The Thing That Goes Doink

Since I'm going to sit down in earnest today and start sewing like a mad woman, background noise is a must. With only the lining and interfacing sewn together, I still have quite a bit of work to do. Since it's been a while since I've watched Fruits Basket, I'm going to put that in while I work. It makes for great background noise, and since I've seen it enough times that I don't need to actually watch it. Other than sewing, I really only need to poke at the dishes, make the beds (both master and guest bedrooms), and run to the bank since I got paid yesterday.

I think I'm going to finally order my shoes today, but I'm debating if I get the sevens or the eights. I suppose with the eights I can wear socks over my tights to pad around my feet or easily put inserts in that won't crowd my feet...I think the eights win. I could theoretically wear the sevens - my Doc Martens are sevens and they are by far the most comfortable shoes I own. At any rate, I'm planning on ordering my shoes from Clockwork Couture, since they have by far the most reasonable price on the shoes I want and since they're based of out California, the shipping isn't atrocious. What I'm looking forward to is telling my husband that I put another $50-$60 on the credit card. XD No doubt he'll just sigh and roll his eyes.

Anyway, I should get going. Steamcon is in mid October, but in mid-October I hope to be mostly done with the dress I'll be making for my husband's company Christmas party - though part of me kind of wants to do it off the rack this year. And while I do have a whole two months to get this dress sewn, I'd prefer to get it done sooner rather than later, as I am horrible about procrastinating.

So, with my parents all over the local (and even non-local, is some cases) news, I'm expecting some chaos tonight. Probably not helped by the fact that when I used the Captain Mal's Wisdom app on Facebook yesterday, my dear Captain said, "It never goes smooth. How come it never goes smooth?"

I really hope that it's just a fluke and not a prophecy for tonight. :/

Anyway, I really should be eating a light lunch (because dinner will be early because of what time I have to get over to my parents' house to help out tonight) but I'm not really hungry, coupled with the fact that I have no idea what I even want to eat. At any rate, I'm probably going to spend the rest of the afternoon doing some tidying up around the apartment because I'm going to invite my parents over to watch the Seahawks game tomorrow because they won't be able to really watch it tomorrow. Not that their house lacks TVs, but I just figured I'd extend the invite to come watch it in HD at my place because their usual TV (the behemoth that lives in the corner of the living room) is currently covered by Halloween decorations.

All things considered, what I should do is have a quick bite to eat, followed by doing a little cleaning (mostly picking up odds and ends from around the apartment and dusting), and then sitting down and working on the slip stitching on my dress.

Speaking of my dress, it's more or less fully constructed, with the final bit being to slip stitch the bodice lining to the rest of the dress. I finished hemming it yesterday, so aside from the slip stitching and making a few tacks to get it properly fitted (and maybe a little clean up on some of the edges and folds), I'm practically done. Because Lydia is a series of straight lines along with the spider webbing being drawn on by hand, she'll take me all of an afternoon to complete.

Of course, I also need to start thinking about NaNo - which will probably be all kinds of fantastic, as the first couple of days will be combined with sewing in some way, which may mean my first couple of days aren't very productive. It also means that the first couple of days will be spent writing on the couch when I'd rather be writing at the dining room table. Ah well, not much I can do about that until I get everything cleared off the table and that won't happen until Lydia is done. So.

High time I find some food so I can get on with the rest of what I should be doing. Even if I don't get all of the cleaning done today, I really should get as much done as possible so I don't stress myself out trying to get everything done before tomorrow's football game.

So I finished sewing Sheena today. All that's left is painting the shoes, so when I get the chance I'll be running over to the fabric store to buy the paint, as well as looking to possibly buying the fabric for the Christmas party dress and Lydia.

I'm glad to be done with the bulk of the sewing, especially since I started having troubles right up at the end. Apparently the thread I was using is weak in places, so instead of the stitches catching like they should have, they were breaking and clogging up my machine. I finally pulled off a yard or so of thread and started over with success this time.

I think I'll take this little down time to make the banner for my pins. I like the idea of making it out of the leftover blue fabric from Sheena's costume. It'll match the decor of the rest of the room that way.

Hopefully my time swearing at my sewing machine is over.

No, I'm not done. However, after three attempts, I finally have the pattern for the gloves worked out. Tonight I'll probably cut out the fabric and sew them together which will leave, you guessed it, the boot covers.

I'm thinking that the best way to start on the boot covers is to just take some scrap fabric and mark and pin in places, then measure between marks and pins and try to figure out how that's going to translate on a piece of paper which will then serve as the pattern.

But, the good news is that I'm about 75% done with the costume. The shirt is done. The robe is done. The obi is done. The bow is done (but needs minor tweaks). I bought pants. The glove pattern is done and I just need to cut out the pieces and sew them together.

Of course when this is all done, I have to get the fabric for the Christmas Party dress and I need to get the fabric to make Lydia's cape for the funeral. Yes, you read that right, the funeral. (But more on that later.)

Anyway, I have a head ache and I need to figure out what the hell I'm doing for dinner.

So I have everything that I had previously cut out sewn together and I'm now doing the requisite slip (read: hand) stitching. I'm about halfway done with the slip stitching on the robe, and only have a little bit to do on the shirt (total). I'm happy that everything fits over my bewbs, and it now becomes a matter of getting everything to fit together and not blouse out or slip down. That may require pinning the sleeves of the shirt to the robe. Or fitting them with snaps. Either option is completely viable.

Once I get the top half more or less figured out, it becomes a matter of sewing together the obi and the bow. I figured that I would separate the two parts, but I wasn't sure how to logically pull this off. desertkitsune pointed out that I could easily pull this off by making the bow a separate piece from the obi itself, and have it tie on with the obi-jime which was looking like it was going to be sewn into place. Instead I'll put a couple of small loops for the obi-jime to be threaded through so that it stays centered on the obi, and it'll serve the purpose of holding the bow (which it'll be sewn to) in place in the back. I didn't really relish the idea of trying to tie the bow just right and I'm all for cheating when necessary.

Of course, once the obi and bow are figured out, I'll move on to sewing the gloves and the boot covers. I have quite a bit of spare fabric floating around, so I'll do a mock-up of the gloves to see if the pattern works, and then tweak where necessary. I'm still wracking my brain on how to turn that sketch of the boot covers into an actual pattern. Or I'll just do mock-up with spare fabric until I find something that works.

So there's still quite a bit left to be done, but the fact of the matter is that I've already accomplished quite a bit, so now the task seems a lot less daunting than before.

So for Halloween I figured that I would do my Sheena cosplay. I've got the pieces for the robe and the shirt cut out, and I need to make a pattern for the boot covers and gloves and buy pants. I think I'm going to take my old, beat up Sketchers that I got for work years ago and modify them to be the shoes, partly because they're ridiculously comfortable and partly because that means I don't have to go and buy new shoes. :p

As it turns out, I went and bought fabric and notions, going off a check list that I had made, hoping that I had gotten everything that I needed. Except... I needed bias tape and quilt binding. And now I need MORE bias tape and buckles. >_< Apparently I should have made my check list while studying the character artwork rather than from memory. That way I could just sit and sew today. Or mostly sew. That whole making patterns thing is also going to take some time.

( A memo to new friends who are probably looking at this entry going, WTF is with her?! )

What I need to do next is get the small load of laundry I did yesterday folded and put away, followed by getting the dining room table cleared off except for necessary materials to either make the patterns or start sewing the costume. And at some point in the near future I need to cut out the pattern pieces for the Christmas party dress. I suppose it's not the most exciting way to spend Labor Day, but I'd rather feel like I accomplished something rather than doing nothing at all.