So, Saturday Wonderful Husband and I went to see Kingsman: The Secret Service. Which has Colin Firth as a gentleman spy. Can't go wrong with that! The movie was serious in some ways, cheesy in others, and bad in only a few. I recommend it.

Sunday, Wonderful Husband, Squiddle, and I all dressed up in our Steven Universe togs, and jotted down the street to the Anaheim Convention Center for Wondercon!



We got a lot of comments loving our family cosplay, and especially the "tiny Steven!"

Overall, a good time was had. We managed to get into both the panels I found interesting on the schedule, and walked the whole dealer's room. Our wallets came away lighter, our hands heavier, with a couple volumes from Studio Foglio, and a board game called Trekking the National Parks.

I've been keeping myself busy with Piece and Quilt's star block sewalong, writing class has just started again (as have Squiddle's classes), and I've mailed off the gift quilt, so when the recipient gets it, then I can post about that.

For now, to bed. Early morning music class for the Squiddle!

Wonderful Husband has been watching his way through Steven Universe recently. The show is surpisingly good. And Wondercon is coming up next weekend. So last night I made a suggestion that I make the Squiddle a Steven costume. It's simple enough - sandals (check), denim shorts (check), red t-shirt with a yellow star on it. Only one item to make! Wonderful Husband thought that would be kind of fun, but pointed out that Squiddle doesn't have the hair for it (Steven's hair is dark and curly; Squiddle's is currently like mine, honey-colored and fine). I pointed out that Wonderful Husband does have the hair for it, and upped the ante by suggesting I could make them matching costumes.

So this morning Squiddle and I went to the thrift stores and found a couple plain red t-shirts in daddy and toddler sizes, as well as a yellow one to cut up to make the stars. And I will make Wonderful Husband go buy jeans or denim shorts for himself this weekend.

...If I am truly mean/ambitious, I will go to Michael's and buy a couple pink rhinestones, and then Halloween Club for some spirit gum and glue gems to both their bellybuttons.

Unfortunately there's really not a character for me in the show. I'd want to be Rose, but her costume is more intricate and would take wig styling, and I'm so not into that right now.

The Animal Control people still haven't come out. Wonderful Husband called them back around 6 and they said they work until 9:30 every day, so they still have an hour and a half at this point. He also checked with the neighbors on both sides (each of whom have several guard dogs). Looks like it most likely belongs to Jaime to the west side of our house; his three dogs got out somehow on Monday, and only two came back. The missing one he's had for 13 years, so not exactly a young spritely puppy....

I am put in mind of the Irish Setters we had when I was a very young child. At that time we lived literally in the middle of the woods. And one, who was getting up there in years, just never came back, and we never found him. Do dogs have an instinct to go hide away when they die?

On a less gruesome subject, I've begun retrieving and de-cat-hairing the cosplay costumes from the hallway closet. Two have been tossed in the wash hamper; about half a dozen others have successfully been cleaned if necessary and packed away. Moire is apparently impermeable to cat hair. It just rolls right off. Four costumes (Ovelia, Sofia, Fuu, and Flowery) remain; they are all long and going to be tedious to clean. And there's one or two sets of fairy wings in there to deal with as well.

ETA: Animal Control not coming out tonight. Apparently they only have one officer on duty between 9:30pm and 5:00am, for emergencies only. (Wonderful Husband and I tried to think what "emergencies" might constitute. We came up with rabid critters, and wild animal incursions.) So they'll come out tomorrow. I hope they can spirit the poor critter away; it was hot today and thus our backyard is now honestly untenable. We've been keeping the doors and windows closed.

So, a good trawl through the LA fabric district with hoshikage apparently tends to net several results. One is lunch at Wild Thyme, which is always a good thing. Another is leather in varying blues for her and varying pinks for me, with both of us intending to use it for corsets. A third is being jazzed and re-energized on sewing projects in general and costuming in particular.

( Costume babbling and brainstorming )

I smell funny. Or I keep smelling something funny. Which is kind of funny, because I took a shower after finishing the cooking and cleaning this morning, which means that I should only be smelling of shampoo/conditioner/body wash/face cream.

Dinner is pork loin, currently marinating in apple cider flavored with brown sugar, sea salt, thyme, and garlic. It gets a maple syrup/dijon mustard glaze before it goes in the oven. And is currently scheduled to have baked potatoes and mixed vegetables as accompaniments.

Plots have been made regarding costumes for Fanime, and also for a run to the fabric district on Sunday. I've finished the third of eight flowers on the tea tray cover I'm working on (and have been off and on since my mother-in-law gave it to me a year ago).

Feel like I'm in gridlock. Or in limbo. I want to stop feeling like I'm spinning my wheels and start feeling like I'm accomplishing something. Grrr.

Went over to Liz's this evening for a bit of sewing. She pinned the hem of the Summoner dress for me, so I can start proceeding further on that now. I also tried on the Regency stays she's making (Mantua Maker pattern) and apparently size 20 fits me like a glove with a 1.5" opening in the back. Have borrowed the pattern. ^_^ We arranged for her to come down to my place on either Saturday or Sunday and we'll make a gala day of sewing and fitting things to one another. I think it's a good thing, though, that while I was rereading Couture Sewing Techniques today, I found myself constantly thinking "Huh. Nice. Interesting. Not for this set of outfits, though!" There is a time and a place for couture techniques, and hall costumes that really don't need them to look good are neither the time or the place. Doing the thirty lacing eyelets by hand was quite enough of a couture touch. Nonetheless, the read was a nice refresher and brought several ideas for future possibilities into my head. For now, though, it is time for bed....

