted petticoat and the tulle petticoat – the quilted for smoothing and the tulle for volume.)
Had dinner at my parents’ Friday night. Did a duct tape dummy of mom so I can pattern her Lwaxana top. Talked about her skirt. Excited to get started on that.
Sunday I finally officially dug into Scarlet Witch.
Decided to start with the pants because that’s easy enough. Got out the Kwiksew pattern I use for fitted stretchy pants and figured out how to make this work with just these 3 little panels of fabric I have. I did have to piece the back of the legs at the bottom, but it’s a part that will be hidden by boots so big deal. I added an elastic waistband and they’re done(ish. I will probably add elastic straps to the bottom so they stay in place when I put my boots on)
Although as I’m writing this I remembered it does have stripes down the front. ew ugh. I forgot. I still have one long but thin strip left from cutting the front panel so I’ll just make them out of that and I’ll probably hand-sew them on same way I did the stripes on my Wandavision pants.
Anyway, got my bodice fabric pieces out to get my thoughts together. Discovered the 2 original panels I bought back in 2022 (?) both have this same imperfection on them I never noticed before (mad emoji)
And, the panel I bought last year is darker than the 2 older ones.
I can’t be mad about that one tho, 2 years in between and dye/ink colours can change in that timespan.
My plan is to use the darker one for the bodice pieces and the bright ones for the sleeves. And try to avoid that ugly little blob. If I put them all together and feel like the sleeves just look too bright, I’ll go in and individually paint them if I have to.
For the skirt panels, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet. I think I may try doing a repeat of design on spoonflower and just experiment with dip-dyeing it to get the gradient effect.
I did a duct tape dummy of my own yesterday because it’s been 2 years since I did one – I did still have the pieces I made from my original Scarlet Witch duct tape dummy in 2021 but that was 4 years ago now. Decided it was better to do a new one. And thankfully since I already have my “tuning fork” front panel I was able to put that on and draw on guidelines directly onto the dummy before drawing my seam lines and cutting it up.
Transferred those to paper with seam allowances added. Got a mockup cut and sewn together:
Needed some edits. Cut some of the upper part of the front off, it came up too high. Brought my armholes up a little higher. Changed the shape of the upper back too. I feel like it might be a little big through the waist (again!) but it’s hard to tell right now without being able to link the front to back and the shoulders and try it on. I’m going to do mockup #2 tonight with the edits and then figure out a way to link them so I can try it on to check sizing.
Once I have that figured out and any necessary edits to the pattern pieces made, I’ll go ahead and make the interior corset panels out of it with the boning and all.
Goals this week — and it’s a 3 day weekend so hopefully I can accomplish a lot??
-get stripes sewn on pants so I can say they are done
-do mockup #2
-get corset pieces cut and sewn together, boning in
-get outer pieces cut and sewn together
-sew corset lining layer to outer layer
-zipper
-start figuring out undershirt/sleeves
Oh and small contacts update – now that I’ve been using them for a while I think my mix and match situation is good. I wore them for a long time Friday and Saturday – I sewed with them in, ran errands, worked at my work laptop. It wasn’t perfect but it WAS better than no contacts. I bought some cheap readers for when I need to see up close when wearing the contacts and I think that’s the ticket. I feel much better about carrying around a cheap $4 pair of readers when I’m in costume just in case I need to look at something up close — because if I lose or break a cheap $4 pair of readers, it’s not my $300 glasses. Still got my appt on wednesday just because I do want to confirm the mix and match situation with the doctor and not the receptionist over the phone. It’s too expensive to make a mistake over a game of telephone.
That’s all for this week. Here’s hoping I keep up the good costume progress. My goal was to be mostly done with Wanda sewing by the end of May and if I can finish the bodice and pants that’s close enough to that goal for me.