ellipses

Hey look I’m in good enough shape to be posting on my day off!

Let’s just go through every project one by one.

The Trois:
Deanna has been done and partially packed. I did not try the whole thing on together so it’ll be a FUN SURPRISE to even me at Dragoncon. Lwaxana is finished, mom came over and we readjusted her snaps and she switched them to larger ones. I finished the jewelry piece for her belt yesterday.

Lorne:
Lorne has been done. But last week just randomly I saw that the stuffed goat I’d had my eye on months ago but felt like I couldn’t justify spending so much on a stuffed goat… was on sale for half off. So I bought it. I cannot tell you the joy opening this brought me.

It scared the shit out of Luna at first, she puffed all up, but I was proud of her because she didn’t run away, she slowly approached it and smelled it and realized it wasn’t real.

Wanda:
Wanda took up the majority of my weekend. We heat-formed the front panel which I’m not completely happy with because it doesn’t really conform to me nicely. Chase has promised that after dragoncon we will cast it in something flexible. We got the fabric channels glued to all of the pieces, and I sat and stitched them. My hands were hurting so bad after all that yesterday I had to break out the tylenol arthritis.

This was before I started sewing stuff on.

The kicker was when I thought I was at the end yesterday – I was going to sew the belt buckle on. Last thing I had to do. I pulled up a reference pic to get it positioned right and realized my bodice was about 2 inches too long in the front. I don’t mind a little too long but this was like… egregious. The belt buckle was supposed to touch the bottom and it was so far away it was laughable.

So I had to take off the binding on the bottom, rip it open, trim the boning down, trim the fabric down and awkwardly baste it all back together – because I already had the big rubber hip panels sewn on so they were in the way! And I really didn’t want to undo anything if I could help it. In the end I did have to undo the front stitching so I could lift them up to get the bodice back into the machine to sew it closed. But we managed. It’s still too long, but at least less egregious.

Chase finished up the gluing on it – the shoulder pieces, etc. So she’s done. Again not trying it all on before Dragoncon, so another FUN SURPRISE for me.

Belle:

I finally tried it all on. Well, the dress anyway. Boy is it heavy.

After trying it on I did reposition the hand loops. Aaand I decided I’m going to wear my pink Lucy shoes. With the weight of this, and the lack of maneuverability, I just felt like I needed something more stable than my 2012 heels. The Lucy shoes are still heels (which I need for the hem length) but comfortable character shoes with straps. I mean yes they are pink, but my roses are pink so I feel like I can get away with it, at least for now until I can order new character shoes and decorate them to match this.

Again, have not tried the wig on. Another FUN SURPRISE

Padme (Taylor’s Version):

I bought this cheap toy microphone on amazon and felt like it needed some sprucing up.

Added some black rhinestones to make the strips to make it look like a lightsaber hilt.

Then I felt like it needed “MORE” as Kylo would say so I covered the top in blue rhinestones.

Still not done, Chase downloaded some lightsaber parts off thingiverse and altered the “shroud” part. He 3d printed it for me, and I made an EVA foam (covered in silver fabric) insert to close the gap and help it fit. Then stoned all that.

Still got a little more to stone today – but it’s like 10 minutes worth of work.

Scully: Packed and good to go
Leia: Packed and good to go
T’Lyn: Packed and good to go
Tatooine Padme: Packed and good to go

Shin Hati/Baylan:

I mentioned last post that I could not find our lightsaber blades anywhere. Thankfully we had backups. But as I started cataloguing the costume pieces, we realized Chase’s boots were missing too. I looked through my costume closet, the closet in Kevin’s room, under both upstairs beds, the closet in my work office… nowhere. Did we toss them out when we reorganized his closet?? Surely not!

Finally Chase realized there was a bin in the garage and we looked in there – bingo! There was his boots and his lightsaber blades. It’s his bin from Dragoncon last year and honestly it looks like we got home, dumped that bin in the garage and never looked back LOL

The next issue… last year we could not keep our gauntlets closed. The magnets just weren’t strong enough. We had to tape them on. Yuck! So Chase designed a locking mechanism. Last night he went to put it on mine and… it failed.

So today I’ve got to open up the sleeves on both of our undershirts and sew velcro on. It won’t keep the gauntlets closed – but it’ll keep them from falling apart/falling off when they come undone.

Arwen Red:
I AM FINALLY GOING TO FIX THE TORN SEAM FROM DRAGONCON 2005 TODAY

Radagast:

It turned out cute! This was very much an old-school kind of project for me. The robe is made of secondhand store curtains we dyed, cut up and reassembled. The tunic is one we bought on amazon, I dyed and added new linen sleeves to. The pants he bought and I dyed. The vest is a fancy table runner I made a back piece for and added buttons to. He made the hat and yoke piece for the robe out of wool felt I dyed. (The hat has 3d printed interiors). He 3d modeled and printed the nose and we painted it to match. He modified a pair of shoes.

Main thing we still had to deal with this weekend was the beard. He’s trying on version 1 in the photo above. He tried it on so we could make ear loops for it. Got those sewn on. Then we trimmed it at an angle since Radagast’s beard is uneven. Then I decided it needed more curl (and I also did a little darkening with a marker. Wish I’d had a brown that worked to add some brown tones to it but I didn’t). I recurled it, brushed it out and now it’s done.

Beast:

Without the gloves and makeup, which I just realized he never did a makeup test for after saying for weeks he was going to do a makeup test.

Everything worked well. I’m on the fence about him tying the wig back into the ponytail. I think I may throw some yellow ribbon in just to see how he’s feeling when we put it on at con. The velcro at the furry legs also isn’t working, the fur is getting in the way too much, so fuck it we’re doing a safety pin.

I think that’s it. Packing has commenced. I’m maybe 25% packed.

Had to run out after dinner last night to grab some shoe grips for Chase’s Radagast boots. Last year when Target had their Halloween stuff out they had this big stuffed skeleton I wanted so bad but couldn’t justify. Well they had the start of Halloween out last night and I saw he was back, and we got to the register and somehow Chase had hidden this skeleton behind his back the entire way back up to the registers and surprised me with it!

My skeleton boy is home!

Today’s to-do list:

-wash hair, set curls
-finish rhinestones
-sew velcro on Shin and Baylan sleeves
-fix Arwen tear
-finish getting everything downstairs
-pack everything I can

I just realised Chase never re-heat-formed the other shoulder piece for Wanda and glued it on flat. He’s going to have to take it off the bodice and redo it because heat will melt that Parallel Life fabric. So that’s one thing I’m not going to be able to pack today 🙁

Anyway, see yall next week…