I have 3 topics today.
1. The Flipping Dishwasher
Chase and I have been without a dishwasher for over a year. It gave out last year… Chase tried to fix it but it was shot. (It was pretty old. Came with the house.) We FINALLY went shopping for a new one 2 weeks ago, picked one out at Home Depot – I talked about a few days ago. Mom offered to sit at our house during the delivery window (1-5) the day they were bringing it by, yay! Well, the delivery guy shows up, checks out our connections and discovers we have a bad valve that needs replaced before he can install it. Boo! But he was very nice about it, explained he couldn’t fix it himself but it was super easy to do, and once we got that replaced they could reschedule the delivery. Mom agreed to play house-sitter/dishwasher-inspector again.
So this past Sunday, Chase ran out and got the new valve. He started trying to change it out while I was off in my sewing room. I emerged to see what he wanted to do for dinner only to find him wedged under the sink, frustrated, explaining he’d been on the phone with TWO emergency plumbers in the past hour. I missed the drama, apparently. He could NOT get the old valve off, and now it was leaking with no stopping it, so we ended up having a plumber out a 8PM on a Sunday to fix it. The plumber said it needed done with or without the dishwasher, so… that’s good, I guess. Just an added cost to this dishwasher tho.
Delivery rescheduled for Wednesday, 1-5. Mom again comes by for the afternoon… I kept asking Chase if they’d call to say they were on their way like last time, nothing. I got off work at 4 and relieved mom (she was super bored), and by 4:20 we still hadn’t heard from the delivery/installation company so Chase started trying to call them. He kept getting disconnected, couldn’t get through to ANYBODY. By the time he got home at 5:30, we kinda just gave up… but we were both PISSED. I mean, stuff happens, but the fact we got no phone call “Hey we’re running behind,” or “Hey we’re so sorry we can’t get to you today” or anything, plus not being able to get anybody on the phone…
To top it off, the driver finally calls at 9PM. 9PM! Chase missed the call and it went to voicemail, directly (like, within seconds) tried to call him back, no answer. Tried again, no answer.
So this morning he finally got ahold of the local manager who explained that the driver was behind and didn’t call ANY of his customers and that it was unacceptable. They are trying to reschedule it for tomorrow but seriously this is the third time we’ve either had to have mom come over or somebody has to take off work. And I can’t do it tomorrow because I have a dr appt (one that is very hard to get, I had to make it months in advance…), so I can’t be home.
It’s just all around frustrating. I just want my dang dishwasher.
BUT! Chase surprised me yesterday with Kevin:
I’d been looking for this Pop all weekend because I wanted to get one for our Kevin. So he surprised it with me yesterday, but I think I may keep this one for myself 🙂
2. Dragoncon/DISNEY
So I was thinking how hard 9/1 and 9/2 are going to be for me. Seeing all my friends already at Dragon Con and having fun and I can’t be there. UGH! I decided to take 9/2 off just so I won’t be near a computer. I’ll pack and maybe go for a swim.
BUT… I do get to live the dream I’ve always wanted to. I still get to Dragon Con – just in a truncated form, of course… and then I get to leave Dragon Con and go to DISNEY WORLD! OMG. Dragon Con and Disney in the same weekend. It’s Kell Heaven.
We did “book” a parking spot at Suntrust, so that’s nice, we’ll be able to just park and walk right over. I don’t know if I’ll wear Edith or TW first. Prob Edith and save TW for late night.
3. Costume
And now onto sewing news.
At this point I’m just going through doing the little things that need done – hook and eye in the skirt, finishing up the petticoat, hand-sewing the pieces of the sleeves together.
So yeah last night the first thing I did was finish off the top of the petticoat – got the elastic installed and fitted. Then I got the excess cut off the bottom and pinned the hem, though I think I pinned it a little too short – I think I’ll drop it down a little before I sew it, so it’s closer to the hem of the skirt and there’s no ridge where it ends like there is now. Although, the skirt is sitting a little lower on the dressform than it will be on me – I’m going to put hooks and eyes on the bodice edge and the waistband to keep it all sitting in the right place, at the moment, the waistband is sitting just a tad low because I can’t pin it tight enough to stay put.
I played around with the shape of the pink part of the sleeves, after getting the white lace and the bows hand-sewn in place on the top edge. They were still sitting a little too round. So I played around with the idea of pleating them to pull them into a more oval-esque shape:
You can see the pins holding the pleats in place. It helps the shape a TON. I think I may have gone a tiny bit too small but I’m still playing with it at this point. The only disappointing thing is that it kinda messes up how clean my interior finish on these is, because I have to fold some of the excess over into the lining. Boo! Haha, oh well.
Where’s my to-do list, I need to update it…
Bodice:
Add loops or eyes for the sleeves to tie onto
try to hide a spot on the front where the pile is missing. It’s a tiny spot but it bothers me, mostly it bothers me because I didn’t see it before cutting everything out and putting it all together.
Shawl:
Get closures sewn back on
Sleeves:
Sew white lace pieces in place onto the sleeves
Make bows for top, sew in place
Sew pleats in place
Add ribbons for lacing them onto the bodice
Skirt:
Finishing sewing lace onto hem
Get zipper installed, hook-and-eye on waistband
PAINT ALL THE FLOWERS
Petticoat:
Resew waistband/upper strip to top of petticoat
Get elastic installed in top hem
Trim excess length, hem
Accessories:
Make or buy ribbons for shoes
Buy wig stuff