i dress to kill my time

One week and a day to go. Let’s start with updating the to-do list from Wednesday:

It’s 2 weeks to go (well, 13 days) so here’s an update with no pics to make it fast.

Wanda:
-Finish shirt thumb loop
-Rig up the Scarlet Witch pieces
-closure on tiara

Belle:
-Attach chiffon shoulder piece
-iron on HTV designs
-sew swags in place
-add boning to bodice (need one piece in the front)
-add skirt hand loops
-sew rose bundles in place
-style wig
-find shoes (just wearing my old ones)

Lover (Padme’s Version):
-paint necklace
-finish microphone

Radagast:
-Redye pants/dye sleeves
-finish vest
-finish beard
-sew yoke to robe

Beast:
-style wig
-modify pants if needed
-closure on ascot
-help Chase sew fur onto legs

Lwaxana:
-finish the bodice
-make upper section
-add trim
-snaps and closures
-finish jewelry pieces

Mom’s Hobbit:
-bind eyelets

Overall not bad for a week out.

Biggest thing left for me is rigging the Scarlet Witch pieces. Will be starting on that tonight. I want to avoid the issues I’ve had with my Wandavision version so I’m going about it a different way this time.

Mom’s Lwaxana top:

I was off Friday, so I went out to help with the upper portion Friday morning and again Sunday afternoon. It’s coming together:

We decided to do the upper portion as basically a separate jacket that attaches to the bodice so she can take it off if she gets hot. It just needs finishings now – closures in the back/neck, snaps to connect it to the bodice. And to finish the jewelry pieces.

Mom also made a new hobbit. I have her bodice that she made for it here with me – I put the grommets in it yesterday and they went in really badly! I dunno what went wrong with my grommet setter. So I brought it home with me to bind them in some embroidery floss.

Chase’s projects are coming together. I finished his Radagast vest Saturday, and also redyed his sleeves and pants and they look better. He’s been working on his yoke for the robe, and once he’s done with that I’ll sew it onto the robe. Then just need to finish his beard and help him with painting a few things.

His beard was just a grey lace-front wig I cut the cap away from. I was going to crimp it… I bought a crimper in 2022 for Utena, so I went and got that out… and it was dead as a doornail. Wasn’t going to spend money on a new crimper, so I just braided this into a ton of tiny braids and steamed it. It still needs to be trimmed but otherwise done? May need to make some ear loops for it out of elastic.

I ended up with 2 extra HTV panels from my Belle costume, so I ironed them onto his Beast vest. Turned out nice. Didn’t take a pic LOL I styled his Beast wig. Biggest thing left to do there is to finish his legs and alter the pants.

He’s also got to finish the upgrades on our Shin and Baylan gauntlets.

Friday morning I decided to throw the cord for lacing up my Belle bodice into some yellow dye.

Please tell me how I ended up with green spaghetti.

All I can figure is that there was still some residual dye in my dye pot. I did a colour correction to at least try to get rid of the green tones. It ended up pretty dark – closer to my taffeta colour than the colour of the bodice I was going for. And splotchy. But oh well. It’s done and I have a white one still I can substitute in if I hate it.

Padme (Taylor’s Version) is DONE!

I got the sequins sewn on early last week. I could’ve done more, but in the interest of time (and my fear of preventing the outer stretchy layer from stretchy enough for me to get it over my butt) I did what I felt was the minimum. The sequins really brought it together, love how it looks.

I also got the soles of the boots painted and repaired a few more stones that fell off. Will be packing extra stones and glue because I expect I’ll have to do more after packing/traveling.

I wanted a necklace. There was a place that had a necklace you could buy a while back that I thought would be perfect… but it was sold out (also way more $$ than I’d spend on a piece of jewelry for a costume). So I bought a cheap star necklace for the base, Chase 3d modeled and printed the mini lake dress necklace, I painted the edges gold and added some silver rhinestones I had on hand. The rhinestones aren’t in there perfectly, they’re a little wonky, but I was trying to make use of what I had here. I think it turned out pretty cute.

I do still want to make some mods to my microphone if I have time, but otherwise, this is done.

Also last week I got all of the HTV ironed onto the Belle swags.

My process for this was to first trace the shape of one of the swags onto a piece of paper. Then I started playing with drawing some swirly art nouveau flourishes. My first ones were too curly-cue and whimsical. Finally got it close to what I wanted by the 3rd one. I scanned that one, and redrew and refined it in photoshop. Once I had the basic thing I wanted, I then took photos of each swag as flat as possible, with a measuring tape pinned over one end so I could get the sizing right. Brought those photos into photoshop, made sure they were sized to real life, and brought my flourishes in to edit and rearrange them to fit onto each swag. I did them one swag at a time – started with the back, refined that, had Chase cut them on the silhouette for me and ironed them on. Then side back swags, and so on. I did it this way so I wouldn’t get them mixed up!

Hardest one was the one I left last – the shoulder swag. I had to completely redraw it to fit — and then it was the only one I had to recut because the first pass was too big. (Those too big ones ended up being ironed onto Chase’s vest)

It’s not really the look I wanted for this costume. I wanted to embroider these. I still have all the stuff to do it – I’ll just have to do it after dragoncon. The HTV already being there will give me a great guide to do it later.

After I got the HTV all ironed on, I sewed the swags on, then made little rose bundles — I made felt bases for each of them, sewed the roses on, then sewed that little bundle to the swags.

In other news, Chase got his hair braided real cute for an underwater photographer session and then nearly drowned. Crazy!

Yesterday I got my hair re-redded for Dragoncon and all the scraggly ends cut off. Of course I did not take an “after.” LOL You can see the after at dragoncon!

Finished the upper portion of Belle. Got these all situated and sewn on and made one more little rose bundle. It’s not exactly what I had in mind for the top but it’s pretty enough and I don’t have time to keep thinking about it.

I love how I had different plans for this but at the end of the day it just ended up being a fancier version of my 2005 ballgown. Which I guess is appropriate.

I do need to try it all on before I take it downstairs. I need to make sure I can move in the skirt with it as along as it is. Really hoping I don’t have to shorten it in the front but if I do, I do. (The dressform is sitting about 2 inches shorter than me right now. It’s been slowly sinking with the weight of this skirt on it LOL I can’t get underneath it to lift it back up!)

I have not done any packing. I did at least have Chase help me bring the bin downstairs so I can start, and I’ve been gathering stuff in the dining room.

Today I’m tired and feeling hungover, I had to get up at midnight and take a benedryl because my scalp was itchy after getting dyed. And work is crazy cuz I wasn’t “here” on friday. I am dreading the Tuesday back at work after dragoncon LOL But that’s a problem for future me.

That’s all for today. I’ll do another check in later this week, since I may not post next Monday (I’m off that day. If I’m done and packed, I may just chill and play the sims all day… I’ve missed my little legacy family!)