Mistress of Disguise

I had a shopping day at the Dallas warehouses on Saturday, and it was so nice to just browse without anything particular in mind. Wherehouse Fabrics was having a huge clearance, too, with a whole bunch of fabulous stuff on their $2 tables. I found this magnificent purple damask that looks like it's straight out of the 18th century. Best Fabrics has had the same damask for ages, and I've always wanted some, but it's $13/yard there! I was so excited to find it for $2, so I bought the entire bolt, which was just under 10 yards. It may not be enough for a dress, but at least Best Fabrics still has it at regular price, so I can always buy more if I need to. Part of me really wants to dive in and use it for the Casanova dress, but I really want to hammer out a design that I love, first. I think I'll shoot to use it for the Francaise Dinner next year, and give myself plenty of time to do this fabric justice.

There was a cream and turquoise damask, too, that I just couldn't leave behind. It was a little pricier, at $5/yard, but the lady at the store let me have the whole bolt, which was just under 17 yards, for the price of 15, so still a win! I had actually been looking at some of the ivory/turquoise dresses from the 18thC and thinking of making one, so this turned out to be a very fortuitous find.

I also picked up this amazing black and grey plaid taffeta that I think would make a fun bustle dress at some point. I don't quite know how I'd use it, but it's so nifty and interesting.

Pepper approved of all the fabrics that I found.



The yellow is a bit of satin I picked up to make a new waistcoat for M that I'm going to embroider with black. The red taffeta happened to be exactly what I was looking for for the 1890s dress, so I picked up 10 yards of it, which I hope will be enough since there's that wacky pleated overskirt. They had a huge bolt of it, though, so I can go and get more if I need it. I love how it looks with the ivory lace!



After shopping, I finally managed to finish the stays. They're so pretty and girly, and the fit is so much better than the red stays. I'm hoping to get some decent pics in the next couple of days. I really want to make a paper-tape dress form with me wearing these stays, since I finally have some that fit me correctly. The short-waistedness of my forms as they are now is really becoming bothersome.

I finished up a new 18thC petticoat, and I started reworking a pair of truly hideous nude suede shoes into something 18thC, so I think overall I had a fairly productive weekend. I even managed to figure out what happened to my shift - it's in storage. Ugh. I'll have to dig the bin out from under a bunch of stuff, but at least I know where it is now. It's a total pain trying to get stuff put together when half of your fabrics and costume pieces are in storage.

Tonight I plan to cut out the gown petticoat for the Casanova dress, and to prep the new waistcoat for embroidery. M doesn't get out of class until 9 tomorrow night, so I'm planning to camp out at Starbucks and embroider until he can pick me up. It's going to be a fairly simple pattern, worked mostly in stem and chain stitch, so it really shouldn't take long. I ordered a bolt of hair canvas, so I'm going to try and bump up my tailoring skills on this project.

Edit: I totally forgot to mention it, but I dug the Great Pumpkin out of the UFO pile so I can finish it for the Georgian Picnic. Imagine my complete surprise to discover that the gown is nearly finished! Guys, I honestly have no memory of making that much progress on it. I remember stopping after the petticoat, telling myself not to make the gown until I had better fitting stays, and then putting it away. But the gown is like...75% done. I searched through my camera, and sure enough, there are in-progress photos of the gown! And I still don't remember working on it! Maybe I have house elves.

Unfortunately, because I made it over my old stays, the bodice is about two inches too short. I'm wrestling with whether to cut out a new bodice or not...I'll need to see if I have enough fabric left for that.

Another night of not hitting my goals. Ugh. I managed to bind half of the remaining bottom edge, and should be able to wrap up the other half tonight. No work on the petticoat at all. New plan is to get all the undies wrapped up this week, and then really dive into making the gown over the weekend. If I can get everything cut out, and the petticoat 100% done by Sunday night, I'll be happy.

I did manage to write up a bunch of outlines for future blog posts, so at least I have a jump start on that. I feel like I've been neglecting my costume blog, so I like that I'll be able to just plug in photos once the projects are done, tweak the text a little, and then post.

M gets back tomorrow night from his two-week family reunion trip. I will miss having the whole bed to myself (well, me and the cats), but it will be good to have him home, and he's bringing home a car! At last, transportation! Maybe I'll take a couple of hours on Saturday morning to hit the fabric warehouses and pick up some taffeta for the 1890s gown. I've been needing to hit the warehouses for weeks now, and I'll finally have the chance again!

