I’ve got that song stuck in my head and it has no bearing on the contents of today’s post. But then again, do my titles ever actually relate to the post?
Sorry for no post last week; since I posted on friday the week before I didn’t have much to share. Now I’m back with a bunch of stuff.
Last Saturday (the 13th) I spent the day sitting at the rehab hospital with Mema and Daddy Bob. Mema fell and broke her hip a couple of weeks ago. She had to have surgery, was in the hospital for about a week and then transferred to a rehab hospital. We’ve all got shifts to sit with her around the clock… while she’s got plenty of care in the rehab hospital, with her memory problems we don’t want her to be left alone. I stayed with her again overnight this past Friday (the 19th). She totally forgot where she was and thought she was at home. I had to open the door and show her the nurses’ station. Poor Mema.
Staying overnight was interesting. First I talked to a cleaning lady in the elevator who told me how creepy the place is at night and then at 2 in the morning I saw a really weird shadow in the room and that didn’t help anything. The sleeping chair was super uncomfortable and I didn’t find a somewhat comfortable position until after the shadow incident at 2 LOL. From there I was able to sleep til about 7:30 when the nurse came in.
I hope she gets to go home soon; she’d made a huge leap in recovery in the space of a week.
Anyway, here’s some bathroom updates.
Got the medicine cabinet built and hung!
Got a second shower curtain, a plain navy one, that is wide enough to cover the whole tub. It’s not perfect but it looks better. This week I’m going to hem the front one since it’s a bit too long. (And also still has wrinkles in it? I thought they’d steam out pretty quickly but I guess not, I’ll iron it while I have it down for hemming).
On my way home from staying with Mema friday night, I stopped at the Joann Fabrics in Jackson. I’m still trying to find a purple velvet for Liberty Dies Padme and wanted to glance at their stock, even though they don’t have anything online. They didn’t have anything even remotely close, but I did pick up some thread (they had regular white and black!! Finally.), some dye for dyeing Chase’s Bail fabric, and McCall’s were on sale so I got these:
Haven’t gotten any new patterns in a while. Aren’t these new Yaya Han magical girl style costumes adorable?
I did get to see Kevin for a bit this week. It’s been forever. Look how old he’s gotten!
He goes to this summer camp every year and it’s his FAVOURITE thing in the world. (When we all worked together we called his summer camp week “hell week” because we hated him being gone LMAO! He was such an integral part of our team stuff just fell apart.) But of course summer camp is not happening this year. And his birthday is this week. So I think I’m going to take him swimming this upcoming weekend at Nana’s.
So now for sewing. Once I got to a stopping point on Jean’s Star Trek skant, I dropped it off at my parents’ for her to try on. And then I decided to get back to work on my ceremonial Leia. BUT — I realized, oh crap. In about a week I’m going to be losing my quarantine hair. (finally getting it cleaned up tomorrow!!) Which means none of my extensions are going to match anymore. So my ceremonial Leia project went into overdrive so I could take pics of it on Sunday.
Got the rest of the skirt panels cut out of the new bolt I got week before last. I cut them a bit widerand longer than Jen’s pattern so I could play with it a bit.
The skirts ended up being too big of course. Shouldn’t have cut them wider.
Got the sleeve portion gathered and ready to be sewn onto the bodice layer.
Skirt just pinned on.
Bodice assembled… I decided to make a full lining instead of a facing, so I got the sewn in place and understitched.
At this point I had to stop putting it on my dressform. It was hard to get off and on it and I was worried about stretching the fabric too much.
Thankfully I could still get it on the smaller display form. Got the skirts sewn on by Thursday and all that was left to do Saturday was the hemming and finishing the armholes. Maybe a few other tweaks as I noticed them. I figured once I got home from the hospital I’d be able to finish it all since I had nothing else to do that day.
But…. hemming the 2 skirt layers alone took about 5 hours. I did it by hand while it was on the form. I expected it to take about 2.
Hemmed
Of course probably about 30 minutes of those 5 hours were spent trying to dress up Luna. She did not enjoy it.
So by about 10pm Saturday night I had the skirts hemmed and the sleeve openings finished. But hadn’t even touched the sleeves themselves. There was no way I had time to hem the two of them by hand – and I wasn’t going to do it by machine – so I decided I’d just shoot it unfinished.
After wearing it for a bit for the photoshoot Sunday, I realized that besides hemming the sleeves, I also needed to take up the shoulders a little bit – the neckline ended up being a bit too wide and kept feeling like it was about to slide off. I also need to tack the sleeves in place so they don’t want to keep falling forward, and once of the armholes got a bit twisted while I was sewing it closed, so I need to open it back up and fix that. The seams of the skirt are also sitting a bit funny at the hip and I want to look at that. So I’ll be all that at a much more leisurely pace over the next couple of weeks. But I was glad to go ahead and get pics of it before I don’t have matching extensions anymore!!
Sunday we also shot Ewok Leia – since I redid my wig and got new shoes since I shot it in 2012 – and my new comic Leia. I found some blue heels in my closet I forgot I had and wore them for this shoot…. but they were too tight so I don’t think I’m going to continue with them.
After the photoshoot we cleaned up and I filmed a video for tiktok. Then I cleaned up my sewing room and kinda got it reset for new projects.
I’d really like to find some purple velvet for Padme so I can start on that. I mean I do have other pieces I can start on, I’ll probably do that… but the velvet is driving me crazy.