theladyrebecca: (Default)
The BB-8 baby dress is finished and in the mail! Picture here: www.instagram.com/p/B2tH5vBAP7W/

Of course, while I was doing the embroidery, I found out that when I brought my machine in for service a couple months ago, something must have been put back a little wrong, because when I started embroidering at the 600 speed (medium), it started breaking needles repeatedly. It turned out they were hitting the needle plate! I was able to finish it at the 350 speed (slow), but that really slows down the embroidery time. I talked to the service people and they said it's still under warranty, and they can do a rush repair on it, so I'll only be without it for a week, but that's still obnoxious, since now I have a bunch of embroidery I need to do. I'm going to bring it in on Sunday, so that I can still use my machine tomorrow and Friday, when I should have a bit of sewing time, and I'll just be without it next week, when I have rehearsals and shows every day, and probably won't have time to use it anyway. 

We opened The Butler Did It, and other than having a very drama-filled tech week, both tech and the opening weekend went very smoothly. Now I'm able to get back to some of my rehearsals for Secret Garden, which is really nice. I was pretty much caught up on all the blocking for the whole show yesterday! It's a lot to learn, but I can already tell this show is going to be so good. I'm super excited!

Anyway, I have an amazingly rehearsal-free evening tomorrow, and I'm also not working on Friday, so I have the day free. I was waffling between seeing Downton Abbey and sewing, but I think sewing is going to win out. I really want to cut out and assemble the circle skirt for the fireworks skirt, so that the hem can hang out for a week before I actually hem it. If I manage all of that, I will also probably start on the sleeves for my Ariel dress, or possibly hem the Rapunzel Dapper dress, which has been hanging out for over a month now. 
theladyrebecca: (Default)
I finished the other corset commission last week and shipped that off. This weekend I will probably start on the BB-8 baby dress commission, which is my last for a moment, though I will probably have some stuff for the caroling group to do in a couple weeks. 

But in the meantime, what I'm really excited about is starting my skirt for Disney World. I can't remember if I posted about it here yet, but I am making a light up skirt! I was going to do it on a black base, but I found this fabric at Joanns that is black cotton threads in one direction, woven with rainbow lame-ish threads on the cross-grain. I did a small test embroidery, and it embroiders fine *knock on wood*. I'm going to embroider Cinderella's castle, maybe the Partners statue or Tink, and a bunch of fireworks on it, and poke little holes through and put lights behind them. I found an inexpensive lightweight strand of LED color-changing lights on Amazon. I haven't figured out if it's best to sew them into the skirt, or to tape them in place - if anyone has any tips, please share!

I also figured out what I'm doing for Halloween. Between the commissions, theatre rehearsals/shows, and my Disney sewing, I have almost no time for Halloween sewing this year. But when I was at Goodwill on Sunday, I found a turquoise prom dress that fits me perfectly and was giving off major Ariel vibes. So I'm going to add puffed sleeves (I already have the fabric from past princess sewing), and I bought a red Ariel wig. Easy costume! 

Anyway, we open on Friday, and I work every day until then, so no new sewing will happen till Friday morning (and then only if I have the energy). I'm excited to get this show open, because then I can actually get to rehearsals for my next show! 
theladyrebecca: (Default)
I prepped all the pockets for the flight suit yesterday. This involves pressing all the edges of the pockets in, and doing two rows of stitching on the side of the pocket that is open, plus sewing/turning/top-stitching the three pocket flaps. There's a total of nine pockets, I think, and I'm hoping to get all nine sewn on today. I've only marked placement for two so far, though, so we'll see how that actually goes...

After work, I'm taking the jazz dance class, so I won't actually get home to eat dinner and sew until probably about 8pm, unless I sneak in some dinner before class. At this point, I'm pretty sure making a formal dress by next Wednesday is not going to happen. But I am hoping to finish the flightsuit by tomorrow night. 
theladyrebecca: (Default)
I swear, every time I look at Dreamwidth, a week has passed. I really don't know how that's happening, though I also don't know how we're already halfway through November. 

I finished the commission on Friday, and it has been picked up, so now I don't have to worry about that, which is certainly a nice feeling. It's maybe not so nice when I look at my finances and realize the money from the commission has been helping to keep me afloat, instead of going into a save-for-Europe/later bonus fund. Oh well.... 

