#then I'll just need to re-sew the shoulders and I can get back to figuring out the neckline facing

[sheliesshattered]

I got the sleeves set into my velvet Yule dress, pressed the seams, tried it on

and then made the absolutely unhinged decision to completely replace the center panel of this 9 panel princess seam gown

[sleepymccoy]

It has been so long since we had a renaissance dress update, but we're back! For those who've forgotten, or are new, here is a link to my most recent post (which was like. june I think.

So, a few details that I did get to in the interim! As well as my movement today

First off, I sewed in a little flap thing to cover the blue under fabric from showing through at the bust

This ^ is the shirt inside out! I'm not sure I've shown the inside of it properly since I made it :) So you can see the blue flap where the hard book cover sits. In the second pic you can see the little clips I've sewn in cos the book kept sliding up and out. In the third is my new red flap that covers the blue! It has no structural purpose, it's totally aesthetic. Then the fourth pic is sorts showing the layout from the front. Irl my tits are behind it all so it never gapes open like that

This is the back, which doesn't need the extra flap bit cos the shoulder straps hide the blue enough

I also, at some point, sewed this little pleated thing on the back to cover up the back clasp which I've begun to hate!!

I couldn't get the fabric to sit flat and nicely while covering the jeans zipper that it working as my functional clasp. So I made this little pleat, the size of which was designated by the amount of scrap fabric I had left, and sewed it on one side. The other side, where it needs to be detachable so I can get in and out, is held in place by more little clippy things. Love those boys.

This is the best photo I got (taken after the next step, sorry that's out of order lol)

So the back is passable! And no longer annoying me! :)

Today, I remembered that an ex had left a bunch of plastic-y blankets at my house when she went back to Germany, so I decided to have a go at padding!! See if I can get that little waist big hips look going. This took many hours, in the end. Lots of trying on and off

This is how I folded the blanket to make it gather at the back. Then I sewed it into more rounded edges and attached it to my under skirt

It's outrageously warm, guys. I think the dress with be work without the padded skirt if we go out on a warm day. It hit 28 degrees today, 83 for you silly americans, and wow! It was warm in a skirt made of blankets! Huh!

Anyway, the silhouette is fun

I also hemmed my shawl thing and cut some excess of cos I'm now planning on wearing this for Halloween and I'll need a mask. So I made a mask out of it!

It'll be good to be matching :) just not sure how to make the outfit spooky for Halloween lol

That's where it's at! It would be totally wearable now, I'm very pleased. I feel like I still wanna add some details to the hat I made back when. And I need to re hem the under skirt and check the hem on the main skirt cos I think it's falling sometimes. I also need to buy a better ribbon for the from lace, I don't like the pink.

Beyond that, all good! And, turns out I didn't out too much weight on through winter cos the shirt fit. I really wasn't sure lol

EDIT

omg I went back and reread my last post. I've added pockets since then! It was so long ago I forgot

The red skirt has four pockets now, I'm figuring out how to add another big one for a wine bottle. I will include pics next time xx

[sunnyie-eve]

9 | It's Weird

Series: Trouble In Hawkins (Steve Harrington x Henderson! Billy Hargrove x Henderson!)

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings: Language

| MASTERLIST |

"Why didn't you dress up? Are you getting like everyone at school is now? Nobody dressed up today." Lucas rants as we waited for Jonathan and Will. 

"She's too old she says." Dustin said, making me hit him. 

"Little asshole." I laugh, as he ran away. "I'm Sandy from Grease." I turn around, showing my outfit off. 

"Where did you get your outfit?" Mike asks. 

"She bought it from the store then re-did the whole outfit. Lost of cutting and sewing. I need to look good Dustin!" Dustin says in a girly voice. 

"I hate you." I glare at him. As soon a Jonathan pulls up I see him and Will talk before Will gets out and Jonathan calls me over. "What up?" I ask as he shows me an orange neon paper. "No, really?" I ask and he smiles at me. 

"Come on, please." He begs and I get in the car. 

"Go before I change my mind and decide to hit you," I tell him and he starts the car. As we pull up to Tina's house, I send Jonathan a glare as a few guys staring at me. "You are so going to pay for this." I cover myself up with my jacket walking towards the door. 

"How will we find them in here?" He asks, making me hit him as a girl stops him to talk. 

I look around and spot Nancy and Steve, "Look, they're right there." I point my finger at them and they walking towards the kitchen. "I'm going to get a drink, want one?" I ask before walking towards the kitchen. 

"No, I'm good." He says and I leave him bumping into a figure as I got to the kitchen. 

"I'm sor-," I didn't even want to finish the word. 

"Henderson, funny seeing you here? You look nice." Billy eyes my body as I glare at him. 

"I told you not to talk to me," I growl at him through my teeth. 

"Look, Princess." He puts his arm around my shoulder and I quickly remove it. 

