Diary of a Costumer

I used my unexpected sewing night quite well, I think! I managed to complete four flower motifs and one stem/leaf motif, which means I now have nine out of 16 full motifs completed. I'm more than halfway there! I also somehow perfectly timed out my stabilizer, as I had just enough time to use it up in those 5 stitch-outs yesterday. Luckily, I ordered more a few days ago, and just got a notification that it has been delivered. I'm also running low on yellow embroidery thread, but I can pick more of that up tomorrow evening.

I wasn't feeling the sewing part right when I got home, though, so I sort of vegged for the first 30-45 minutes of embroidering. But then I decided to work on the Anna bodice. It's now fully boned and flatlined, with the front assembled and the back pinned, ready to be sewn. Then it's just side & shoulder seams, zipper, and binding. I doubt I'll have it finished before Sunday, though, since I don't think I'll have any time to sew till then. I also really want to get a chunk of the blouse started on Sunday evening, and hopefully another 3-4 embroidery motifs. 

Here's a pic of the current state of the skirt. By the way, each of those flowers is about 16" tall to the top of the light blue dot. 

I had to run a couple errands after work yesterday, but I still managed to get a good amount of embroidery done. I think I started around 4:15 or so, and by 10:30, I had completed three of the large flower motifs and three of the stem/leaf motifs. That's also pretty good evidence that even though that's only about 4.5 hours of stitch time, it takes about 6 hours to do, when you include hooping it (the designs are so big that I have about 1-2 mm of error in getting my side-to-side placement right), positioning the design in the hoop, removing the basting stitches, ironing out any wrinkles, and marking the next four placements on the next panel. Not to mention when the embroidery machine runs out of bobbin or decides to fray the thread, and going back and fixing those mistakes.

Luckily, what I've done so far amounts to about .35 of the total embroidery time, and since I have three other working chunks left, I'm not feeling quite as worried as I was. Of course, even after I finish the actual stitch-outs, I will have to connect the yellow swirl between each of the flowers. And if I remember correctly, the blouse has some embellishment stitches that need to be done on the embroidery machine, so I have to remember to leave time for that as well. (and now I'm worried again)

While I was embroidering last night, I also walked my dog, ate dinner, finished the second skirt for the etsy order and packed it up, and started in on the bodice. I'm not sure what I'm doing on the bodice is going to work. I'm cutting out the canvas lining pieces, adding some boning channels for German plastic boning, inserting the bones, and then flatlining that to the faux suede outer pieces. So far I've done the front and front-side pieces, and I have one of those seams pinned and ready to be sewn. I'm sure that putting the boning in there at this point is silly (and hopefully it's all in the right place!) but I didn't want any of the boning stitch lines to be on the suede fabric. 

My next chunk of time for sewing isn't until Sunday evening, so don't expect any more updates from me until Monday!

Considering this was my last "free" (aka, not 100% busy) weekend, I definitely did not get enough sewing done!

The Anna vest is completely done. I completed the "in-between" embroideries (connecting that yellow swirly line on the sides of the vest and around the back of the neck), cut out the lining, assembled everything, and bound all the edges yesterday. 



I also fixed all my Anna bodice mockup issues, but when I went to cut it out on Saturday, I realized that a) I didn't have enough of the preferable fabric left over from the 2016 bodice, and b) the backup corduroy fabric I bought was stretch corduroy. So yesterday I ran out to the big Joanns, returned the corduroy, and found more of the original fabric (it's a faux-suede from the Home Dec dept, which is why I hadn't been able to find it at the smaller Joanns). Last night, I cut out the bodice front piece and completed the embroidery, but I still have to cut out the rest of the bodice and the lining. Assembly should hopefully be relatively easy, but I probably won't have time to do that till Friday because it's tech week. 

I also bought some of that new cotton sateen (or whatever they're calling it) that Joanns recently started stocking, and I might completely rebuild the skirt. The reason I've been holding off on the embroidery is that I'm still not in love with the length I had to cut it to, and when I found out that I didn't make the original a circle skirt because it was too big around for the embroidery, that gave me a lot of pause, too! I'm hoping that I can figure out the embroidery math on Friday, and rebuild the skirt if necessary, using this new fabric. I'm swiftly running out of time to do the actual embroidery - it takes about 32 hours, all of my weekends are booked with Music Man performances, I'm working at least 1-2 of the three Fridays between now and Halloween, and because I am jumping right into my next show, I think I only have two weekday evenings free between now and Halloween. Also, now that I did the actual math on that, I might be screaming inside right now... Not sure how I'm going to get this done. Plus the Anna shirt and a blouse for the jumper. 

