About Frellin Time!

Lots of excitement last week, well, maybe excitement isn’t the exact right word, but lots going on. My wee one’s daycare was on vacation last week so my full time ‘grown-up’ job became part time for a week as I took care of her with the help of some family. It worked out well, but it was hard to think about going back to a full week of the ‘grown-up’ job when I got to spend time with my little princess and enjoy some nice weather last week.

Waving the white flag of surrender!

Whelp, I’ve searched high and low for MONTHS and my front leather (completed!) side panels have just vanished. So with an exasperated sigh, I started tearing apart a lovely leather jacket I purchased at the thrift store a few months ago to replace those panels. It’s a pretty close match to the leather on the back that’s completed because I wasn’t about to start the entire thing from scratch. Should be plenty of leather for what I need AND it was on sale so I only paid $10 bucks for the jacket – score!

Last night I was able to get the lining torn apart and the facings and collar removed. Now starts the task of deconstructing the jacket. I’m very impatient when it comes to these things, so I need to remind myself every two minutes to go slow and not tear the leather (which I did last night in a few spots because I got in a hurry). I hope to have the jacket in pieces by the end of the weekend so I can start redoing the pattern and marking pieces. I’m dreading doing this again but if I want the costume finished I have no choice. 😛

You can see portions of the back center panel, side and vest bottom.

Here’s a picture of the back of the vest, still in progress. As I said before, I’m pretty happy with it. I know the leather lacing isn’t

Left side back and lower part of vest

perfect, but it’s close and it gives the look I wanted. I might add that I am human that likes to see results quick so it was hard for me to take the time to even get it this close.

And, I realized before Christmas just how long my hair has gotten.

My hair…it’s a growing!

I haven’t had it cut since August when I got ready to go to the Stargate Convention in Chicago. Oops! Normally I try to go every three months for a trim and shape. I had just gotten out of the shower and dried it…yeah, not sure I’ve had it this long since

high school.  Works great for rockin’ the ‘Mom Ponytail’ which I do more often than not which is probably why I haven’t noticed before now.

Looking forward to making progress on this over the weekend! I am going to try really hard this year to finish projects that have been started before I jump in to anything new – with the exception of one of Aeryn’s long coats because I really, REALLY want to make them!  I was going to have them outsourced by someone who knows what they are doing, but I’ll figure out the best way to do it myself because it seems whenever I have someone else to something for me (it’s only been a couple of times) I end up regretting it later because it doesn’t some out like I wanted it to. I have several Vala (Stargate, SG1) projects that I should really finish that have been cut or partially done and I need to get them out of boxes and on my person!

More updates as I progress! Have a lovely weekend fellow Scapers! 😀

Costume pieces grow legs and walk away

So in typical fashion, things never go as planned. Originally I had planned to finish this costume in June for a convention in Niagara Falls. I had to get more leather to lace through my vest and I couldn’t get that soon enough to finish it without sleepless nights (and I already have some of those with a wee one). That actually ended up being okay since I came down sick two days before the convention and hubby and I decided to not make the trip.

And of course I put it up for a while…and now lost two pieces of it. Lol In my defense, we did some moving around in our house and the sewing room changed location. Needless to say things got shuffled around and I haven’t been able to locate the two quilted leather side front panels. They have to be somewhere, right? 😉 Had I have been able to find them; this would have been completed for RocCon in September.

So over this project…lol

I am, however, getting antsy to finish this project. So antsy in fact, that I’m tempted to redo the pieces (though the pattern piece I created is missing too). I purchased another leather jacket to cut up for pieces that is a very similar sheen and texture to what I used for the back. I’d honestly redo everything, but I took a lot of time on the back and have no desire to do that again. Haha. If it doesn’t appear soon, I’ll be going that route as this project is taking way too long.

Costume card next to my finished piece of fabric

Aside from searching for these missing pieces, the other most time consuming part was altering the fabric for the other vest panels. You can see the costume card and my finished panel to the right.

I would sit in my car at lunch time at work because I don’t have much free time when I get home nights. While it’s not exact, I’m pretty happy with it as I’m just not as patient with this type of stuff (and especially since most people

What I do at lunchtime…

probably won’t even know the panels look like that).

I’d like to say I’ll have this done by the end of the year…fingers crossed!

A slight pause

As I am gearing up to costume as Claudia’s other alter ego, Val Mal Doran from Stargate for Creation Con, Aeryn has been left sitting on my sewing table for a couple more weeks.

More than likely I’ll be working on finishing the hand stitching of leather on the vest panels that weekend we’re at the con/during the travel time (I don’t always sit still very well). I plan to have it together for RocCon next month (is it really going to be September already?).

