Did anybody else’s elementary school music class consist of mostly playing xylophones? Everytime the teacher assigned us a xylophone to play, I was always given one of the tiny ones to play. I always really wanted to play one of the bigger ones with the little mallets. Nobody ever let me play the big ones with the mallets. I’d sneak a “bong” on one as I went by it on my way to the tiny xylophone.
Anyway. Chase is back at the doctor today. He’s gone a week and a day without being able to walk more than a few steps without excruciating pain from the sciatica. He was in touch with the dr’s office all last week who kept telling him to just relax, take his meds, it’ll all clear up, just give it time, but here we are on day 8 with only a tiny bit of relief. I mean I’d say he maybe got 15% better by the end of this week. And that was probably only because they gave him some better pain meds. The steroid shot on monday, the steroid pack he finished up on Saturday, the muscle relaxers… all of that has done jack. Thankfully my uncle was able to take him today, because I’m pretty locked into my work schedule this week — taking some time off because Ash and I are heading to Nashville for a show tonight!
I’m really hoping the dr can do something for him today (epidural?) because I’m worried about leaving him home alone tonight.
Anyway we are in DEFCON 1 and 2.5 weeks away from Dragoncon and I am OFFICIALLY PANICKING.
I did take one day off last week to meet Ash to go see Doctor Who: The End of Time on the big screen. Really enjoyed the interviews especially. It was fun to watch it on a big screen.
Otherwise it was either taking care of Chase, running errands for Chase, or locked in my sewing room.
I did FINALLY tackle the underdress for Padme on Friday and got it finished. It’s far from perfect but it’s done and wearable and I guess maybe I’ll replace it one day. I hate the bust darts and it ended up a hair too short and the insets don’t look great. I wish I’d just bought more fabric and done the insets on the lining instead of trying to sew the lining around 1 set of insets. So yeah I’ll probably remake it later on down the road. But it’s done and wearable for now.
Got new back panel cut for the outer dress.
Annnnnd I ended up with a weird short divot at the back right seam. Thankfully I was able to just move the seam in a bit and then determined I’d be able to angle the trim to the edge to even it out. My 2 back seams ended up being uneven – one is right on the side of the center gather and the other is like an inch to the side of it. But oh well. Nobody has time to redo that stuff right now.
Mostly because getting those back seams sewn were a TERROR. I had excess fabric that needed removed so I couldn’t just pin them edge to edge. And I had to do it on the form to see where I was going with it. And the chiffon is fiddly. I finally got them sewn on “good enough” and left it at that.
TRIM!
I bought 2 yards of a silk charmeuse from Dharma and it’s SOOOOOO pretty. I’m SO glad I went this route instead of the poly blanket binding. I cut it into 6in strips, sewed them together and then pressed them. I thought I’d done my math well enough that 2 yards would be plenty, but as I discovered Saturday evening, alas…
I did not have enough. About a yard and some change short. So I ordered another yard and I’m PRAYING it comes this week so I can finish getting this attached this weekend and hopefully be able to dye by sunday. PLEASE!
I got as much as I could machine sewn on and started pinning down the backside. The top section is finished – did the backside by hand. And I’ll probably start doing the backside of the bottom section by hand one night this week, just leaving the last few inches hanging free so I have enough room to attach the new parts of the trim I’ll have to make when the fabric arrives.
So then since I couldn’t do much more on the dress, Sunday I turned my attention to the wig.
Have I ever told you guys how much I hate styling wig? Because I do. I really hate it. It was a struggle to work on this yesterday and keep myself motivated.
Anyway, I made a form for the wig. Leftover Misato fabric and batting. I ended up adding an extension to this to make it a bit taller at the top.
Covered it in my extra wefts.
Cute.
Getting it worked into the shape.
Ok?
I’m probably going to have to redo most of this because when I started messing with making the headbands last night I realized I had the straps in the wrong places. But I’ve gotten it figured out and redoing it wouldn’t take long now. I also need to put it on because I’m feeling like the bottom edge might be coming down too far? It’s hard to tell because this wighead I’m using is chopped off short. (Somebody gave it to me like that.)
I also ordered some mousse so I can try to tame the hair a bit more when I re-gather it into the replaced bands.
And in less anxiety-inducing news (or maybe MORE??) Ash and I got our David Tennant photo-op(s) for Dragoncon! I’ve had Dragoncon’s twitter notifications ON so I could get the alert and buy them immediately, because they’ll probably sell out… although as of a day later they haven’t yet. I got a photo-op for just David Tennant and Ash got the one for him, Catherine Tate and Freema Agyeman. We’re going to split the costs of both photo-ops, and thankfully they’re back to back, so I can just put on Donna Saturday morning and be out of it by like 12:30-1 hopefully.
And now that THAT’S done I can finally post a better idea of a schedule YES I KNOW I’VE POSTED THIS LIKE 3 TIMES I KEEP DOING IT SO I REMEMBER IT
Thursday – Crait Leia – just to get it out of the way
Friday – Leia shoot at 11, Jedi Leia. Tentative depending on if my lazy ass wants to walk to the Westin. Can we please stop using the Westin LOL
Lore Olympus shoot at 4, Hera (Hardy Ivy)
Saturday – Photo-ops, Unicorn and the Wasp Donna, 11-12:30
Rest of the day is free WHOOHOO
Sunday – Padme shoot at 10, lake dress (Hardy Ivy)
Otherwise I’m trying not to get tied down to anything else. I’ll fill in those blank spaces with Dr Crusher, Carrie Fisher, and may bring Pompeii Donna and Garth again like I mentioned in the last post, and comfy Ariel maybe just for Monday. I definitely want to wear Hera one other time, and maybe jedi Leia and Padme too. But I’m going to let how I feel each day dictate that.
And can we talk about how this little shit has decided that peeing on our living room rug is permissible? She did it AGaIN yesterday! She did it the first time last weekend – we figured she was mad about having strangers at the house. I had to drag it outside, spray it down and let it air out. Brought it back in and now she’s peed on it again. WTF. Googled reasons why cats would do that… her litter box is clean, we haven’t changed brands… I dunno.
I freaked her out when she peed on it again yesterday because I jumped up and grabbed the rug to immediately drag it outside before it soaked through. And that scared her, me dragging this giant rug into the kitchen past her so she got mad and puffed up and hissed at me. I was like you better stop, I’m already mad at you without you scratching me. (She didn’t but she was totally freaked for like an hour afterwards and hid. I felt bad because I wasn’t trying to scare her moving the rug, i just wanted to get it outside and cleaned off asap…) But maybe that will warn her not to do it again. I dunno.
So goals for this week:
1. Finish trim, get trim sewn on, get dress dyed… finished!
2. finish sculpting headbands
3. Straighten out wig, get headbands attached
4. alter shoes
5. Spray paint Hera stuff
6. Work on Hera crown
I mean there’s more to do than that, that’s just goals for this week….