By the way, I did wear the Disney jumper on Thursday. I got lots of complements, but didn't take very good pictures of it. I might add a bone in the right side seam, since that one seemed to want to slip a bit. The left was fine, probably because the zipper provided enough structure. 

I had a really productive weekend! Thursday evening, I cut out all my Disney print pieces for the jumper, but then realized I wanted to flatline it with taffeta. Friday started off pretty disappointing, since I spent a good amount of time trying to find my Brother PE-Design install disk to no avail (it must be hanging out with my missing Sims disk). I haven't used my embroidery software since I bought my new computer last fall, and I needed to change some of the digitizing I had done to the Anna vest two years ago, since I am a different size than the person I made it for last time. In the end, I wound up having to use my old computer, whose built-in mouse has decided to stop working. And of course, after all that, the digitizing print-out does not actually print at the scale of the actual embroidery, so I may not have needed to do all of that anyway. I also bought the taffeta for lining the Disney print jumper.

Saturday, I decided to work on two projects at once. I had the embroidery going for the Anna vest, starting with the CB and working outwards from there, and while that was embroidering, I cut out all the taffeta pieces for my jumper and flat-lined and assembled all the skirt pieces. By the end of the day, the skirt was fully assembled (minus the straps, hem, and sewing down the binding at the waist), and all five hoopings of the vest embroidery were complete. 



Sunday, I finished the straps and waist binding of the jumper and pressed and pinned the hem. I also patterned and mocked up the Anna bodice, but there's a whole bunch of alterations I will need to make before I can get that right. The main issue I'm facing right now is trying to get the bodice neckline not to gap above the bust point without having a CF seam, because there will be embroidery over the bust on the CF. I also managed to mow the front and back lawns, get probably about 60% of my outdoor Halloween decorations up, buy more embroidery thread (I was amazed I had enough of the ice blue to finish the vest embroidery), return shoes, go to rehearsal, return books to the library, get gas, and go to Walmart. 

Anyway, today I am hoping to complete the hem on the Disney jumper and add a hook & eye at the waist, though I also want to go to the gym after work, and I have rehearsal tonight, so I'm not sure what all will actually get done. The other next steps will be to cut out the lining for the vest, assemble it, and bind the edges, and to work on the bodice mockup more so that I can start the embroidery on that. And then start on the blouse to wear with the Disney jumper, though I can work on that while doing embroidery. 

I finished Merida on Monday night, but haven't managed to do any sewing since then. The potential shoes I also ordered for Merida and Anna arrived. I love one of the Merida options - they're Clarks, so they're super comfy, and they match the belt I bought this weekend. I'm not so sure about the Anna ones. I think I would want an insole, and I'm fairly certain that would make them too tight. But I do appreciate that they're navy blue suede loafers! 

I am determined to complete a few alterations I'm doing for someone today, plus cut out at least the pattern (and hopefully the fabric) for the Disney-print jumper, and wash the replacement fabric for the Anna skirt hem binding this evening. Famous last words, though - I've been getting almost nothing done off my to-do list each day. I also need to stop at Joanns, pick up a prescription, and go to the gym. I'm very tempted to cancel my gym membership, though. I have gained weight, not lost it, it's almost impossible for me to go more than 3x per week (and I think I usually tend to go 2x, now that I have rehearsals), my next show will involve a lot more dancing, so I'll be getting my exercise in there, and the reason I picked this gym over the way cheaper one (besides the fact that it's 2 mins from my house) was for the pool and classes, both of which I rarely use. 

Anyway, yesterday, instead of sewing, I decided to go help paint at the historic theatre that the theatre group I do a ton with (ManeStage) is moving into in a couple weeks. I painted pretty much the whole sink room of the ladies bathroom, though it did take me two hours to do it. The theatre is going to look so pretty! 

I have conquered the Merida sleevils! I think a lot of the issues actually stemmed from the fit of the bodice, but there were some sleeve shape issues as well. I wound up tapering in the armpit of the side seams 2" on each side (a total of 4" all around, because the bodice was poufing out weirdly in the back). I also moved the back darts towards the CB about 1", and lengthened them so that they end nearly at the height of the bottom of the armseye. In doing all that, it also moved the armseyes farther out on the arm in the back, so I wound up shaving off about .5" of that. Then it was time to examine the sleeve shape. It was pulling in the lower front of the armseye, and didn't feel quite tall enough. I added about .5" to the height, and wound up adding nearly 1.5" in the front where it was pulling. Then it wound up poufing just slightly in the back just past the shoulder seam, so I took out the .5" of height that I had added there, and it fit! 

