where did you get a loaf of bread

I love starting off my Monday with a teams message…
Them: “Are you available for a call today?”
Me: (ugh) “Yes, in regards to…?”
Them: (Insert questions about some process I am completely unfamiliar with)

Why are you asking ME? Oh god there’s some much backstory to the reason why I’m so befuddled why they are asking ME I can’t really go into but this has been my morning.

I guess at least they didn’t just call me without asking first. But they also haven’t replied since I suggested they include someone else in this call who probably does know more about what they’re asking about. (EDIT: They finally replied and said THAT person told them to ask ME???)

Anyway.

Not a lot to report on the picnic front this week except I did finally steam it after letting it hang for a couple of days.

Ahhhh I’m soooo happy with how it’s looking!!

I am going to have to fix the hem at the end because it’s still pretty uneven, but it’s better after the steaming.

Started doing the flowers – got them done on the sleeves first, and that was my experimental area, because if they turn out bad there, they’re just going to get gathered up and squished under ribbons and such so who cares LOL. First one I did with tissue paper as a stabilizer and didn’t love it. Next I tried a film and it was way too squirrely so I ditched that after a couple of stitches. Next I tried a lightweight water soluble – and it worked GREAT for stabilizing and making pretty stitches, but washing it out proved to be a nightmare. I’ve got subtle watermarks on the fabric now AND the flowers dried weird. That’s out the window. I went back to the tissue paper for the skirt. It’s enough stabilization to get the outline done, then I remove it and do the fill in with no stabilizer. The first couple on the skirt (on the back thankfully) are a little messy but once I finally acquiesced to the advice to use a laying tool it helped SO much and now they are looking nice. I’ve got 2 panels in the back done, and I’ve done the outlines on the 3rd. I decided to switch to doing all outlines first and then go back and do all the fill-ins. It was just a pain in the ass having to switch gears from one to the other, so I decided to focus on one technique at a time.

That’s where I’m at. The blouse is DONE… just needs assembled now. I also added extra panels to the skirt lining layer, but I haven’t finished sewing it together yet, because I’m not sure I like the way I have it together at the moment. Right now it’s just a bunch of big rectangles sewn together and pleated at the top and I feel like that’s going to add a lot of bulk. I think I may go back and angle the seams in to make it more of an A-Line. I hate to do that and waste the silk I’m cutting off, but I’m sure I’d find another use for it in the future.

This week… focus on finishing flowers so that this coming weekend I can assemble skirt and blouse hopefully? And then move back over to the corset, which is still in the same state it was in from May. I still need to do the cut outs on the silk layer and then start the embroidery there. I really dont want to do the cut outs (crying emoji)

I’ve been working on all this in one spot on the couch, which means I’m regularly finding sequins and bits of thread in this area. Tell me why I got up to go to the bathroom and came back to a blue rhinestone from my Taylor Swift boots from 2024 sitting in my spot on the couch like it had been laid there. You could go the logical route and say it was probably on the floor in my sewing room and got tracked downstairs. Or you could go my route and say the simulation malfunctioned and accidentally spawned an old defunct rhinestone instead of a sequin.

Friday night we ran some errands since Saturday was booked and busy. We always joke about going to eat at Piccadilly when we go to that area, but this time, we actually did it. I haven’t been there since I used to go with my grandparents regularly in the 90s. Was it good? No. Did it have nice ambiance? No, the place clearly has not updated anything since it was built in the 80s or 90s. Was the service good? Yes, from that alone I see why they’re still around and kicking. I told Chase my itch is scratched, we never have to go back LOL

Saturday was busy because we went to Anime Blues Con for a bit. Haven’t been since 2019. We went long enough to walk the dealer’s room, say hi to some friends, and me to take a few pics. We were out of there by 1pm LOL. But we had a good time. Also there was a CAT in the dealer’s room which was a huge highlight for me. I only bought a couple of things – a funko pop (Pluto in the Peoplemover to go with our Mickey), and a few stickers.

You’d think for a post-convention post I’d have more photos to post today, but alas. Since I wore Utena, I was carrying my sword instead of my phone so I took no photos. I think Chase took like 2. Sooo… I got nothing. We DID stop at Brooks on the way down to the convention center and do a quick little photoshoot – recreating photos I took in my first Utena costume TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO. WTF.

EDIT: I’m baaack with a preview. Here’s the 2001 vs 2026! Couldn’t get in the exact same spot again because the gate was locked, but close enough.

I did record a few videos after the shoot, and was like… yay! I finally have some new costume content to post! (Especially since I didn’t take ANY videos at HSV back in april) Posted the first video to tiktok Saturday afternoon… 14 views after 2 hours. WTF. I privated it and reposted, thinking it was just a lag that happens sometimes. 0 views after an hour. Was it the sword? The music? The hashtags? The caption? I changed the music and the hashtags and the caption. Tried again. 0 views after an hour again. So I posted a different video – we took a couple in the convention center lobby before we left because it was good light and as a 46 year old in costume I never pass up good light. I posted that one and… it behaved normally, it got views like I normally get. So clearly not the sword triggering something (had it in both), or the hashtags. Yesterday I tried posting a different video from the Brooks shoot, and again… 0 views. Tried again with different music. 2 views after an hour.

I don’t know what about those Brooks videos is triggering tiktok to NOT release those videos into peoples’ feeds, but it’s REALLY fucking annoying. I may try running one through something to remove all the metadata and trying again later today. I mean I know they’re not the best videos I ever did or all that interesting but it’s the principle of the matter!

Anyway here’s the one photo Chase took at the con of other costumers LOL

Anyway as soon as we got to the parking garage I took my wig and jacket OFF and thankfully Chase had a clean tshirt in his workout bag in the back I could throw on LOL Because I was hot and over it by that point.

Got home, changed, had lunch, ran back out to finish our weekend errands, then worked on embroidery the rest of the day. Same thing Sunday… embroidery, a nap, met my parents for dinner and then more embroidery.

Art corner!
Only have 3 this week because the first one of these took forever.

This one is my interpretation of one of the dresses from The Princess and the Scoundrel. This is the one that took forever because I kept messing with different ways to do the color of the purple gold dress. I ended up sending this one to photoshop for some tweaking – Photoshop’s color tools + dodge and burn are just way better for that kind of stuff. Overall I’m happy with it but I think I may have drawn some of the details a bit too fine – the gold trim in the hair/holding the prisms and on the dress gathers don’t really stand out enough. Maybe I go back and make those a little thicker in the future so they’re not so lost. I may even do that with some of the linework in the dress because the details there are a little lost too.

Also yes the way I chose to draw the drop waist seam of the skirt was very inspired by Padme’s Tatooine 2 piece skirt — love any opportunity to tie a Leia dress to a Padme look.

After all that I needed a little break. Did this simple outfit from recent comics.

And back to another outfit from The Princess and the Scoundrel. I actually drew up a sketch for this look right after reading it, so I went back to that sketch as a basis for this version. Overall happy with it but I think I may go back in and make the silver designs on the cape a little more refined. Like opposite problem of the one above – I think they need to be more fine and thin, they’re coming off a little too chunky right now. But I was in a hurry to finish it up last night so I could post it today, and all I had left was finishing those silver design elements.

That’s it for this week. Let’s do a goals check-in for this week:

1. Finish skirt embroidery
2. Make skirt waistband
3. Gather skirt/attach to waistband
4. Figure out what I’m doing with the lining layer
5. Get blouse assembled
6. DO MORTICIA DUCTTAPE DUMMY IVE BEEN PUTTING THIS OFF FOR WEEKS