Here's a pic. It wasn't my design - I was reproducing an old jacket from the 90s. 


Anyway, now I get to sew for me! I wanted my first project to be fairly quick, no stress, and something small that I could take with me to sew at rehearsals. So I pulled out my new Simplicity Disney stuffed animals pattern, and I'm making Thumper. I think I've got the body a little more than half done at this point. I'm hoping I can do a tiny bit more today before rehearsal. 

Here's what he looks like so far:


This is also my filler project before my coat lining gets here, because my next project is going to be a winter coat. I guess I should probably mock that up... 

After I finish that, I'm not positive what will come next. I want an S-bend corset, so possibly that. But I'm so far behind in my sewing because of the commission that I really should be getting on with my gala dress or something, which doesn't need the corset (that's for an Edwardian I want to make). But I haven't finalized what I'm actually making for the gala yet - all I know is that it will be yellow and 1890s. Or I could go back to the stripey 1880s bustle I was working on, but that was being a pain before which was why I shelved it. Or I could do the plaid 1830s dress I want to make, which would probably be the easiest choice. Fitting just seems like such a pain right now. Maybe once we open and I have more time to think and do things I'll figure this all out. 
theladyrebecca: (Default)
Not much sewing has been happening here. Mostly, when I've had time to sew, I've spent it on the commission. But I also spent a good bit of time waffling around not doing much this weekend. I did do some alterations to a Simplicity winter coat pattern, and I think that with my alterations, I can just squidge it out of a piece of 60x86" bright blue wool I've been sitting on (I have two additional pieces about 20x60" each, for sleeves and a hood or collar, and another piece of similarly colored wool that I can use for the front and neck facing.

I need to do a mockup, and I also need to pick up some lining fabric. I was told to look for bemberg rayon, which I think I can only find online, so it might be a bit till I can really start on this one other than the mockup. Other than the bemberg rayon, does anyone have opinions on coat lining (the coat is meant for about 30-40 degrees on average).

Anyway, it's tech week this week, and the next chance I'll get to sew will be Friday, and hopefully I'll get a chunk done on the commission then. One of the commission pieces is almost done, but the other one still has a ton left on it. I also think I'll have another commission coming in shortly, so I may not get to do anything for that Regency ball I mentioned at all. My plan for it at this point, though, is to re-dye some rayon/silk velvet I had in the stash and make a super simple over-robe out of it. Though to be honest, that idea doesn't really thrill me.
theladyrebecca: (Default)
Today I got a rush order for a custom Daisy Head Mayzie playdress, so I made it this evening while my parents were watching tv. Naturally, I totally underestimated the time the collar would take, so now I know I should have charged way more, but oh well. It turned out super cute, and at least now I can mail it off and not have to worry about it for the rest of the weekend.

Custom Daisy Head Mayzie dress for an Etsy order. #daisyheadmayzie #drseuss #customorder #etsy #shopsmall #handmade #ladyrebeccafashions #girlsfashion #cutekidsfashion

While I was picking up the fabric for the dress, I also got the last of the lace and the thread I need for the giant turquoise ballgown of doom, which hopefully means I don't need to buy anything else for it at all. *knock on wood*

Oh, and my parents and I tried a lovely Victorian tea room in the area today. It was delicious, and hopefully I'll be able to host some events there!
theladyrebecca: (Default)
My 2016 Goals changed a few times over the course of the year, but this is what they were:

Navy blue swiss dot Regency - Done!
Black silk taffeta bustle ballgown - Done!
Child's Victorian Gown - Done!
Daniel Deronda Riding Habit - Still hasn't happened, and is no longer on my specific upcoming goals list.
1860s Fully Handsewn dress - Didn't even pick this up all year. Maybe someday, but probably not anytime soon.
Turquoise Silk Mid-19th c  Giant Ballgown - I kind of knew this was going to be a 2017 project, and sure enough, it will be.
Fur-trimmed bustle-era skating outfit - Coming up next; I've already started cutting pieces out.
Winter bustle gown - Almost done!
Super-secret Disney-related project - No longer super secret. This is the Snow White Designer Disney dress, and will be made for the CoCo pool party this year.

In June, I added an Elizabethan kirtle and Mary Poppins Jolly Holiday to the list, both of which I have since completed.