I cut out the new sleeves (saving the pattern so I can use it later, of course), and they are now attached. They still need cuffs, but I just wanted to get them set in last night, so I'll save the cuffs for today. I decided to use the solid green bodice fabric for the cuffs - I was thinking about using the plaid of the skirt fabric, but I think it breaks up the line. 

In all of my fitting from earlier, I also realized that the bodice was about 1.5" too long all the way around. So I removed that, and attached the skirt to the bodice (I did that before the final sleeve mockup, because I noticed that the weight of the skirt was affecting how the bodice was fitting). It turns out that still wasn't enough length removed, because once I attached them, it still seemed too low, so I did another seam 3/8" from the original 5/8" seam allowance. I think it's much better now.  

While I was doing all that, I also dyed the Anna skirt (twice). The first time, I forgot to wet the skirt first, so when it dried, it had a terrible line at the top of the dye (it was dip-dyed). So I rinsed that all out, wet the fabric, and started again. I think it's just dark enough at the bottom now. 

Today, I'm going to set the side zipper into Merida and do the cuffs. Then I'm going to cut out and make all the bias for the Anna hem and attach that. If there's time after that, I plan to start on the Anna embroidery and let the machine do that while I hand-hem the Merida skirt, which is the last thing I need to do on Merida. Not sure I'll manage all of that today, but here's hoping!

I got some sewing done this weekend, though not much. The bodice part of the Merida Dapper Disneybound dress is done, except for the sleeves. I was majorly thwarted by sleevils on Saturday night while working on that. I'm pretty sure I spent 3 hours on the sleeves, and still didn't figure them out. It's a fitted sleeve - I feel like it shouldn't be this hard, but it was pulling weirdly all over, and even making the back fit weirdly.

Here's an in-progress of Merida. I posted all the fitting issues pictures on Facebook, if you want to weigh in. I do have some suggestions to try already. 



Because of the annoying sleevils, on Sunday night, I decided to switch to Anna instead. I got the skirt cut out, but that was another struggle. Joanns only had 3 yards of the only fabric that was at least close in color to what I was looking for, when I knew I needed more like 3.5-4. So unfortunately, I had to shorten it by about 3". It should still work, but it's not ideal. Luckily, it's still just barely long enough that it will cover the awesome Malco Modes petticoat I found on Sunday at Goodwill. And also luckily, the hem on this is bound, with double-fold bias, not turned up, so I don't lose any additional length there. The next step is to put the the zipper and waistband in, and then I can dip-dye the hem and add the bias. Then on to embroidery! 

I believe I have Wed-Fri evenings free this week, plus most of Sunday, so I'm really hoping to get the skirt to the point of embroidery, and to finish Merida by the end of the weekend. Then I can move on to the Disney print jumper dress while the machine is embroidering on Anna. 

Hmm... Apparently I never did any CoCo wrap-up posts this year. I had so many costume events in August that I completely forgot. Whoops!

So here's part one of a brief wrap-up, assuming I can remember everything. 

I arrived Wednesday into Long Beach, met up with a few other ladies (Sarah, Britta, and Patricia), and we drove (in our super fancy Infiniti rental SUV) to the Queen Mary. We changed into our Titanic-era clothing, and spent a few hours there. We dined in the restaurant, then did a self-guided tour all around the ship, taking a ton of pictures as we went (so many pictures, that by the end of it, my phone had died!). It was awesome. We got a lot of stares and complements, of course, and our pictures turned out sooo good! I would love to do something like this again. Here are some pictures:





We changed out of our costumes and left Long Beach around 8:30, I think, stopping for groceries on our way up to Woodland Hills. The next day, DodiRose, Sarah, Britta, and I went off to Burbank to check out the vintage-ish shops in the area. We went to Unique Vintage and Besame, among others, before heading back to Woodland Hills to change for the checking in and the pool party. That evening, I wore my burgundy silk Regency dress. I was pleased with the dress, but I wish I had styled my hair differently, as I don't think the pictures of me look very flattering. 



