Diary of a Costumer

Fell off the posting (and reading) wagon for a little while. Disneyland was wonderful! I didn't wind up finishing the white cotton blouse for the Disney print jumper, and I didn't make the tam for Merida, but I had alternatives, so it didn't even matter.

My friend Rachel and I flew down early Friday morning, dropped our luggage off at the hotel (the Four Points Sheraton by Disneyland), changed, and headed into the parks. I got sooo many complements on my Disney print jumper. More than I got on anything else all weekend. Not sure if that's because there were only a couple other people dressed up on Friday, or if it was just a bit more special than the other two looks. Anyway, we park-hopped all over on Friday, and actually made it till about 10:30, which is saying something when you wake up at about 4am. 



Saturday, I wore my Anna Disneybound, which was the skirt and hair decoration I made for the actual costume, plus a yellow short-sleeve sweater, navy pin-striped vest, and a green scarf I made out of leftover vest fabric. I'm not sure there were that many adults that knew who I was (though at least Anna recognized it!), but I had multiple little girls yell out Anna at me, so that made it feel like a success. We started in CA Adventure that day, made a detour over to the Dapper Day Expo (which was disappointing - If I go again, I'll definitely skip the expo), and stopped at downtown Disney for dinner since we realized we hadn't eaten anything all day (I had started to feel lightheaded and cranky on top of having no voice and being sick, and didn't realize why). Then we headed to Disneyland park for the rest of the night, and lasted till about 11:15.




Sunday was the actual Dapper Day. Everyone looked amazing! I wore my Merida dapper Disneybound. While I feel like it was the least flashy outfit of the weekend, I could tell that most people knew what I was bounding (I saw a few other Meridas all in similar greens and plaids), and I accessorized it well. We took tons of pictures all over Disneyland in between riding rides, then headed to CA Adventure for our Radiator Springs fastpass, lunch, and coffee. We met up with a couple of my friends back in Disneyland, and stayed there for the rest of the night, closing out the park after midnight. 




One tip for anyone who is planning a trip to Disneyland - get the MaxPass! It was $10/day, and it gives you unlimited downloads of all your photopass pictures (since we were dressed nicely, we took full advantage of that), and it also allows you to make fastpass reservations through the app, meaning that I could make a fastpass for a ride in CA Adventure from Disneyland, which was brilliant.

Anyway, despite being sick and having no voice the entire time, it was still a great weekend. I'm hoping to be able to get to Disney World next fall, but I'm not sure when I'll be back at Disneyland. 

Funny how it can all of a sudden be a whole week since I've last posted...

Anyway, we had tech all last week, so there wasn't any time for me to sew until Friday, when I had about 3 hours before our opening night. And in those three hours, I remade the Anna skirt out of the new luxe cotton sateen stuff from Joanns. It's lovely fabric, and even after washing, it maintained its sheen (after ironing, of course). I was a bit surprised about how prone to fraying it is, though. Hopefully the side seams will hold up after serging. I know that the curves on the hem would not hold up even with serging. By the time I got the binding on the hem on Sunday morning, it had frayed almost to the stitch line of the serging. So if you use this fabric, please keep that in mind!

I had originally hoped to accomplish much more than just remaking the skirt on Friday, but our rehearsal ran very late the night before (I got home at 1am), and I decided sleep was more important. Of course, that did mean that all weekend I was kind of disappointed, thinking that there was no way that I would be able to finish the whole project by Halloween/Dapper Day. 

Sunday morning before our matinee I woke up early enough to finish the hem binding, mark four embroidery placements on the skirt, and do the stem/leaf embroidery section of one motif. After the matinee on Sunday, I came straight home and walked right into the sewing room to start the next stem section. And I realized that I had meant to buy embroidery bobbin thread on the way home, because I had wound my last one that morning. Shoot! So I left my machine going and ran out to Joanns (and to get gas) with my fingers crossed. I made it back about 25 mins later, and it had gotten about 19 minutes through a 21 minute stitch-out before shredding the thread and stopping. So I call that a success. And it's good that I bought the thread, because I ran out of bobbin thread during the 3rd or 4th stem section. 

By the end of the night yesterday, I had managed to do four stem/leaf sections (about 30 minutes per hooping), and two flower sections (about 60 minutes per hooping). That equals to about 1/6 of the total amount of embroidery, since there are 16 motifs total. By doing that much last night, I am now thinking that it may actually be possible for me to finish it by Halloween. I have this evening free, plus next Sunday evening, the evening of the 24th, and the daytime on the 26th. Plus maybe a stolen hour here or there between work and rehearsal if I can manage it, but everything else is taken up with Music Man performances, White Christmas rehearsals, and work. Please keep your fingers crossed for me!

