Thursday's Ten!

Before I get started, I guess I should say that the Regency dress is done, done, done! I finished it this morning, a few hours before class, and it fit perfectly and was incredibly comfortable. Success! The presentation also went very well, which pleases me. Now I just have to make a Swiper costume before Sunday and a zombie coat before Halloween...

I have also been named an honorary man in the theater department. When I have my official christening, I shall report the tale (as much as I am permitted).

Other than that...nothing has really been thrilling. Basically life=Guys and Dolls rehearsal.

Wedding stuff has hit a minor plateau. Things have changed a little bit when it comes to vendors- we've decided to have a local bakery do the cake. It's getting a little stressful to balance school/rehearsal/wedding/graduating/life, so I've delegated the vendor search for the big three (cake, photography, and catering) to my dad. He loves that sort of contract stuff. And I...do not. But I'm trying to keep wedding stuff in my wedding blog, so I'll move on. (Although it's been a month since I applied to Weddingbee...and they still haven't answered me! Gah!).

And now on to the Thursday's Ten!

I love what Lora picked for this week. It's all stuff that we would absolutely have to take with us to the next house if we were moving. And since I'm going to be moving with P in five months (finally!), I suppose I should actually think about that.

So here's my list!
#1: My baby blanket. I know, stupid. But I've always had it, for every move, every dorm, every internship. And I'm holding onto it so I can sew it into a coat for my first child. So there.

#2: My Disney box. I have a box filled with all sorts of important things from my two Disney internships- a genuine Great Movie Ride newsie cap, an original Fantasmic! shirt, a handful of 3D glasses, photographs...even a piece of Great Movie Ride carpet. (Is that weird? Yep, that's weird.)

#3: My library. You know how the Beast gives Belle that massive library?

Yeah. I have this.

(This pictures was taken when I was in high school...there are fewer dolls now.)

I actually have shelves that wrap around my room, and they're sagging under the weight of my book collection. I also inherited a complete collection of Shakespeare's works from my grandfather, but I can't put them up because I ran out of room. But I'm already warning P that we have to get a lot of Ikea bookshelves for our apartment, because these babies are coming with me.

(And yes, my room is blue with a red stripe, a purple stripe, and orange shelves. My comforter is sage green, and I have curtains striped in all of those colors. Gotta love it.)

#4: My vintage Alice magazine ad. It's decorated my walls since I was five or six years old.

#5: My reminder box. For my twentieth birthday, P gave me a Willow Creek box filled with tiny pieces of paper. That tiny box is crammed full of reasons that he loves me, and he wrote it so that if I ever doubted that he loved me, I could read it and be assured.

#6: My Beatrice manuscript. When I wrote my novel, I wrote it by hand. Those three hundred sacred pages are coming with me EVERYWHERE, fo' sho'.

#7: My Alice in Wonderland costume. It's the first thing I ever sewed, and I love it. Plus, it's always nice to have a default costume lying around in case, you know, you have to dress up.

#8: A little glass Ariel figure. P bought her for me as a surprise from the Arribas Brothers kiosk in Magic Kingdom, right outside Pirates of the Caribbean. I had been drooling over her for months! She's a nice little mascot.

#9:My sewing machine. I have to downsize my sewing stuff when I move, but Zac Efron has to come with me.

#10: My little television. Because a girl has got to get her CSI fix while the guy plays his video games.

Rush into Regency Part Something-or-Other: It Looks Like a Dress!

Last night I dragged Zac Efron out and started chugging away. The bodices went together surprisingly well, despite how thin the front looks. I lengthened it by about three inches, and ended up cutting off two of them. Most of the reviews of the pattern I've read despair about how this dress doesn't look flattering on curvier girls. I completely disagree. If you look at paintings of women from the time period, they were definitely curvy, and they rocked out those long empire dresses.

(see? see?)

I also sewed the top layer together and hemmed, then pinned it to the bodice. Then I got tired and went to bed, for yea and verily, I am lazy.

So when I got home from classes today, I got back to work (despite the fact that all I wanted to do was take a nap after rehearsal). I finished the lining- including the process of sewing wide pregathered eyelet trim to the hem- and sewed it to the bodice. I also managed to assemble a sleeve (yes, just one sleeve) before I realized it was 6:03 and I hadn't eaten dinner and rehearsal started in less than an hour and AUGH.

So now I'm sitting in the hallway at Guys and Dolls rehearsal, super sleepy and even more super bored, wishing I was asleep. Maybe I'll take a nap after my scene...

Rush into Regency Part III: Mm, muslin!

Who knew muslin was this amazing? I'm really happy with it. I've sewed with some crappy cheap fabrics before, but this muslin has such a delicious weight to it. It's going to be just the right fabric for this project. Very happy about that.

I'm not so happy about the fact that I forgot to compensate for the fabric I would need for the lining. I didn't get nearly enough muslin for the dress and the lining. So I'm compensating by making the lining about six inches shorter than the gown. I'll probably trim it with eyelet, just to make it longer (and make it secretly prettier).

I need to cut the skirt lining panels (two back and two side back), one more bodice, and the sleeves. But I am just way too tired to deal with it right now. So I shan't.

Rush into Regency Part II: Why so many pieces?

I have finally cut out all of the pattern pieces. I think I'm going to die.

It took about an hour and a half just to cut the paper pieces. Now I have to align them properly on my (very narrow) cut of muslin and pray I have enough. I have to cut:

-2 bodice fronts
-4 bodice backs
-4 bodice side backs
-2 sleeves
-1 skirt front
-2 skirt backs
-2 skirt side backs

And that doesn't even include the underskirt. I seriously doubt I have enough muslin to do the job, and I have no desire to purchase more. I do have a vast quantity of a dusky lavender sheer, which might do the trick, especially if I lace the back of the dress with lavender ribbon.

Also, I think I know what I'm going to be for Halloween, since now I can't dye my hair back to red and be Ariel until after Guys and Dolls is over.

Um, yes. Hilarity.

Rush Into Regency Part I: AUGH.

While I have several projects going on right now that are nearly done (red corduroy coat, navy Kate Nash dress, plaid open-back dress), everything is going on hold. Why? Because I have ONE WEEK to make a Regency dress.

I've been planning this dress for a while, because this is going to be my prototype for my Giselle dress.

I 've done a lot of dresses with sweetheart necklines (I have been, um, well-blessed), so I was going to do the bodice on my own by building it around a bra. The skirts were confusing me, though. It requires four layers- one pink, two cream, one aqua- but when she stands still, there's very little volume. Yet when she spins, it flares like a mofo. It also, inexplicably, has a train.

I theorized that the skirts were gored (in a pie shape, if you will) and most likely cut on the bias. In order to find the right pattern piece, I purchased Butterick 6630 off of good ol' Ebay.

The skirt is just right, so I'm just going to modify it. But I wanted to do a dry run by sticking exactly to the pattern, because I've never done a skirt quite like this before.

Last week I purchased five or six yards of a nice white muslin (yay for sales!), and the other night I started leisurely cutting out pattern pieces. I figured I have plenty of time. I wanted to wear it for an English novel project (since we're doing it on Emma), but I thought there would be time.

Oh, no. That's due in a week. And since I'm dressing up as Jane Austen, and naked is not an option, I have to start and complete this project by Thursday.

Oy.

When I get home from rehearsal, I'm breaking out the scissors. I expect it'll take about two to three hours just to cut the pattern and the fabric for this son of a biscuit eater.

Double oy.