Diary of a Costumer

Despite not having much sewing time today, I'm definitely feeling better now. Still stressed, but less so. The princess dress was finished and packaged up by the time I left for rehearsal. Then while I was at rehearsal, I managed to sew about 1/3 of the overskirt trim on. And when I came home, I stayed up too late, but I finished the pleating, and attached the pleats and one side of the fur to the skirt.

I think I'll have some time to sew at rehearsal tomorrow, as well, so I'm hoping I might even get the overskirt finished by the end of the night. And hopefully when I come home, I can stay up late enough to set the sleeves. That would make Wed evening's sewing manageable, since I don't have rehearsal that night. Though of course, I do have to pack, too!

I realized I haven't been posting any pictures of the skating dress so far, so here's one, which shows the bodice and skirt pleats/fur. Clearly this is going to be one I'm going to have to lint-roll constantly. Also a bonus princess dress picture, since it's a new style.

I finished the Ariel commission earlier today. I mean, it was basically done on Wednesday, when I finished the last few boning channels and attached the sleeves, and sewed the tag in. But today I sewed the hanger loops in, and mostly, I worked on the shell backings for the brooch and shoe clips. My customer is blinging them out herself, but I made the backings by taking one layer of the lighter turquoise organza, and coating it with stiffy. Then when that was dry, I layered it on top of the dark turquoise organza, and spread fray check over the two layers. When that dried, I flipped it over and did it again, so that it wound up being dark, light, dark, and quite stiff by the end. I glued a pin back on the larger one for the brooch, and shoe clip hardware on the smaller two.

And then of course, I packed everything up and shipped it off without remembering to take finished pictures first. Whoops. (At least it looks finished in the pictures from the other day, and she's pretty good about sending me pictures of her wearing the dresses, so hopefully I'll get those soon).

Then when I came home, I made another Ariel! This is the first of the kids dresses. I made it in a larger kids size, and I chose Ariel because it was the simplest of the princess designs I've come up with. It went together so quickly that I'm going to be able to list this design for cheaper than I had expected, which is a nice thought. Of course, that said, it is quite a simple design, so I hope people can tell that it represents Ariel! It's not in my shop yet, since the only way I have to take pictures of it right now is to pin it to the front of my adult dress form. I need to find a local model that can wear it for me. This one I think is for about a 6-7 yr old-ish size. The next one will be a toddler-size Snow White. I'll probably make that tomorrow.


Of course, I also have another project for tomorrow, because while I was at Joanns picking up the pin back for Ariel, I found out they have Harry Potter fabric! So I bought a couple yards of my favorite one (along with Minnie fabric and Ariel printed cotton), and I'm going to make a sample of an elastic-waisted skirt for my shop out of the Harry Potter fabric. I'm excited to be able to wear this one! (I wore the Disney princess one today).

Oh, also, I did (or am doing?) something I probably shouldn't have. A local costumer was selling her used Babylock Imagine, and I snapped it up, since it was such a reasonable price. I know I shouldn't have, since money is so tight right now, but I've wanted one for so long and I've never seen one at a price this low. I hope I don't feel guilty for long!

I think I sewed for the entire day yesterday, but I feel like I don't have much to show for it I got the bodice pleats sewn down, cut off the excess fabric, serged around the front of the bodice, and attached it to the back pieces. Then I moved onto the sleeves. I got both lower sleeves sewn together, and hemmed one. But I didn't like how the hem looked, so I haven't done the other yet because I want to see if it behaves better on my other machine. So I started on the upper sleeves. I cut out my sleeve pieces (four layers - turquoise taffeta, white net, white sequin mesh, and turquoise organza) basted the layers together, and then serged all the edges so that I could treat them as one. I sewed the seams, and ran all my gathering stitches. Pulling up the gathering stitches through all those layers (especially the sequins) really really sucks (which is why I've only done one sleeve so far). On one sleeve, I also bound the top and ran the elastic through the channel. I was just going to use elastic at the top, but I think I might add it at the bottom, too, since I can't gather the sleeve tighly enough to fit her lower bicep measurement. I also tried to pattern an inner fitted sleeve, so that I can stuff the inside of the outer sleeve with net if I need to. I'm not positive if I'll need to or not, and I hope I don't, since I'm not sure how to fit the fitted section into the elastic top of the outer sleeve (the outer sleeve doesn't attach to any sort of fitted band - it's just the turned over elastic channel at the top).

So anyway, I got a bit exhausted with the sleeves by early evening, so I decided to move on to my etsy stuff. I washed almost all of the fabrics for the samples yesterday, and decided to make the skirt first, since it will hopefully be easiest. I can't remember if I mentioned, but besides the princess play dresses, I also found some cute licensed fabric that I'm going to make into a couple adult size skirts to sell. I'm still trying to decide which kids dresses to make first - I want to make one kid size and one toddler size to begin with. I think I'm going to do Snow White and Ariel, and then maybe Elsa.

I don't know if I'm going to get anything done today, though. I woke up early to go to the WA caucus, then ran some errands, and came home and did a bunch of yard work. So now I'm exhausted. Plus I have people coming over for an adults-only egg hunt tomorrow, so I should probably tidy up the house a little bit. 

But I have been sewing!

The Ariel skirt is fully assembled except the hems, and now that the waistband is on, I'm leaving it on the form overnight to see if the hem length will stretch before I actually go and sew the hems of the three layers. The bodice fabric has also arrived, so I also need to start on that.

I've also been working on the sheer dress. The skirt is done except the hem, and I'm trying to decide if I really want to wear hoops with this or not. Antoinette is wearing it over my old Ren farthingale (which, let's face it, is really more of a hoopskirt anyway) plus one additional petticoat. But it's just... big. I'm going to be wearing this on a beach/at a fort, and probably at CoCo, and I don't want it to be cumbersome! However, I tried it with just my corded and two other petticoats, and it didn't have enough oomph at all. Plus, it's a late 1850s dress, so it does make sense that it would have hoops. I'll decide tomorrow (hopefully).

And then today, I mocked up the bodice. I started with Simplicity 4551, which has the widest shoulders ever. Other than the shoulders, and my normal CB and length adjustments, it wasn't too horrible of a pattern, though - I fixed the neckline/shoulders and took about 2.5" out of the width, and it works. I'm doing a muslin inner bodice, with a lower scooped neckline, and then the sheer shirred bodice on top. I'm about halfway through the construction of the bodice at this point. One thing I'm trying to figure out, though, is if the underbodice and overbodice share the same side seam, or if the two layers stay separate except at the top, bottom, and CF. Any ideas?

I finished gathering the supplies for Ariel over the last two days, and started sewing on the petticoat. I'm hoping to knock a lot of it out tomorrow, so that I can get started on the skirt. Okay, honestly, I just want to get the sequin layer started and done with! I still find Elsa sequins around occasionally, despite it being two years and one move later. Who knows how long these will stick around? (Plus, as with every time I do a commission, I'm now itching to start my kids Victorian dress. I have five months, but I don't want to put it off too long!)

I've also been keeping up with my workouts - Just Dance yesterday and Couch to 5k today. I haven't decided yet what weekends will look like in that regard, but I hope to do at least one workout over the weekend, just so I don't lose momentum.