i’m a punkrocker

Well, not a great weekend for getting stuff done unfortunately.

I did finish getting the chiffon swags all sewn together, hemmed, basted onto the skirt, and my zipper basted in.

And I got my bodice finished.

Things I clocked during the try-on:
1. The point of the bodice kept trying to flip up. I skipped putting boning in the center front – I thought it’d be ok. I may have to go back and add a bias tape channel to the back lining layer to add the boning to keep it from turning up, since I can’t reopen the bodice at this point.
2. The bottom hoopskirt was painful. I tried to make the waistband be a piece of twill tape, and it dug in to my sides once the weight of everything was on it. So I took that off (it was starting to tear up anyway, so clearly not a good choice for this) and replaced it with a piece of leftover silver belting from honeymoon Leia. I was trying to avoid having the bulk around my waist but oh well.
3. Doesn’t look like I need to shorten or rehem my petticoat. Yay! Still need to add a closure on it.
4. I may try to go without the uppermost tulle petticoat. Once less thing to finish.

My goals for this weekend were to get the zipper fully sewn in, and finish that seam, get the waistband on, and start hemming the skirt, and patterning and hopefully start assembling the lower swags. I didn’t get around to any of that.

After I’d only been working for about an hour or so Saturday morning when Chase came in and asked if I wanted to go get lunch and go to goodwill so he could look for shoes for one of his projects. So we went, had lunch, no luck on shoes at goodwill, so we went to another thrift store, no luck there, then he wanted to go to home depot to look at dishwashers cuz we need a new one. Then to Lowe’s to look at dishwasher, and there we found an unopened return of the perfect dishwasher for half off so we bought it.

And buy that point it was late in the afternoon and we had to run home and change to go pick up Kevin for his birthday dinner.

We took him to a new italian place, Cocozza, because he loves spaghetti. He had spaghetti, a birthday cannoli, and I had lasagna and Chase had chicken parm. It was good!

Then to Tous le Jours for strawberry cake. Chase and I had donuts.

Then we went to 2 more Home Depots because Chase was looking for some Ryobi thing (and there was a stop at Hallmark in there too for the new Main St Electrical Parade ornament). Finally made our way to the theater for Superman.

I really liked it! And the more I sit with it, the more I like it. Krypto and Mister Terrific were my fav parts.

So Sunday I had all day to sew right? Nope, we had more errands to run in the morning, then I went out to my parents’ house and I helped mom get her skirt assembled, so that’s something.

Got home and I decided to switch over to my Costume #5, so I could get that finished because the main work on that is going to be the stoning. I thought I could hopefully get it to the point where I could start stoning by mid-week. No such luck.

A few weeks ago I did a mockup, and it was HUGE. So I cut the pattern down by 2 sizes and I had it ready to put back together. I finally did that Sunday and… now it was too small. Height and width wise. UGH.

So I decided to do a duct tape dummy and cut that up to use as a pattern. Chase helped me finish that up, I cut it up, traced out a new pattern, did a mockup… and it still didn’t fit right. So it’s basically a bunny suit – and in both the Yaya Simplicity pattern AND my duct tape dummy, the back butt area is just not fitting right. Either the seam is too short and gives me an atomic wedgie, but when I lengthen it to fix that, the leg openings no longer fit and are gaping. I tried switching over to a fitted shorts pattern that I know fits me well – and still had gaping.

So that’s what I spent all afternoon and last night on. I was exhausted mentally and physically by the end of the night. I had put together one more pattern alteration last night (a mix of my duct tape dummy pattern, the shorts pattern and the Simplicity pattern), so tonight I’m going to try that out and if it doesn’t work, I’m going to move to constructing it like I did my Black Canary bodysuit back in 2009, which is to make an interior corset/bodice and only have the outer layer be the full “bunnysuit” so I can make that layer out of stretch fabric and the leg holes can just stretch to fit.

I’ve heard people talk about the fitting issues around bunny suits, specifically with the SImplicity pattern, but I did not think it would be this hard to correct. I’m really frustrated. My sewing room looks like a hurricane hit it.

Of course I don’t have any photos of any of this, because constantly trying on these mockups really just look like I’m wearing a saggy diaper. Really attractive.

Anyway if I switch to doing the bodice interior/bunnysuit exterior, I know I can just use my Scarlet Witch pattern pieces I just made because they fit great. If I don’t run into anymore issues there I could probably have it ready to start stoning by later this week?

To-Do List:

Troi:
-Style wig
-paint shoes
-try on

Scarlet Witch:
-make skirt (another swatch arriving today)
-make boot covers (boots arriving today)
-try on wig, see if it needs styling?
-attachments for the various pieces
-finish sleeve on undershirt

Lorne:
-finish bow ribbon
-closure on apron

Belle:
-sew-in zipper
-make and add waistband
-hem skirt
-pattern lower swags
-cut/assemble/attach lower swags
-pattern shoulder drape
-attach shoulder drape
-make decorations for shoulder drape
-embroidery on swags

Costume #5:
(with the idea of going the interior bodice route)
-make interior bodice layers
-add boning
-make stretchy outer layer
-dye outer layer
-sew lining and outer layers together
-start rhinestoning
-paint boots
-start rhinestoning
-make jewelry pieces

I’m so tired but my brain is WIRED like I can’t sleep because I’m constantly thinking of what I need to do next…