"I said don't!" I raise my voice catching Tommy H, Carol, Tina, and Vicki's attention.

"Wow, almost didn't recognize you there, Skylar. You look good for your ugly self." Carol smiles at me and I roll my eyes at her. 

"Billy sweetie, is she bothering you?" Tina asks, touching his chest. 

Before he could answer I speak, "No, I'm not bothering him because I don't give a shit about him. He could fuck all of you whores then fuck himself before I ever want to talk to him." I glare at him but smile at the girls. "Now excuse me, I need to go back to a friend." I turn around but Carol pulls me back. 

"What did you call me?" She had a tight grip on me, but I knew I was stronger, twisting her arm back, making her cry for help. 

"I'll be leaving now." I let go of her and Tommy H steps out in front of me. "Move or else," I warn him. 

"Or else wh-." I punch him right in the nose, making him fall to the ground. 

"Did you forget how hard I hit Steve last year and you?" I say, walking back towards Jonathan. "I'm walking home." I pass Jonathan on the way to the door storming outside. As I was walking, someone else rushes past me, making me trip and fall. "Fuck. Really?!" I yell, and I notice it was Steve when he turns around. 

"I'm sorry, Skylar." He comes over and helps me up. "You okay?" He asks, checking me.

"I'm okay, just walking home. I hate parties, you know." I laugh, making him smile. 

"Yeah, I know. Who brought you here? Thought you didn't want to come? You were going out with the boys and Jonathan?" He asks, confused. 

"Jonathan did. He decided we should let the boys go by themselves. Where's Nancy?" I take notice that her name made him moody. 

"Steve, are you okay?" Johnathan shows up in front of us. 

"Yeah, Nancy is drunk, and we had a small fight. Do you think you can take her home?" Steve asks, confusing Johnathan. 

"Yeah, sure, okay." He says, leaving the two of us? 

"You wanna talk about it?" I ask, not knowing what to do or say since we aren't close. 

"You wanna ride home? I'll tell you about it on the way there." He scratches the back of his neck. 

"Sure, I don't want to walk anyways. It's a very long walk, and I'm in heels so." We walk over to his car and hop in. For a while, it was silent till I spoke up, "So you gonna tell me what happened?" I turn my head to look at him. 

"Nancy wouldn't stop drinking, so I tried to stop her, which made her spill her cup on her shirt. While we were in the bathroom, she told me that we killed Barb, and it's bullshit, bullshit this, bullshit that..." He stopped taking a deep breath in. "I'm bullshit, and like we're in love, bullshit." He says as we pull up to my house. 

"Steve, I know we aren't exactly close or near it really... but I'm here for you if you need someone." I put my hand on his rubbing the top of it. 

This was super odd, probably for the both of us because we are never alone and talk to each other. We're always with Nancy, and those conversations don't last that long. He looks over at me and gives me a weak smile, "Thank you, Skylar." I get out of the car, bending down to the window. 

"Of course, see you tomorrow Steve." I wave goodbye walking into the house going to my room, getting ready for bed.

"I am not acting weird!" I hear Dustin yell then both him and mom scream a little.

I leave my room to go see what's going on and they both were nervous laughing. I watch Dustin go to his room carrying his box that was moving. I follow him and he locks his door behind him. I put my ear against the door to hear what he was saying. "Dustin," I knock on his door, and he rushes over opening it. 

"What up, Sky?" He asks, not opening the door all the way. 

"Did you bring a new pet inside?" I look over him and open his door to see it. "What the fuck is that?" I bend down to look at it. 

"It was in our trash." He looks at me. 

"Just find out what it is. It looks bad, Dustin." I say, leaving his room going back to mine.

~

I walk into our kitchen and I see that mom wasn't there, so that meant she left already. "Dustin, you still home?" I call out and no answer. I looked at the time, and I rush out the door to get to the bus stop. "Oh! What are you doing here?" I ask, almost running into Steve as I slam the front door behind me. 

"I know your car isn't starting again, and I'm sure you don't like the bus. So, I was wondering if you wanted a ride to school?" He asks, smiling at me, rocking awkwardly. 

"Umm sure, let's go, Harrington!" I hop into the passenger seat. "Hey, did you ever turn in that paper for the early applications?" I try to make a conversation instead of it being an awkward silence.

"No, because there was no point in doing it. I can't write for shit so the paper is just shit. I told Nancy I'll end up work for my dad anyway." He huffs, getting annoyed thinking about it. 

"Why do you say that like you won't have a different path to take?" I ask him. 

"Because I won't. My grades aren't the best. Plus at least my dad's job has insurance and benefits." I can tell that he hates it. 

"It's only the first semester of your senior year you could work harder on your grades. Hell, I'll start to help you if you need help. I'm really smart you know." I laugh, making him laugh too. 

"I'll think about that offer."