Finally had a chance to see Valerian in theaters. I had been so excited about this film, but the actors were a major disappointment. They could have found better actors in the lumber department at Home Depot. The main guy just didn't have the swagger and charisma to pull off the character. It would have been 100 times better with...well, anybody, really. Chris Pine could have pulled it off, or (god help me) Ryan Reynolds. If this was 20 years ago, Bruce Willis or Harrison Ford would have been perfect. The leading lady was slightly less wooden, but still Not Great, and there is no real chemistry between her and the male lead. It says a lot when the CGI characters are more expressive and likeable than your leads. Clive Owen was wasted as a side character that spends 90% of his time off-screen. Pretty much everyone's acting was great except the leads. Buh. But, the visuals really were stunning, and the film itself wasn't terrible overall, and Rihanna's scene was a really pleasant surprise. Who knew she could act? And the opening scene set to "Space Oddity" was really great! Just...can we stop already with the inappropriately timed relationship conversations? If your ship is about to explode, now is NOT the time to talk about your feelings.

It was one of the nights I had to wait for Mom to get off work at 10, so after the movie I enjoyed a meal at the Cheesecake Factory, and then walked around Sundance Square a bit, where I accidentally stumbled into 1985, as there was a LASER LIGHT SHOW going on in the Square! They were playing 80s pop hits, too, so it was extra 80s-tastic. I sat and enjoyed the wackiness while I waited.

Today I'm going to try and finish whipping down the seam allowances on the blue stays (ugh, I want this stupid project to be over!) so I can assemble, fit, and bind them this weekend. I want to move on soooo badly!

I couldn't manage to find a ride home yesterday, so I had to wait for my mom to get off of work at 10 so I could ride home with her. Since I had five hours to kill, I decided to slowly make my way over to the cultural district on foot. In my head, it wasn't that far, but it ended up being a million degrees outside with no cloud cover, and it turns out that in those conditions it's actually 700 miles away. I stopped halfway at the Starbucks on 7th Street because I could feel myself getting dehydrated and overheated. I cooled down there with some iced fruit teas and cold water before heading up to Chipotle to grab a bite for dinner.

Mom called me then and said that I should come over to the imax to see Dunkirk, and that she would get me a discounted ticket, so I scarfed down the rest of my burrito and hoofed it over to the museum. Since I had only made it about halfway, it took another 30 minutes to make it over there, but I was only 10 minutes late, which wasn't too bad.

Dunkirk was amazing, which is to be expected from my favorite director, and after reading about all the cool background to the film being made, it made it even better. It turns out that a lot of the ships in the film were actually ships that had participated in the Dunkirk evacuation, which was super cool, and that the whole film used practical effects and not digital, which instantly boosts it's awesomeness by a zillion points.

I checked google maps and put in the route I took to the museum, and it said I walked 2.6 miles, which sounds waaaay short of the 700 miles it actually was.

This morning had more walking, but not nearly as much. Dad had to go to the VA for a hearing test, so he dropped me off super early at Starbucks, which meant I got to sip tea, sit outside while it was still cool, and watch the sunrise over the city. It was sooo nice and relaxing. And work was only a half mile walk, so it was quick to get back.

Tonight I'm going to get some more work done on M's shirt while he's still around for fittings. He's heading to El Paso next week to spend a couple of weeks with his dad and brother before school starts, so he won't be around for me to poke with pins and drape stuff on. I need to really get into gear with our 18thC stuff, since we are getting down to the wire before the Casanova event, and we both need new clothes. o.o So, hopefully finish the shirt tonight or tomorrow, and finish my stays and petticoats by the end of the week. Next week I'll get M's coat cut out and the embroidery pattern transferred over, then I can start working on it during down time at work and after work when I get home. I don't know if I can get the entire thing embroidered the way I want before the event, but I can at least get the front edges and pockets done if I'm diligent.

I need a to-do list...

Despite things being stressful and depressing at home, I'm trying to stay positive and direct my energy into things that I can control and that make me happy. I cannot control how other people feel. I can work on projects that bring me some happiness. I cannot change my living situation right now. I can plan events and work on costumes.

So, that's what I've been trying to do. I took the blue stays out of storage and started working on them again. I've managed to finish the boning channels, and I've made a list of all the boning I need to order, so with my next paycheck (if I don't have to buy a car), I can order the boning I need to finish it up. I used the same fabric that I used on these shoes, and I'm trying to decide what accent color to use for the binding and trim. I'm thinking a rose pink, but I haven't quite decided.

I'm going to start bringing some hand-sewing to work with me so I have something to do in my down time. Most days, I have everything completely wrapped up by 10AM, which leaves me with a LOT of time where I'm sitting and staring at walls. I've been working on drawing out the embroidery pattern for M's purple suit, and this weekend I'm going to get the coat pattern mocked up and fit so I can get things started in the fashion fabric pretty soon. I know it's going to take a while to get the embroidery done, since the embroidered waistcoat alone took somewhere around 130 hours, so I need to get started as soon as possible. There's an embroidered waistcoat to match this suit, as well, which adds more work, but that's alright. At least I have a backup waistcoat if I don't get the new one done in time.

I also need to draw out the (considerably more involved) embroidery patterns for M's red suit (he fell in love with some fabric in the stash, so it's becoming a new suit, too) and his green suit that I still haven't finished from the year before last. Maybe I'll actually get those both finished, too, who knows?