And here's picture proof of everything I made!

Click here for pictures )


I think that's everything. Overall, not a bad sewing year, though being unemployed for the first eight months of the year certainly helped in that, and as you can tell by my posts, my sewing has definitely slowed down since I started working in September! 
theladyrebecca: (Default)
I spent tonight trying to catch up on all the LJ posts for the last several days while trying not to scream/vomit/cry because of this stupid election. I refuse to accept that Trump appears to have won. I doubt I'm going to be able to sleep, but if I can, I want to wake up and have it all be a terrible nightmare.

But I digress. I did actually do some sewing at the end of last week. I fixed my Mary Poppins skirt appliques, put together the mockup for my corset, (which I still need to try on), and I also did my commission for Princess Anna's winter hat. Tada!

Obviously, the second picture is unfinished, but it was the only one I took that showed the painting I did on the back.


Anyway, then I ran off to Disneyland for the weekend for Dapper Day. I don't have most of my pictures yet, (my phone is so terrible that for Sunday we mostly used my friend's phone to take pictures), so here's a teaser pic from when I met Mary Poppins:
I got to meet Mary Poppins today! #dapperday #marypoppins #marypoppinsmonday #disneybound #disneyinspired #disneyland #dapperday2016

I'll do a full post on Disney as soon as I get the pics, but seeing everyone all dressed up for Dapper Day was amazing. It was a lot of fun just people watching, and trying to guess some of the disney bounds I saw.

But now I'm back, and I really need to try on the corset mockup and get on all the stuff for my caroling group, so that I can go back to working on the corset, and eventually, the green bustle gown! Eventually, I'll need to go back and fix Mary Poppins, too, since I had two bones work their way out of the swiss waist while I was wearing it, and more appliques need to be sewn on in more places, but that can wait till early summer. Because I have so much sewing to do right now...
theladyrebecca: (Default)
I finished another motif today. Eight more to go!

I also got a custom Etsy order for a Nightmare Before Christmas skirt, so I went to Joanns and picked up that fabric (and buttons for my Jolly Holiday spats, and embroidery bobbin thread for Anna), cut out my pieces, and serged all the edges. I don't know if I'll have time to sew it up tomorrow, since I work and have a show, but if not then I'll finish it on Friday morning and send it out then.

And I painted my shoes for Jolly Holiday. I did two coats already, but I have a feeling I'm going to need to do a third, since the tan is still showing through the white paint a little bit.

I'm really hoping to be super productive on Friday. I want to start crossing things off my Jolly Holiday list! 

Wendy

Aug. 10th, 2016 10:08 pm
theladyrebecca: (Default)
It's all done! I didn't make to the post office today, but it will head off to my customer tomorrow. I rather enjoyed it, for the most part, since it was a nice easy project (besides the zipper of course). The dress is cotton, with a poly matte satin sash, and matching bow. The sash is actually made out of three pieces - the part that is attached to the dress and goes around the waist, which is cut on the bias and top-stitched to the bodice, and then two ends, which were made double width and turned into tubes to tie into a bow. The bodice is based on a jenky looking McCalls princess pattern, but I changed the darts a little, and cut the neckline lower and wider. The skirt is just three flat panels (two halves in back, one whole in the front), and the dress closes with an invisible zipper up the back. It's entirely machine sewn except for the CB of the lining, which is handsewn down along the zipper. There's also a matching hairbow out of the satin.


theladyrebecca: (Default)
I worked on Wendy all day, and it is very close to being finished. All I have to do is tack down the lining along the zipper, but it's late, so I'm leaving that for tomorrow. I would have gotten to it tonight, but naturally the zipper was being a pain, and I had to redo it because the attached sash at the waist wasn't lining up. But it's fixed now, so I'll probably only need to spend about 20-30 minutes more before it's completely done. It's turned out really cute!

And this also hopefully means that by tomorrow evening, I can start on my bustle gown!
theladyrebecca: (Default)
I'm feeling a bit better about my sewing progress now! Yesterday, I cut out the rest of the bodice interlining and silk bodice pieces, and assembled the whole bodice. Then I made a mockup of the bertha, and since it seemed fine when I pinned it on, I went ahead and cut it out of the silk. Of course, as I was cutting it out, I had an "oh crap" moment, when I realized that I hadn't taken into account the facing for the bertha, and there was no way I had enough of the ivory silk left for it.

