Back to real life after a holiday weekend. I had big plans to get a LOT of sewing done this weekend but alas. Friday night we ran errands, Saturday we ran more errands, did housework and headed over to Nana and Kristie’s to eat FAJItAS and watch the Friends reunion, which was fun (and I also kidnapped Kevin. I’ll tell that story in a minute). Sunday we had NO plans so I was like, great, I can sew all day. Nope I pressure washed the patio, mowed the backyard, and then recorded tiktok videos. (more on that in a minute too), and then Monday we had a “cookout” so that took up most of the day.
I did of course do some sewing around all those events – just absolutely none on Sunday which was supposed to be sewing day LOL
So last week I did get the surcoat cut out:
I had to tweak the shape a bit as it ended up being way too long.
Getting the lining and outer layer to hang right was a pain. I ended up putting some strips of fusible in the hem just to help, and did a running stitch up each side seam to keep the lining in place before I put the sleeves in.
I also ended up having to take up the back seam, which was annoying… and I think I should’ve taken up the side seams a bit too but I didn’t realize that until it was too late. Not doing it now. This simple thing was more of a pain than I ever could’ve imagined.
Next up I made a sleeve. Doesn’t look like much here – I ended up switching to working on them on the display form with arms so they would hang right.
And after I finished this sleeve I decided I needed to change the shape a bit. Took it completely apart and started over. Cut the 2 front panels longer and curved all of the panels in towards the bottom to help with the “blousing”.
I was out of my purple cotton lining at this point so I had to just find something in the stash. Hence the black and white lining LOL
Got the cuffs made.
And after that I didn’t want to deal with the sleeves anymore – I needed to make an inner sleeve, attach the cuffs, and put them into the surcoat, none of which I felt like doing. Sooo
I started messing with the purple velvet pieces. I got the 2 shorter front panels cut and then just pinned some of the excess on for the longer piece just so I could see how it was all looking.
Saturday I made myself finish the sleeves. Cut some inner fitted sleeves out of some leftover Pompeii Donna Noble fabric LOL and tacked those in — got the gathered edges of the sleeves sewn in place. I had to baste the cuffs on and then put them through the machine… I tried to do it with them just pinned on and between the gathers and the piping, it was just too tricky. This is why I was avoiding it LOL.
Got the sleeves sewn in.
Yesterday I mostly focused on the collar. the collar you see in the photo above is like… collar #4 I think? It’s not quite finished, just pinned on to the form here. But I think this one is going to work. Finish that up tonight and get it sewn in and put the closure on the front? So just a day off schedule.
I’ve got some leftover hook-and-eye tape I’m going to use at the top. Going that direction because:
I think that’s a little hook peeking out under the button there.
This week I’ll also be testing the embroidery machine on the velvet to see if I can do the “swoopy designs” with that. That’s not how it’s done on the screen-used costume, but it’s how I want to do it, so there. (They look like they’re maybe printed/screen-printed/painted or something like that on the real one. I don’t want to do any of that.)
So yeah last week, Kevin’s parents were out of town. He stayed home alone and we just checked in on him. I thought they were coming home Sunday, so Saturday night I decided to go get him and bring him to Nana and Kristie’s for the Friends reunion and to eat fajitas with us. I called him that afternoon and told him to take a shower and get dressed. Called him again to make sure he did (he had) and to make sure he’d fed the cat that day (he did). Then called him again as we were got to his neighborhood to tell him to come on outside to jump in the car.
About a half hour later his mom calls asking if I have him — turns out they got home FRIDAY not Sunday (came home early) and couldn’t find Kevin LOL. She said “I knew he was either hiding or he was with you!”
Last night we had a Memorial Day get-together at our house which is why I was pressure washing the patio. We decided to do something different and had a taco bar and dad grilled corn and it was all good and that’s why this post is called too many tacos because I had too many tacos.
So anyway tiktok bitching — Sunday night I was torn on either filming tiktoks or sewing and tiktoks won out. I don’t know why because my tiktok reach has been absolute trash. I know I keep saying that but everytime I think it’s bottom of the barrel, it gets worse. So for all of May, I was mostly re-posting (with a few new videos thrown in) my fav star wars videos I’ve done. I had some do OK and some do terrible. Annoyingly, the new videos did terrible. My Padme nightgown dressing video only got 1200 views. Generally people respond very well to videos of that costume.
Even worse here’s my views from the last 5 days — which were some of my favourites I was saving for the holiday weekend:
repost of Padme lake dress dressing video: 890 views
repost of Queen Amidala post-senate dress detail video: 480 views
all 3 of my General Leia dressing videos: 340 views
All leia costumes: 880 views
supercut of dressform videos of all of my star wars costumes: 430 views
This with 94K followers. Tiktok is just not pushing out my content. When it’s a repost I don’t really care that much but when it’s new content, it’s annoying.
I’ve been wanting to film some new donna content so I did that sunday night. I also wanted to do some stuff in my Marie Antoinette costume but didn’t feel up to that. Getting into that is a LOT more work than Donna.
Anyway — no plans this weekend, yay, so more work on Padme.. maybe I can get started on Bail finally, and start doing stuff for Wanda…
Also ordered fabric for a 3rd dragoncon costume. SO there’s that too.