Here it is: 38. Feels about like 37. And 36. Et cetera et cetera, ad nauseum, whatever. It doesn’t even feel a year closer to 40. It just feels like another year.
I’ve gotten a lot accomplished in the last year, I guess. Completed two full cosplays in record time (for me); finished the first draft of two different novels; started learning rapier fighting; taught myself how to sew Viking garb and stuffed animals…not too bad of a haul for a year.
Oh yeah, and there’s that house thing. Starting the process of building a home from the ground up. I suppose I should count that in my accomplishments. That’s more of a joint venture, though. The husband and I are in it together, through the thick and thin of it. Six and a half years together, five years to the day since he proposed, and a little over four years of marriage.
Do I have any special hopes for this birthday? Well, I have a few things I’ve been hoping for gift-wise, but that’s selfish stuff. I hope that work goes well. I hope that I get to leave work early enough to make it to the city for birthday dinner. I hope my friends enjoy the restaurant we’re meeting at. I hope for a free dessert. I hope the drives to the city and on to my in-laws’ are smooth and uneventful. Lots of hopes, but mostly just hoping for a good day with friends and family–after work of course.
Yep, I’m working on my birthday. I do most years; it’s kind of just another day in the grand scheme of things. Sure, sometimes I request for a vacation day so I can spend time with my family or take a day/weekend trip or just chill at home, but not always. There was even one time where I worked at two different jobs on my birthday. You gotta do what you gotta do, after all.
I’m wondering when the impending big 4-0 is going to hit me. For 30, it hit exactly one month before I turned 29; I was suddenly filled with anxiety and dread over reaching that milestone, which now seems insignificant. Will 40 be the same? Will I become obsessed with the notion that I’m “old”? We’ll see.
Category: Sewing
Leaps and bounds
The cosplay is coming along swimmingly, at least as far as props and accessories go. I have the grey boots I bought painted with a layer of black (I’ll probably add at least one more layer), then I got the headband for the Magik cosplay made.
I did it myself, with a little instruction from a friend. The sword is also well underway, with just a little more to go. It’s going to take some geometry and stuff…you know, the stuff you learned in school that you thought you’d never need? Yeah, all that. Maybe if they taught kids these days that it can be used for cosplay, they’d be more interested in math. Forget Common Core–teach Cosplay Core.
My husband’s Shatterstar sword prop is done (finished that last week)… 
…so now I can finish the sleeves on his costume. After I make my pleather shrug, that is. And the Spandex stuff. Have to do those pieces first, because that’s not stuff I can do by hand as we travel to Dragon Con.
Well, back to it. Can’t take too long of a break or I’ll break my momentum.
Breathing room
Okay, so I finished the corset as much as I can before the boning arrives in the mail. There’s still a lot to do on it, but just getting that much done makes me feel so much better. I’m still working on a mockup of the shrug because I have sausage arms & broad shoulders, so the last thing I want to do is go straight by the pattern only to discover that oops! it doesn’t fit and I’ve wasted a shitton of pleather. So yeah, mockup. Cheap fabric that I accidentally bought a crapton of a while back because my husband & I kindamaybesortareally jacked up the math on how much we would need. Which actually worked out in our favor, because I’ve used that fabric for tons of mockups and it ended up being the perfect color for my Jedi TARDIS cosplay. Still haven’t gotten the size of the back/front of the jacket right (mostly need to make the back/shoulders wider & the sleeve holes too), but I think I have the sleeves worked out. I think.
After the shrug, which really shouldn’t be too bad once I get the sizing worked out, I just have the Spandex stuff to sew. That’s going to be the real challenge, but I’m trying to psych myself up and tell myself I can do it.
My husband keeps “reminding” me of how much work is left to do, which he really doesn’t need to do because OMFG IT’S LESS THAN A MONTH UNTIL DRAGON CON!!! I need to just tell him that the added pressure isn’t helping me at all. I need to be able to breathe and not panic. Panic will not help me.
Just a few more things to sew. Just a few. I have to keep telling myself that. It’s a lot of cutting and pinning and whatnot still, but if I think about all of the steps it’s going to make my con anxiety worse.