Here's a pic of last night's progress: 


While I was embroidering last night, I also walked my dog, ate dinner, and made a skirt for an etsy order. Today I will make a second skirt for that etsy order, and hopefully move back to the Anna bodice. I would really love to get that cut out and assembled tonight. Beyond that, I still have to do the Anna blouse, and I would like to do a blouse to go with the jumper and a tam to go with Dapper Merida. Not sure I'll achieve all that in the tiny amount of time I have left this month, though.

I finished all the hand-sewing on the Disney jumper while at rehearsal last night. I was going to wear it today, but was told by my friends that I had to wear pink since it was Oct 3rd and a Wednesday (aka Mean Girls). So I'll wear it tomorrow and take pictures of it to share. 

Unfortunately, this means I'm out of hand-sewing to do, and I won't have time to do any machine sewing till Friday. That's too bad, since we're running the show now, which means I actually do have time for some hand sewing while at rehearsal. Hopefully over the weekend I can produce more hand-sewing so that I can keep myself busy during tech rehearsals next week. Though to be honest, I don't know that I really have much other hand-sewing left to do on any of these projects!

Hopefully on Friday I will get the fit of the Anna bodice mockup right, and be able to cut that out and to the embroidery, plus maybe even assemble it. I'd also like to assemble the Anna vest. Then it's on to embroidering the Anna skirt and starting on the Anna blouse and the white vintage-style blouse to wear with the jumper. And make a plaid tam for Merida. That's everything that I have to do by Halloween and Dapper Day, so I have exactly four weeks left to finish all that!

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. 

I was able to get a little bit of actual sewing done this weekend! On Saturday, I had some sewing time, and realized that I may as well assemble the s-bend corset whose mockup pieces I had cut out ages ago. So I sewed all the panels together! I still have to put in lacing strips and some boning so that I can actually try it on, though. I think it may actually be a little big, but we'll see. For my mockup, I literally just cut the pieces out of random canvas scraps I had laying around, but I really like the striped effect, so I think I might make the final corset striped, too. 

Here's a pic:


The main reason I worked on that on Saturday was because I couldn't start any of the Dapper stuff till after Sunday. I knew Joanns was having 60% off coupons and pattern sales on Sunday/Monday (though it turned out to be the wrong pattern company than what I needed), so I didn't want to buy my Merida fabric till then. So Sunday I bought my Merida fabrics and tossed them in the wash, and after cutting out the skirt pieces in flannel, I realized they needed way more body. So on Monday, I went back to Joanns, and bought poly taffeta to flatline the skirt with (which hopefully won't wind up being too heavy), and most of the fabrics I need for Anna Frozen Fever, which I've decided will be my Halloween costume/Sat of Dapper Day disneybound.

Or at least, I hope I bought most of them. I wanted 4 yards of turquoise matte satin to comfortably cut out the Anna circle skirt, but the closest they had was 3 yards of aqua matte satin. I'm hoping I can eek it out of that, because I'd really like to get started on all that embroidery. (Come to think of it, I should probably check to make sure I still have stabilizer!) Unfortunately, Joanns has literally no light or bright green casa fabrics, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the vest. They also had none of the fabrics that I need for the regular Anna-inspired bustle dress I'm making for the Disney bustle group for CoCo next year. 

Anyway, I cut out and flat-lined 5 of the 6 Merida skirt panels, and sewed the front three together. I'm hoping I might have time to cut out the pockets and the last panel today and sew them up, but with having to match plaids, it's going much slower than a normal skirt! 

On Saturday, a group of my friends and I attended the Geeks Who Drink "When You Wish Upon a Bar" Disney quiz in Tacoma. Three of us dressed up, and I pulled out Jane to wear. I haven't worn this costume in years (I think the last time was for Emerald City ComiCon in March 2014), and the funny thing about returning to old costumes is that all of a sudden all the problems seem to be much more obvious. Like how stupidly large and ill-fitting that collar is, and the fact that once that hugely wide but very short bustle collapses, it doesn't want to un-collapse. Nevertheless, I still won the costume contest! And better yet, we won 1st place in the quiz, too!

That said, this was the first time that we had attended the quiz in Tacoma instead of Seattle, and we're going to stick with Seattle in the future. There were hardly any teams in Tacoma, so the prize money was really low, and it turns out that our score was high enough that we would have won in Seattle as well. I wish these themed quizzes came up more than once every 1-1.5 or so years, because they're so much fun! And now we can say we are both the Harry Potter and Disney champions. :)

Anyway, here's a few pictures!

I've been thinking a lot about my style recently, and elizabeth_mn's post has inspired me to write it all out. 