The first couple of classes went by fast, especially since Billy never showed up to first period. I just finished getting dressed for gym and we then ran a few laps. "Okay, ladies, go rest in the gym." The coach said, and the girls ran to watch the boys play basketball. I climb to take a seat and see Steve playing against Billy.

Damn, he looks good shirtless... I still hate his guts but damn. I talk to myself in my head, taking in Billy's body since I didn't pay attention to him last night only wearing a jacket.

They seemed to be talking while Steve had his back to him. Billy ends up knocking Steve down winning a point. "It's okay Steve!" I yell making Billy look over at me then Nancy showed up calling Steve out. 

"You're friends with Harrington?" He walks towards me. 

"Hargrove, didn't I tell you to stop talking to me?" I roll my eyes at him while the girls stared at us. 

"But we still have to do that paper together." He smirked up at me. 

"I can do it myself and put your name on it." I tilt my head smiling at him. 

"You know I thought we were getting along?" He leans on the bleachers. 

"That's before you tried running over my brother and his friends, who are like brothers to me too." I shove him away with my foot and he goes back to playing basketball.

During lunch, I wanted to go out to Jonathan's car to sit with him, but as I make my way over Steve rushes over in front of me. "Hey, wanna eat with me?" My eyes scan his face. "I know you really don't eat lunch and I don't feel like eating either today... so you like wanna just sit over at your table by the tree?" He asks so I just say yes walking over to the table. 

"It's okay If you don't wanna talk about it but what happened when y'all went to go talk?" I ask him as he stares down at the table. 

"She was mad at me for not picking her up so she missed first period." He shakes his head. 

"Why didn't you get her?" I ask. 

"I picked you up instead. Thought Jonathan would get her." I nod my head slowing still not understanding why he picked me up instead of her.

Again it was weird having a conversation with Steve with it just being the two of us. Before in the past after everything, he would be the one to make things awkward when we talked. Now he's talking to me more like we are sorta friends and picked me up this morning. I mean, I finally put what he did to me in the past not caring about it... Just like he has, I guess since he still never apologized I just, yeah. 

"She remembered everything up until our fight at the party so I had to tell her everything she told me. The bullshit that we killed Barb and I don't care, I'm bullshit, everything is bullshit, and she doesn't love me." He sighs. 

"People say stupid things when they're wasted. Things they don't mean... well sometimes, sorry I'm not helping." I shut up. 

"That's the thing... What if she did mean it? I asked her if she loved me earlier and she never answered." He looks up at me. 

"You know she went through some things... Barb... She feels like it's her fault because she made her go when she didn't want to. Steve, being around Nancy last year... she started to change and I can't explain it." I tell him. 

"I know."

After school, Steve was going to give me a ride home but I turned down his offer because I was going to head to the Middle school to see my brother. "Can't you hang out with me some before ditching me for kids?" Steve asks, leaning against his car. 

"Why?" I ask turning around to look at him confused. "What do you want to talk about? How you need to learn how to win in a basketball match against asshole Hargrove?" I joke smiling as he glares at me. 

"Not funny, Sky..." He says making me tilt my head at him since he called me Sky. "No, just like before you have to run over there... We can talk about random things." He says shrugging his shoulders.

"SKYLAR! IT'S WILL!" Lucas yells from a distance and I start to run. 

"Skylar?!" I hear Steve and I yell back at him while running. 

"Sorry, I gotta go!" I run faster following the boys and Max. "What's wrong with Will?" I ask joining them. 

"I think it's another episode," Mike says as we watch Joyce try to get him back to normal.

[sheliesshattered]

Top third or so of the pleated panel is sewn down!

I tried out a couple of different methods for handsewing this to the shoulder and sleeve, but after a few inches of each, the 'stitch in the ditch' method was the clear winner. It's basically invisible, and lets the piping stand up as it ought to. I'm doing a stitch about every 1/8th inch, and keeping most of the distance on the top so that the stitches inside the sleeve are as small as possible, and won't get caught on things. I'm getting faster with the technique, so I'm hoping to buzz through the rest of this sleeve and the other one over the next few days.

But I'm also going to be interspersing this sewing with starting on my vest scratch build. I was able to find the pattern I made for my vest for The Moment way back in 2014 (it was exactly where I thought it would be, hurrah for keeping old patterns), and I spent some time staring at the existing vest in the mirror and pin-marking the changes I would like to make.

There are enough small changes that I'm going to just draft a new version of the pattern using the old one as a guide. But there are only the four main body pieces that really need re-drafting, and once it's something I can try on then I'll figure out how I'm doing the new collar (so it doesn't look so much like a motorcycle jacket), and I might just drape the new collar on me while I'm wearing the in-progress vest.