There are a couple of things that my husband wants “fixed” on his cosplays from Phoenix Comicon, but those are going to kind of be “if I have time for it before Dragon Con” kinda things. It’s little adjustments/alterations that, in my opinion, can wait. Yeah, it won’t be 100% perfectly the way he wants them, but at least one of them worked well enough for Phoenix Comicon so he can just deal for Dragon Con as far as I’m concerned. Sorry, babe, but I have to focus on the new stuff and try not to add to the pressure. I’ll fix the one part that made him super uncomfortable, though. I’m not going to make him suffer for a whole day of Dragon Con just because I’m trying to stave off the con panic.
He has been a great help, though. He painted my gloves for me last night (they were a dark grey instead of the black that they need to be) and he’s been helping where he can with props and what little fabric-type stuff he can do. I need to have him sew on the buttons for his Shatterstar pants. I haven’t figured out the button foot on my sewing machine, & he figured it out for the Gaara pants, which is the same pattern.
I also need to organize the fuck outta my sewing room. My fabric/scrap stash has grown exponentially since purchasing the fabric we needed for these new cosplays, so I have piles of fabric everywhere. I also kinda have pattern pieces scattered about because I keep forgetting to fold up the pieces I’ve finished with and put them away. My craft room is a total mess. Fabric everywhere. Everywhere. I barely have room on my cutting table to cut out the pieces for the mockup, & they’re fairly small pieces.
In addition, I have my new boots that I need to do some modifying to, mostly stripping the coating off the synthetic leather and then painting them black (the only ones I could get in my size were dark grey instead of black, so yeah, more changes to make). Maybe I could get my husband to do that part, too? He did pretty well painting the gloves, so the boots theoretically shouldn’t be much different. It would really help me out and take one thing off my long, long list.
Less than one month. The Crunch is squeezing ever tighter, and I am doing my best to remain calm about it.
A matter of time…
So I think I got my motivation for cosplay back…the problem is, today I just don’t have much time to work on it.
Today’s a long, early day at work, which means I don’t have the time to sew that I’d like to have. On the plus side, though, I’m back to wanting to sew.
I have an interview with an actress after work today, so I probably won’t get any sewing done then, but hopefully tomorrow morning I can get a little bit done. Now that I figured out the secret to getting the pleather to move through the sewing machine easier, it shouldn’t be too bad to get the rest of it done. Next after the corset is the shrug, which should be easy enough once I get the proportions figured out. Stupid fat arms lol I have to modify the pattern a bit to get my upper arms to fit it. Gonna be a mock-up for sure.
Then on to the really scary part: Spandex! I saved that for last because I knew A- I have never worked with it before (& it’s a bit terrifying to even think about) & B- I know that the two things I have to make with the Spandex can be purchased online easily enough, if it comes down to that. We’ll see. I don’t want to be relying on Amazon Prime to get our last costume pieces here on time, but if that’s what it comes down to then that’s what we’ll do. I can always use the Spandex later, either to improve on what we bought or to make something new.
Life is going to get interesting in the coming months & even the next couple of years, but I think I can handle it. Just have to get to/through Dragon Con and then I’ll have some breathing room. Maybe even time for writing? Who knows.
Almost time to get ready for work!
Pleather problems
So I didn’t realize the pleather would stretch so much when I started sewing it to the interfacing I have. Like, a lot. I wanted to use the stronger sew-on interfacing that I had left over from the jacket I made for my husband, but it’s clear now that I need to use the fusible interfacing that the pattern suggests. When I find it, that is…it is most likely underneath a huge pile of fabric, so I need to straighten up in the craft room a bit. I should be straightening up right now…but I don’t feel like it lol I’m frustrated by this development, thus I am taking a break before I take my frustration out on my fabric.
Now I know how the pleather reacts, though, and the leather needles I bought to sew it with seem to work really well for it. Clean punches through the pleather, no jamming. So that’s good.
In other news, the Pokémon Go exercise is still in full swing. I think I’ve missed only two or three days since I started playing two weeks ago, which for me is fantastic. That’s 2 1/2 miles a day on average, not counting missed days. Not bad for a couch potato. Bed potato? Regardless, I have the shape and mannerisms of a potato. Minus the extra eyes. Or something. I haven’t lost much weight–mere ounces, if the scale at my work is any indication–but I’m still proud of myself for getting the exercise. And hey, it keeps me off drugs. (Okay, so I never did drugs anyway…what was my point again?) I even got to hang out with a friend that I hadn’t seen in a few months.