Luckily, I have a dark cream shantung, that, while it is a few shades darker, should be fine for the facing unless my bertha flips way up. So I cut it out, and pinned the two in place, and started marking my triangle seam lines, and I found an amazingly easy way to measure them! I don't know if this is just something I had never learned, or if it's some new thing I stumbled upon, but I realized that if I took my 3" wide plastic quilting ruler, and positioned it so that the 2.5" mark was on my CF dot (which was .5" up from the edge of the bertha), and put both 3" marks on the edge of the fabric, I could go around the whole rounded bertha piece, always using a 2.5" mark as a placement, and getting perfectly measured 90-degree spaces between each triangle! It made it soooo much easier!

So anyway, I sewed and turned all my triangles, and serged the top edge, which means the bertha is ready for trimming. I'm going to sleep early tonight, so none will get done now, but I'm really hoping that by the time I get home, I can finish the two rows of trim on the bertha, the 5th row on the skirt, and the last overskirt tab. Because then I'll feel sooo relieved. Especially because I just signed up to take a 4-day, 6 hrs per day class on draping a Victorian bodice the week before I leave for CoCo. Maybe not the best decision, but the class signed up super fast last time, and it's only $15. I couldn't pass it up!

I also shipped off Anna today. I'll get the skirt back in a couple weeks, and finish working on it after CoCo. But here's a picture of everything altogether, since I won't be getting the top pieces back:
theladyrebecca: (Default)
Whoops! I fell asleep early last night and forgot to post the Anna pictures. So here they are! (In the last pic you can also see the Elsa skirt hanging in the top right. Still not pleased with the dye job, but at least you can see it did make a little difference.)

I used a decorative stitch for the front opening and sleeves of the blouse, satin at the collar base, and my trust satin with the overlock foot for around the top of the collar. I learned that trick with the regular Anna! The neck opening closes with three small hooks and eyes.



Yesterday, I digitized half of the skirt motif. They're so large that I unfortunately can't fit the sunflower in one hoop (about 13.75"), so I have to do sunflower heads, and then the stem/tulip area separately. And there's 16 of each!

And because I fell asleep so early (11:30, which is about 3.5 hrs early for me, and my prime work time!) I also didn't get any of my pleats done. So the goal for today is to finish digitizing Anna, cut and assemble the skirt, so I can let the circle hang, and get all my overskirt pleats done and attached. We're coming in to vacation crunch time, and I need to prep for handsewing! 
theladyrebecca: (Default)
I got really excited thinking I had finished the Anna blouse tonight, and then I realized I still need to sew on a few hooks and eyes at the neckline. But it's almost done! I'll finish that tomorrow morning, and then post some pictures.

I also finished the Elsa skirt. Still not in love with the dye job, but I think it's as good as this fabric is ever going to get.

Tomorrow I also hope to finish all my Victorian child overskirt pleats and attach them, and cut and iron my trim strips so that I have plenty of handsewing to do while I'm in CA next week. If I can get a bodice mockup made up, then even better! 
theladyrebecca: (Default)
I shipped my etsy order, bought a giant pot for boil-dyeing at Walmart, bought fabric, zipper, and dye at Joanns for Anna and Elsa, went to the library, bank, and Walgreens, and finished the Anna bodice. I also redyed the skirt. I waited til it was fully dry before I rinsed it, and it seemed like not much dye ran off. It's drying now, so I won't know till the morning if it was actually a real success or not.

Once I finished the bodice, I also prepped my pleat strips for the Victorian child overskirt, and pleated up two of the seven tab sections. They're still pinned at this point, but I think I'm only going to be able to do one or two more sections before I'll have to sew them in place, so that I have enough pins to pleat the rest! Most of my silk pins are currently in the zigzags of the skirt - it's amazing how many pins this project requires.

Tomorrow I'm finishing the waistband on the Elsa skirt, and starting the Anna blouse. What's the chance it will go so smoothly that I could finish it tomorrow, too?

And some pictures, of course:


theladyrebecca: (Default)
Whoops, forgot to post yesterday!

I finished the vest yesterday! I also cut all my bodice pieces, and redid the embroidery for the front of the bodice. It's so much better now!



