So Much Time, So Little To Do....Strike That, Reverse It

A whole lot has happened, and many things have prevented me from getting this post up earlier...most of which I will not go into here, because really...let's face it...nobody likes listening to excuses. So we will just jump into all the fun things I have been doing and working on since I posted last.

I have made some progress on my costume for the Time Traveler's Gala at Costume College. I cut out and sewed the lace overlay for the skirt. I ran into some problems there because I cut it flat and basted it, but the fabric has a lot of drape to it and therefore when actually held up it stretches to be a much larger size.

I have yet to go back and re-sew the seams to take the skirt in, but it definitely needs to be done. Maybe I will work on that over this long holiday weekend. I may have one too many BBQ's to attend to get it completed, but I could definitely make some progress.

The other major project I have been working on is the neck piece. I realized that I had left it off my list of things to complete for the costume in my last post, and its a relatively labor intensive piece as the whole thing is beaded.

I am fortunate enough to live about 5 minutes away from Shipwreck Beads which boasts the largest selection of beads in the world. I knew that if I couldn't find it there, I probably wasn't going to find it. So it took me probably a little over an hour to find everything I needed...or almost everything and I headed back home to start beading. (I can't figure out why Blogger keeps rotating this picture so it is upside down...but you can still see the beads, so I am just going to go with it)

My husband had just had surgery so the activity level at the house was pretty low, and I wanted to keep him company but still be productive. This lead me to setting up a beading station in the living room so we could watch a marathon of Legend of the Seeker on Netflix.

The next day I realized I didn't have enough of one particular bead and that I needed one other type of bead in order to make it as close as possible to the movie version. As you can see, I have my iPad set up with the detailed pictures of the pieces from the Padawan's Guide site. I found it incredibly helpful to have a detailed pictures to help as I was working on the piece.

In that weekend I managed to get all of the strung beads completed and sewed the velvet "straps" that go around the neck...although after reading about it...it turns out the original piece was boned to hold up the weight of the beads. I was thinking that I could maybe use a flexible cardboard inside of the pieces to give it the required rigidity. If anyone has any better ideas let me know :)

I am STILL waiting to get the velvet tubing I ordered from a large wholesale site that I will not mention here because I do not want to send them any business. I have been very dissatisfied with the service and it will be a month since I ordered it when it finally shows up on Tuesday this week. So once I have that I can mock up the neck piece a bit better.

I found an unexpected gem while at Shipwreck. I walked past an end display and noticed the exact blank metal headbands I had been scouring Claires and Icing to find. Apparently the costuming gods were smiling down on me that day because they even came 2 headbands in a pack! Perfect!

I used needle nose pliers to snap the bent ends off of each of the headbands, and then bent them out to lay flatter against my forehead - I just need to glue gun them together and add some type of loop or way to attach them into my hair :)

Well that's all the costuming craftyness I have to report for right now, but I have lots more to tell you. I will post all of my fun adventures in hobby travel soon. =)

Wishing you a crafty afternoon.

MandaD