I’m tempted to go on a Poké-walk when the sun comes up, regardless of whether or not my husband is awake. He’s three levels ahead of me; I need to step up my game. Maybe I’ll mess around with strengthening the gym that we (the blue team) hold down the street. I’m not 100% sure on how to do that, but from what I understand it’s just like taking control of a gym except you’re fighting your own guys? I don’t know. I only just fought in a gym for the first time last night. Not the most thrilling thing, but it was cool taking down Pokémons stronger than mine. Yes, I know that’s not the plural. I’m still calling them Pokémons.
Let’s see, what else has happened in the two days I missed posting? Uh…nothing much, really.
Oh! I am seriously considering dyeing my hair, if I can find a person that can do what I want.
I would rock this. I just can’t do it myself, and I don’t know anyone in town here that I would trust to do it. I know a great stylist in Phoenix, but not only is she expensive (for my budget) but she’s usually pretty booked, and for good reason. She’s had two local artist showcases of her clients’ hair up in Phoenix, which is pretty cool. It helps that she’s also incredibly friendly and personable. The bubbly type, at least the one time I met her in person. I’ve known her for a year through Facebook, but only met her once at Phoenix Comicon. Anyway, sidetracked–I want that hair pictured above. A lot. I want to flip my hair and have it look like flickering fire. And I can pull off red tones–I’ve done it plenty of times before. Maybe after Dragon Con? But I don’t know that I want to wait that long. I’m really digging this look.
So bad at being good
Why can’t I just eat healthy? Or at least eat less?
I’ve been walking almost every day since Pokemon Go came out (last night there were major thunderstorms with torrential downpours–not exactly something one wants to go walking in), but I have a feeling I haven’t lost an ounce because of my eating habits.
It’s so difficult to for me eat healthy. I have strong cravings and strong urges to eat when I’m not hungry. I have a terrible resistance to these things. I’ve heard that if you manage to stave off those cravings for at least two weeks it evens out and you stop craving as much, but I haven’t been able to make it that long yet.
The worst thing is that the corset/bustier I’m making for my cosplay seems awfully short-waisted…meaning unless I make really high-waisted pants, my gut will show. So I need to lost at least some weight. Some decent amount, not just a few pounds here or there. And I only have a month. Not too likely that it’ll happen, sadly.
I don’t know why I sabotage myself like this. I’ve known about this con since before Phoenix Comicon, and even then I still didn’t really make a concerted effort to eat better. Sure, I was drinking healthy smoothies, but I wasn’t eating them consistently or cutting back on the other food.
Crash dieting isn’t the answer, I know that much. At this point, I just need to accept that I’m going to have major muffintop at Dragon Con and I’ll just have to deal with those repercussions when I get there. There’s probably going to be some laughter and pointing and bodyshaming. I’ve just gotta suck it up (not literally–my gut’s too big for even that), try not to let it get to me, and just have fun.
Oh, and I have to finish the damn cosplays. *Sigh* Guess I should be getting to that.
Step it up
I bet you thought this was another Pokemon Go post…well, you were wrong!
It’s getting to be about a month & a half until we leave for Dragon Con, so I need to step up my work on our cosplays. Tick tick tick. The timer’s running out. I still have to put the lining on the Shatterstar coat, cut the pieces for the corset (& everything else that I haven’t started yet), sew the shit together, & learn how to use my serger to sew Spandex. Oh, and there’s the fabrication of the weapons and painting of my boots once they’re ordered & shipped. So yeah, gotta step it up.
I think I’m going to go into the sewing room & start cutting the pieces for the corset. Since I’ll need to order the boning (as soon as I know the lengths I’ll need), I should probably get started on that next. Then it will be on to the shrug I’m going to make, and then all the Spandex stuff.
When I made the Naruto cosplays it took me less than a month for both of them, but they were less complicated. These involve a lot more work, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’ve got to alter almost every pattern I’m using, so it’s going to be tough. I also need to lose weight before Dragon Con so things fit better, but I think I’ll be okay on that front.
Oh yeah, I’ve also got to do some alterations on my husband’s Star Wars/Doctor Who mashup cosplay & the Naruto cosplay. So there’s that.
Tick tick tick.
Double Trouble
Ah, this weekend was so nice. Relaxing.
And too damn short.
I’ve been awake for an hour & a half, but I can barely keep my eyes open. They keep crossing and closing, trying to force me back into slumber. They almost succeeded–almost.