Today, I serged, assembled, and boned the bodice, and I sewed the binding on one side, and pinned the zipper in place. All I need to do is stitch the zipper in, and flip and sew the binding into place. So I should have it done by mid-day tomorrow, and then on to the blouse.



I also tried another attempt at dyeing the Elsa skirt today. It took dye better than it has before, but either it wasn't in the dye long enough, or it wasn't enough dye, or both, because although it looked pretty great when it was wet, it dried so much lighter. I'm going to try picking up two more bottles of dye tomorrow, and give it one last go. Otherwise my customer and I have just decided to call it good. At least I'm only hitting Joanns every other day? I also have to drop some fabric off at the post office tomorrow, since someone bought some of my Harry Potter fabric. Yay for more etsy sales!
theladyrebecca: (Default)
I did a ton of embroidery today. I finished all of the vest embroidery, and it turned out amazing. My machine played nicely, everything lined up great, and the stitches were all digitized perfectly, too. I cut out the vest pieces, and serged them, but I have yet to actually assemble them.

The back, which consists of the big center piece, plus two side pieces (which lined up perfectly!)


The front, and how it looks from the side. Once it is assembled, I'll be connecting the yellow satin stitching over the seam, and adding more of the satin stitching up and around the back of the neckline.


I decided to do the bodice embroidery too, while i had my machine set up, instead of moving on to the vest assembly. Unfortunately, the stitch angle of two of the elements just didn't look right, so I re-digitized it to a prettier satin stitch. In doing so, though, it apparently changed the size of the elements just slightly, so when I tried to re-embroider them over the existing elements, despite lining everything up right, you could see some of the previous stitching. And not all of it wants to come out. So I think I'm going to re-embroider the bodice tomorrow. First, though, I want to make sure I have enough fabric, so I'm going to cut out all the rest of the bodice pieces before I make my final decision. If I picked the rest of the old stitches out from the lower right element, I don't think most people would even notice the problems, but I do, and I'm not in love. (The other one that I redid was the center of the butterfly.)

theladyrebecca: (Default)
Today was quite a day! I had an audition at 11:45 in Seattle, and a dentist appt also in Seattle at 2pm. Since I live almost an hour away, I decided to go to Starbucks and work on my Anna digitizing (I smartly brought my laptop). And by the time I left for the dentist, I had finished as much of the digitizing as I could do without my printer!

Then, of course, my dentist appt went super quickly, and I had a rehearsal at 7 in West Seattle. Since I had also brought my hand sewing with me, I decided to just hang out for 4.5 hours in West Seattle, instead of fight traffic both ways. So I worked on my skirt, and I think I wound up getting about 1/4 of the fourth row done.

When I finally got home after rehearsal, I finished all the digitizing. I'm really happy with how it looks, though I've realized I'm going to have to do this the old-fashioned way, and embroider on the fabric before cutting the pieces out, like an 18th c waistcoat. Otherwise it's going to be sooo hard to perfectly position the pieces in the hoop, even with my machine's camera. Each piece is almost 8x12, which is the size of my largest hoop, and it's going to require five hoopings total to complete the vest (and a 6th for the bodice). I just hope it all works out - the vest is 61481 stitches, and that doesn't include the parts that I'm just going to satin stitch with the sewing machine.

Here's a rough picture of my print-outs:
theladyrebecca: (Default)
I finished the third row! I didn't wind up starting the bodice yet, though, because it's looking like I'm going to have a rush commission of Anna's Frozen Fever bodice, blouse, and vest. So tonight I knocked out the digitizing for the big sunflower motif on the back of her vest.

What with this new commission, I'm going to have a whole ton of sewing to do in the next two weeks! 
theladyrebecca: (Default)

I made the two Harry Potter etsy skirts today, and was actually able to hand them off, instead of shipping them, which will save me some trouble tomorrow. I'll still have to ship Elsa off on Friday, but I'm going to try some more dyeing with her tomorrow.

I ombre dyed her using RIT dye today, which of course is not actually meant for polyester, so I'm going to see if I can find some poly dye tomorrow, and do a test run, then hopefully actually get the dye job done. Because it's just way lighter than it needs to be right now. Here's a pic: I am really hoping I can make the top of it get to a real crayon-type "green."

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