Friday morning, I took a limited class that they should not have allowed me to sign up for. I signed up for Hand Stitches in Millinery during mid-registration, but it overlapped by 30 mins with the class I was teaching (which I didn't notice until like 2 days before CoCo). Combined with the fact that that class was running waaay behind schedule, I learned about 2-3 stitches. It was a good class otherwise, though. I ran behind in the Making Royal Orders class I taught, too, because I forgot to factor in the time it would take to distribute materials (which was like 20 mins). That said, I saw a bunch of my students wearing their royal orders for the gala, and I got lots of good feedback on it, so I think it was still a success. I watched some of Jennifer's Dressing the Silhouette class before going to grab some lunch, before my shoot with quincy134  (it was so nice that she did that!) and I finished off the class portion of the day with Jenny-Rose and Abby's Pomatum or Hairspray class, which was really cool to watch. During the day, I wore my 1890s Ice Cream Parlour shirtwaist and wool skirt. 



Friday evening was when our Titanic group decided to wear all of our costumes. I loved the turnout on this! All my past costume groups tended to fizzle out, but we had nearly 20 people in this group, and everyone looked wonderful. It did make it really difficult to round everyone up for photos, though, and I know we missed at least one or two people in the big group photo, which is really too bad. Some of us made movie reproductions, others opted for costumes of the era, and we even had one person dress as the iceberg! Naturally, we took a bunch of pictures. After a quick tour of the marketplace, several of us gathered for champagne, cupcakes, and chatter in our room - it was nice to host a small room party!  






I'll do the rest of CoCo in another post, since this is already really picture heavy. 

I have done absolutely zero sewing since my last post. I'm realizing that I may need to pick two things for my evenings, as I don't seem to have time for three, and since I'm in rehearsals right now, that appears to mean either gym or sewing, not both. Since I have seen no results of going to the gym app 3x/week since (I think) late May, I'm very tempted to give that up at the moment... *Sigh*

I really want to get to sewing. This weekend, I was down in LA visiting my Grandpa for his 93rd birthday, so naturally, I also went to the fabric district. I was able to get some fabrics for historical sewing this year - two for a bustle-era gala gown (still trying to decide between natural form or earlier 1870s), and one for an exact reproduction of a natural form walking dress, though I'm not sure I'll have time to make it this year. Unfortunately, the prices have gone up even higher than they were in July. There is nothing in Home Fabrics now under $14.95/yd. Luxury has a few narrow stripes for $6 (one of which I purchased), a few others for around $10.25/yd (purchased one of those, too), and pretty much everything else is $12.95 yd. I sure hope the prices come down by next year! 

These were two of the ones I purchased (for the gala gown). I was in a room with terrible lighting when I took the pics, but it is a brighter mauvy pink solid taffeta, along with the spring green/mauve satin/taffeta stripe. I was really tempted by some matching spring green solid silk satin, but that was $12.95/yd, so I skipped on that for now. If I have leftover of the bright pink left by next year, though, I'll probably get a bunch of the satin and do another outfit. 


I actually got to do some touristy things in LA, too, which is unusual for trips to see family. We went to Angels Flight (a historic funicular railway), Philippe's (to get some historic french dip sandwiches), and Salt & Straw (because I'd heard it was the thing to do in LA). So that was all quite nice. 

I finally have picked my Disneybound for Sunday of Dapper Day weekend. I'm going to do Merida! It actually makes perfect sense, because I wanted to do a princess, plus someone that would make sense with my red hair, and some of our other friends that we're meeting up with are doing Pixar. Perfect! At this point, I think what I'm going to do is a 50s-style high-ish waisted full-skirted dress, with the skirt out of a dark green plaid, and the bodice portion out of a solid dark green. I'm going to curl my hair really nicely, and possibly do a small fascinator-type hat on a tam base. I think I'll go with some sort of sensible brown shoe, a bag with either a bear face or an embroidered celtic bear, a wide brown belt, and possibly a parasol.

So that leaves Friday and Saturday. I know I'm going to make a cotton print dress. I found a Villains print, but I also really like the print with the vintage Disney movie posters... And I'm not sure yet what style I want the print dress to be. I find that the allover villains print I already have is hard to wear on a regular basis because the print is just a lot. Whereas my Beauty and the Beast jumper dress is easier to wear. So I'm thinking maybe a high-waisted suspender skirt? Or maybe use it as a wide border and accent print on an otherwise solid dress?

For Saturday, I'm debating about wearing the 1890s ice cream parlour blouse with a dark and solid calf-length skirt and Victorian boots. The thing is, if it's warm, that high collar is probably going to bug the heck out of me... So my other thought is to do a princess Anna disneybound. And if I do Anna, I might do it double duty - for Dapper Day, do the full embroidered skirt (either regular or Frozen Fever), but pair it with a more representative top, and then use the skirt with the repro bodice/blouse/etc for Halloween. Because otherwise I'm not sure I can make all of this plus a Halloween costume by then!