Today it’s back to work, followed by (hopefully) more cosplay progress. I got a decent amount done yesterday, but my back started getting sore (and my hubby needed the power strip from the craft room for some of his cosplay work, so there’s that too). Yeah, yeah, I could’ve taken the strip back when he was done & gotten back to it, but damn I was tired. I think I was asleep before 7:30.
The jacket I started working on yesterday has the front two panels sewn and the back is almost done (not counting lining and such–that comes soon).
Damnit, eyes! I can’t be going back to sleep now!
Anywho, I also got a lot of character development done for the dystopian/sci-fi novel I’ve been working on for ages. This book will definitely be slower going than Whispers of Death, mostly because I’m having a more complicated plot…not to mention the research. I have to figure out what kind of tech we’ll have in a few hundred years…or at least speculate to within a reasonable accuracy. For instance, flying cars? Eh, maybe, maybe not. Bionic implants? That I can see happening. Genetic engineering? Yep, can see that too. And as far as current events unfolding in the ages to come, well….I don’t want to give away too much. 😉
Well, it’s time to make my husband’s coffee and see what the rest of the world is up to this early in the morning. Enjoy your work day!
Finally free
I could be talking about Independence Day today…but I’m not. I’m not overly patriotic. I’m not political. I’m not a historian. I’m just an average Joe (Jill?), and I’m not that into the revolutionary aspect of the holiday. No, I’m talking about a free day off work. After working 12 days in a row, then going on a day trip, then doing laundry all day, I finally have a day off where I can do whatever.
The start of my free day? Fixing my cosplay booboo from yesterday. I got that done and all of the twill fabric pieces cut out; now comes cutting out the interfacing & lining, after which I’ll start putting the pieces together. It should prove interesting since I’m altering the pattern. I keep doing that…and so far, aside from yesterday’s disaster, it’s been turning out well. Guess I have a knack for it…or I’ve been lucky.
Now I’m taking a break from all that pinning and cutting and I’m just chilling on the computer for a while. I might take a nap. I might make some food. Or maybe I’ll just stare at this screen and do nothing.
Sometimes it’s good to take time for yourself. Burnout sucks. Sure, if I spent all day nonstop working on the coat I could probably get it finished…but is that really what I want to do with my free day? Spend the whole thing cutting and sewing until I’m sore and worn out?
Also, I’ve been having some good ideas about my dystopian/sci-fi novel. Yeah, you know the one–the one that’s been stalled since the cosplay stuff went into overdrive? Well, it’s still stalled (narrative-wise), but some new details about the world and the characters have come into my head that I think will give it some depth and diversity. It’s outside of my comfort zone, but isn’t that the point of writing sometimes? Going new places, trying new things…creating new worlds (or destroying them).
Maybe I’ll work on brainstorming today in between cosplay sessions. That sounds like a good idea.
Freedom to do what you want–gotta love it.
Sub-standard
Okay, this upcoming three day weekend is much needed.
Last night I dreamed that a patient randomly started to fall face-first out of an exam chair. I mean, she was headed for full faceplant…until I jerked awake with a gasp. Work has finally invaded my subconscious to the point where I’m having semi-nightmares about it. (I don’t consider it a full-blown nightmare because it was more of a shock factor than a fear factor that woke me up…and I was fully aware that it was a dream the second I woke up. Usually nightmares have me really confused when I first wake up from them.)
I also had a weird dream that one of my exes was a serial killer. Hope I don’t have the FBI knocking on my door any time soon to ask questions lol
I keep telling myself that this weekend will help things calm down. I have a trip to Tucson with my husband and some new friends for cosplay and Costco shopping, so that may or may not be relaxing (sometimes even a day trip can wear you out), but Sunday and Monday should be all about cosplay work–except for an Independence Day dinner with the family.
Going to go finish that final belt loop on the Shatterstar pants that I have been procrastinating on due to sheer exhaustion, then I can finally get started on the coat…and learn how to thread and use my serger so I can make the Spandex stuff.
Yeah, I know, the cosplay push will be yet another thing to wear me out…but it’s a change from what I’ve been doing, so that’s a good thing I think. I just gotta keep up on it. Two months. Just two months. Can’t keep letting my physical and mental exhaustion get to me. I’ve got to get these done.
I can do it. I’m determined, just sluggish.
Weird dreams or not, I got this.