AND on top of getting that finished, I have a few weapons to finish too. At the suggestion of my buddy Chanky, I put a rare Earth magnet in the pulse pistol so it will stay in my holster. I’m working on filling in the hole and repainting currently. A beautiful pulse rifle kit also appeared at my door (you rock Rich!) and I’m looking forward to getting that together too.

Why can’t we have a four day work with with a three day weekend all the time? Or better yet, at three day work week! lol

Season 1 Leather Vest

At first glance, I thought this was a pretty simple and straightforward vest. Just leather and fabric with some leather trim. WRONG. The vest itself is about 8 pieces plus trim and lining. The fabric pieces on the front center panels and back center panel have what looks to be a heavy thread or another type of material woven through it (read: you’re probably not going to find the fabric, so improvise).

Pattern with notes and my sketch underneath

I’ve started with Butterick pattern #5683 view C because it had the closest lines and cut (and the pattern was on sale really cheap). I will be eliminating the yoke to mimic Aeryn’s vest front. The vest will also have to be shortened, front neckline lowered a smidge and back cut so that it will have a solid lower back piece. If you look at the photo, you can see my sketch underneath.

I studied what images I had and the action figure and I am happy with my rendering.

I picked up two options for the front and back panel fabrics and I found a plastic stretchy tubing I’m going to try and weave it and out to get the look of the original fabric.

Image is tweaked slightly, but you can see the contrasting material running through this

My husband purchased a costume card for me (see the image to the left for a similar one), so I was able to get a good look at what they used. I’m sure mine won’t look exact but I’m hoping to come close. And if I’m not happy with it, I’ll do it again. 😛

For the leather pieces on the vest, I’m going to cut up a pair of leather pants I purchased on eBay last spring. I’d purchased a larger size because I’d planned on going as pregnant Aeryn for a convention we never made it too last year. Since then, I’ve realized her later season leather pants are so different than what I purchased they wouldn’t have worked anyway. It’s all good, still completely usable in a new form. If I’m careful, I should be able to get the leather trim pieces out of them as well. The areas in the front and back that have the diagonal stitching and other details will be quilted with a light batting to achieve the look.

But, first things first. I need to sew together my muslin so that I can resize and cut the panels correctly. This is going slow. I cut the pieces out and pinned them at least two weeks ago. Things move much slower with an adorable baby on hand but it’s all good. It gets done when it gets done and I will document as things progress. 🙂

When I grow Up, I’m going to be an Action Figure!

Okay, so not really but what I can do is tell you that my first venture in to costuming as Aeryn Sun will be a Season 1 costume…the one her mutated action figure is based on.

Because I’m way late to the Farscape party, it’s hard to find a lot of good reference pictures. From what I have found, turns out the action figure is pretty darn close and is becoming a great reference. This always makes me happy, I hate when they change characters when they’re converted to action figures. One glaring example was back in the 80’s…remember the She-Ra cartoon? Remember Queen Angelica from that cartoon? She had shortish blond hair in the cartoon so why on Hoth did they make an action figure with long brown hair?

Drove me nuts as a kid, still drives me nuts as an adult…but I digress.

Cartoon queen and action figure queen from She-Ra…ARGH!!! WHY!!! (and thank you to whomever I stole the action figure picture from)

 

A lot of this costume is going to be ‘found’ pieces. As Vala is still what I costume primarily now and Aeryn is secondary, I figure I may be able to do more off the shelf things to accommodate myself…but maybe not. I still want most of the details in there but because I am a new Mom and don’t have a lot of time, I want as little amount of work as possible (when my wee one isn’t cutting teeth and sleeping better, maybe I can work on more in-depth things again).

As I pick things up, I will post. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to use for a belt, pants and pouches for the costume. I’ll be recycling my first pair of Vala boots for this as they’re pretty close…I just need to add a medallion to give it ‘the look’. The vest…yep, that and the holster will be the most work. I have an ‘easy’ Butterick pattern I am going to modify to create that and it is something I can work on ten minutes here, ten minutes there. I have a Season 1 holster that needs some TLC thanks to my good buddy Ed (also known as Reaper). Silly me, I was actually going to use a Season 3-4 holster with a Season 1 costume…then I got more educated and just couldn’t bring myself to do it. 😛

It should be fun and it’ll give my brain a rest from Vala as I have to focus on getting in to my old costumes again before I do to must custom work. 🙂

Why Another Blog?

Dear Self –

Why did you create another blog when you don’t currently post much to your other one?

Sincerely,

Me

Dear Me –

As time permits, I need a creative outlet and I like to chronicle my creations. AND I can’t make myself litter a blog called Becoming Vala with costuming stuff on Aeryn Sun – even though the actress is the same, still can’t do it.

Sincerely,

Self

 

🙂   Stay Tuned.