Happy Freedom From Our Evil British Oppressors Day! Except for me, who is kind of married to one and actually likes being conjugally contractually bound to him. ^_^

So today, having gotten something like a blissful eight and a half hours of sleep, I woke up and translated HICBC's summaries for UM episodes 1-3, and then decided I should start doing what I actually needed to be doing today. Which was baking two berry pies, washing and putting away what seemed like a metric ton of dishes, making jello, making salsa, washing more dishes, and bleaching the kitchen sink. Then Wonderful Husband and I went over to my uncle's for a Fourth of July pool party (this being the destination of the aforementioned pies). Not having a swimsuit, I took along the Summoner dress and quite contentedly sat there in the shade, sewing the first fifteen lacing eyelets while everyone else splashed about. I also got an object lesson in why one does not mix inhaling marijuana with drinking vodka. I came home before the fireworks started, dropping my mother at home along the way (no, she was not the aforementioned object lesson, she was merely not feeling well), put away laundry, purchased a wedding present for Armida (yes I know I still need to post pix of the wedding dress... I'm kind of holding off to see what pictures I can take at the wedding Saturday since my construction shots are not so great) and cracked open the Special Edition disc of Kamen Rider Kuuga.

Episode 50 of Kuuga is a short (five minutes, maybe?) that basically opens with a disclaimer that this is a bonus/omake the cast and crew did just for the hell of it. It is... quite interesting, shall we say. Fortunately for the price I paid for it, the disc also has episodes 1-2 in movie format with the option of subtitling the Grongi speech into Japanese. Ahh, if only the TV episode discs had that option....

So, things I did not get to do today: (1) make pickles, (2) make zucchini bread, (3) garden work, (4) finish translating UM10, (5) iron work shirts, (6) sew other 14-15 eyelets, (7) see any of the current-release movies in my queue, especially Transformers. These all go on tomorrow's list along with "edit UM4." However, I have dance classes tomorrow evening, so at most I'll be able to complete one, maybe two. --#

...Well, as I should've expected, I am not going to be a Summoner at AX. Guess I'll be one at SDCC.

I sewed the red onto the sleeve, and it doesn't work. The black underneath ends up all ripply and warped. I don't know why, as I cut them from the same pattern piece. What this means is unpicking three seams on one sleeve, one on the other, unpicking both underarm seams, applying the red to the black while they're both flat, and resewing the sleeve seams. I'm too detail-oriented to do bad sewing anymore, so I can't just ignore this and go on.

Realistically, this is probably a good thing. It means I can actually do things like wash dinner dishes, cook and clean, keep up on translations, and continue my attempts to reform my body to a reasonable bedtime. Unfortunately, this means I won't have a new costume to wear to AX, and won't get to do a photoshoot with hoshikage. Because while I might have the dress done by AX, there's no way I'll have the cloak or the headdress ready.

Que sera sera.

Still aching in all the "gardener's butt" places, but feeling remarkably good. Why, you ask? Because the wedding dress is done. I'm stitching together a dry-cleaners sample (for any dry-cleaners Armida needs to take it to to practice their chemicals on first to make sure the dress won't melt) and tonight I'm ironing the dress, and tomorrow Wonderful Husband is delivering it to her along with leftover fabric and a spool of ribbon for lacing. But it's done, it's done, it's done, with nearly two weeks until the wedding~!

The Summoner dress is largely constructed. To do on that:

cut out a mockup of a sleeve and make sure it'll work
cut out, trim, and sew on the actual sleeves
lacing holes for the back
a placket to go behind the lacing
hem the dress
make and sew on red trim lines for the front (match to the sleeves?)
make and sew on cross-lacing trim (match to sleeve/cloak trim)

Then I get to make the cloak and the headdress! ^_^

Inspired by koshka_the_cat's always-amazing productivity, I spent this evening cutting out a chemise out of the cotton batiste I bought a while back. This involved locking the cat in the downstairs laundry/bathroom. Fortunately she didn't spend the entire time making a fuss about it. If I can pull this off, eventually I can use the undergarments both for historical costuming and for cosplay. I have Emma costumes in mind... (that is, the anime/manga of the name, not the Jane Austen novel or any adaptation of it).

I put on DVD episodes 29-30 of Ultraman Moebius to be soothing background noise while I worked. This didn't work quite as well as hoped, as I chanced to glance at the screen and was immediately captivated. I've never really appreciated the differences in video quality until you start getting down into nth-generation VHS copies (a sad thing for the daughter and granddaughter of television engineers to say), but all I could think was "My GOD, it's so clear!"

But it is well past my bedtime and Wonderful Husband is actually abed before me, so off I go. Tomorrow I shall recount to you all the tale of The Work Computer That Worked Fine When I Left Thursday Afternoon But Had Somehow Become A Paperweight Come Tuesday Morning. 'Night~~!