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you'll know that I recently took part in the #disneyboundchallenge, which provided a different theme for every day of March, based on Disney characters or movies. If you're not familiar with Disneybounding, it involves dressing to represent something from Disney, like wearing a yellow skirt with a blue shirt and red sweater for Snow White, or a red polka-dot dress for Minnie Mouse. I've done it consciously for most of my trips to the Disney parks over the last few years, and occasionally I accidentally do it when dressing for work etc, but this is the first time I've taken part in the challenge. And it was really fun! 

Here's a recap of what I did. See if you can guess the characters!





Participating in the challenge also made me really examine my wardrobe (it was important to me that I didn't buy anything for the challenge). I was using pieces that, in many cases, I haven't used in a while, which helped me remember what I had, but had forgotten about. And at the same time, I realized all the holes in my wardrobe that I need to fill. Of course, some of the holes I don't plan to fill. For example, I have no brown whatsoever in my wardrobe. I have a khaki skirt. That is the closest thing I own to anything brown, and that's it. I also have no lime or light green. However, neither of these are colors that I like, so I have no intention of filling them. 

These were the biggest holes I needed to fill:

• more red
• black cardigan sweater
• yellow skirt
• nude pumps
• new black pumps, since mine are falling apart
• white leggings
• more necklaces
• possibly a grey cardigan

The cool thing is that since I noticed these gaps, I've already filled all of them except the white leggings, yellow skirt, grey cardigan, and more necklaces. I bought a red skirt on clearance at Torrid last week (pictured), and a black cardigan from the thrift store yesterday. I found nude pumps from DSW that arrived a week ago (also pictured), and which worked so perfectly that this week, I ordered the same pair in black. White leggings seem to be a seasonal thing, and I'm still not 100% sure I really want them or the grey sweater, since both could potentially be unflattering. But I'm on the lookout for them. I plan to make a golden yellow winter-weight circle skirt, and I've been on the lookout for various necklaces as well. 

My style has undergone a pretty big change just in the last year or so. For a really long time, I pretty much never wore skirts and dresses. I was very much a jeans girl, often pairing them earlier on with t-shirts, and later with fairly structured button-up blouses. That transitioned about 4 years ago or so to stretchier skinny jeans with longer blouses, still often button-up, but made of lighter materials. Then about 2 years ago, I discovered how comfortable leggings are, and my style transitioned more towards leggings with shorter (usually patterned) skirts over them, and lighter, more neutral blouses.

But over the last 4-5 years, I've also been collecting eshakti dresses from thrift stores, and occasionally incorporating them into my wardrobe. And in the past few seasons, I've found that they now make up the majority of my wardrobe. Now, I wear fit-and-flare dresses, lightweight blouses tucked into skirts, or cropped sweaters with skirts, and I wear these over a very small tulle petticoat, and pair them with tights (usually black or nude, but sometimes navy or white), and shoes with a higher heel than I used to wear before (I find anything under about 1.25" very uncomfortable). I still occasionally do the leggings/short skirt options, since that's a little easier for exercising or in warmer weather, but the majority of my time is spent in longer skirts or dresses (most of which hit between the knee and mid-calf). 

Color-wise, I tend to gravitate towards jewel-tones. I love royal blue, scarlet, and emerald green. I also enjoy deep teal, bright yellow, navy, light blue (though despite having a ton of light blue costumes, I actually don't have much light blue in my wardrobe). I also have a whole bunch of black. I have almost no grey. And though I do sometimes wear pastels, I feel like they don't tend to look as good on me because I have very ruddy skin. 

I find my style to be very classy and lady-like, but also very girly. And I feel like, though most of what I wear is of modern fabrics, it has a vintage feel, or at least a vintage shape, with the fitted waist and fuller skirts. In the last couple months, I've also taken to wearing lipstick most of the time, because I found Maybelline SuperStay Matte Ink, which is the best long-wear lipstick ever, in my opinion, and I feel like that just makes everything look more polished. I think the next step would be to do more with my hair. Usually I just straighten it and wear it down, or occasionally in a half-pony, but I just did a show where I set my hair in a 30s style, and I enjoyed the big waves and curls from that. Unfortunately, that takes an extra 30+ mins in the morning, and I'm not willing to wake up that much earlier. 

It's been really fun analyzing my style, and dressing to a particular theme for a whole month really helped!

Whoops. I fell off the posty-wagon. But I did finish Thumper last week!



I also started cutting out a super-secret project over the weekend. Unfortunately, since it's a Christmas present, I won't be able to post about it till it's done. Tech has been so draining this week that it hasn't had any progress since being mostly cut out on Saturday.

But I'm off work on Thurs and Fri, and I have no rehearsal Thurs either, so I'm planning on using the whole day to relax, clean my house, and sew, both on the present, and on the mockup for my winter coat. Though seeing all the awesome pics from Gettysburg is also inspiring me to get back into working on costumes. So hopefully that will happen this month, too, or I will be woefully behind for CoCo.