Over the weekend I also went though my stash looking for fabrics that have enough yardage (or at least big pieces) to cut out the body of the vest, and after comparing all those to the pieces I know I'll definitely be wearing as part of my Batuu Bound -- gray hooded wrap, brown leather belt/bag/gloves, and black leather-look leggings -- with Jack's help I decided on some lovely dark navy linen that I've had in my stash for years, left over from a dress project. It's on the heavier side for linens, but not quite as stiff as the canvas the Moment vest is made from, but I think it'll work nicely.

I'm going to stick with the basic lines from the Moment vest, including the diagonal cross-body closure. After noodling on this for a week or more, what I've decided to do is a shorter zipper that ends around underbust level or just slightly higher, and then a flap over that with either no visible closures, or some cool looking Star Wars-y buckles or something. I have a few ideas for that, but I won't make any decisions until I can try the new vest on. The separating zipper and the thread for this project have been ordered and should arrive before I'm anywhere close to needing them. Pics on this whole vest project as it develops.

Beyond that, I need to add a tiny dot of glue to a pendant that I made (in the upper left of the photo -- it looks a bit like Jyn Erso's kyber crystal necklace, but smaller with more of a blue tone to it) to make sure the wrappings stay attached. I still want to figure out something to cover the lacings of my big Doc Martens, either wraps over the whole boot or a suede panel that snaps onto the lacings or something of that sort. I've started to gather other accessories, and there are a couple of things I want to order (in particular my Captain's License, once I can settle on a name and spelling for my OC, lol).

I have a long sleeve shirt to go under the vest that works with my color pallet, and an idea (and fabric) for another shirt I could sew, but the weather has been so all over the place lately (80 degrees and sunny! no wait, 60 degrees and rainy!) that I don't want to put too much effort into the shirt until I've got a better idea of the weather we'll have 4 weeks from now. Finishing Jack's jacket and making my vest are definitely the priorities.

4 weeks to go! Hokay, I've got a pile of linen scraps to go iron.

[sheliesshattered]

The shoulder seams on the RRD cosplay are being a bit fussy, so I decided to just put the dress on and clamp the seams closed in the mirror. And since I basted in a temporary zipper at center back (which will eventually be replaced with grommets and lacings) I was able to double check the fit as well. Please forgive the silly mirror pic, but I'm just so pleased with how it's looking, I had to share.

Even though the shoulder seams are only a couple of inches long, they're going to be one of the more difficult seams in the whole project. The fabric has been continuing to fray as I work with it, even with the staystitching -- as can been seen along the bottom edge of the skirt there, too. I cut the skirt a little longer than I needed it knowing that it would fray, and yesterday I gave it a new line of zig-zagged staystitching to hopefully keep it from getting any shorter. I still have plenty of room for the hem, but I'd like to keep it that way.

The shoulders have lost less overall length to fraying, but they're kind of a muddled mess vs how crisp and clear they were when I cut out the fabric. Clamping them gave me an idea of where the seam should be, and I think I'm just going to baste each shoulder seam in by hand, maybe using my muslin mockup as a reference point, then try it on again and make sure it's right before machine sewing the shoulders. It's less than 6" total of shoulder seam, but it's probably going to take most of the weekend, ugh.

On the bright side, I don't need to change the fit of the dress at all (hurrah for fitting during the mock-up phase!) and the fraying hasn't progressed to the point of needing to re-cut anything. I'd much prefer slow, fiddly progress than having to unpick seams and re-do whole panels or any of the other possibilities I was stressing over when I couldn't sleep last night, lol.

I tried on the necklace with the dress just to see, and the neckline is definitely still a bit too high, but I'll fiddle with that once the shoulder seams are finalized. And too high is way easier to deal with than too low, especially with all the fraying going on.

Yesterday I figured out how I want to finish the inside of the sleeve seams and got started on that handsewing. It's going to take awhile, but it'll be worth it, I think. When I first tried on the lined sleeve, I was a bit worried that I'd cut them too small, especially at the elbow. But on closer inspection it's really just an issue of the silk organza standing straight up inside the sleeve, poking me in the arm and taking up extra room. Once that's felled down, I think it'll fit much better, and be significantly less itchy.

For the dress itself, I think the order of operations will be to get the shoulder seams figured out and finished, then face the armscyes, then face the neckline, lowering each as necessary. I can't really start figuring out placement for the grommets until those edges are finished, and possibly the neckline trim applied too. And I can't put the neckline trim on until the narrow seam-line trim is applied, at least the bits that go up over the shoulders. So really I may have the temporary zipper basted in for quite awhile, but that back opening is all faced and finished, so there's no worries about fraying there, at least.

14 weeks plus one weekend until I need to pack up for Dragon Con, but work weirdness allowed me to get a lot more done this week than I have in previous weeks. Even with lots of handsewing ahead of me, and the fiddly shoulder seams first up, I'm hoping I can keep along at this pace of steady, noticeable progress.