<looks around>

I guess I’m done.

(Except for ironing.)

I’ll quit posting costuming updates pretty soon, I promise. Some of you will be disappointed. More of you, I suspect, will be relieved.

Accomplished yesterday: four more buttons, seven pair hooks and eyes (actually eight pair, as I had to take one set off and sew it back on), lots of topstitching my coat, and the waistband of my pants. Still to do: pants buttons (which will finish the waistband; may or may not involve buttonholes), vest collar, topstitching the armholes of the vest if I have the time.

And ironing the thing, so it will look good.

This may be the only complex project I’ve ever done entirely on my own. My mother assisted with the sleeves of the Morwen dress while she was here last year, and kitsune_zen saved me from the zipper on its skirt; other things I’ve done on my own, but they weren’t this complicated.

At least I get to watch a lot of movies while I work.

Twenty-three down, six to go.

And seven or so hooks and eyes.

And finishing the waistband and cuffs on my pants.

And topstitching the edge of my coat.

And figuring out a collar for my vest.

. . . and probably ironing the whole mess so it looks good.

I’d intended to do my last four coat buttons tonight, but my button-sewing skills went sharply downward all of a sudden, and I decided it was time to stop.

But it’s a good accomplishment for one day. Twenty-three buttons, and seven buttonholes. I have successfully committed buttonhole: it’s a first for me. (The first attempt was during the original Boggan Deathmatch, when moonandserpent‘s velvet vest foiled me utterly. Man, that was a night full of failures for me.)

Sleepytime now. Who wants to bet I dream of buttons?

I’m learning to expect that, when the thing I’m sewing becomes recognizably the thing I’m trying to sew, I may still be nowhere near done. When I last worked on this costume (circa March 11th), my coat looked like a naval coat, minus collar, cuffs, and buttons. Many hours of work later, it has a collar and cuffs, no buttons — because a fair bit of that time was spent on the fiddly little finishing details, like stitching down the edges so they’ll lie flat and the lining won’t peek out. (And I’m not even done with that.) This is the crap that takes forever for little noticeable result, but the garment just looks better with it done.

Buttons will be my next priority, since the coat will look dumb without them, but once they’re on, it will be back to stitching all the rest of the edges I haven’t gotten to yet, finishing my pants, and retrofitting a collar onto the vest; the pattern doesn’t give it one, but in period they had ’em, and like an idiot I forgot I was going to add that on until the vest was done.

Game’s Sunday. Will I be done in time? I had better be. Here’s hoping this doesn’t turn into a Saturday night button-sewing marathon.

At least there aren’t any zippers in my immediate future. It would be a shame to torch my costume, so close to game date.

Oh, and? khet_tcheba is the awesome, yet again. You’ll see why, on Sunday.

A photo of my dressform will do as a costuming icon until I think of something I like more.

For once, I’m getting started on a costume in good time. The Regency game isn’t until April 1st, and I’ve already got the vest and pants already (mostly) sewn, leaving me with the coat.

The coat, and a million and twelve buttons. I should have thought of that before I said I wanted to play a nineteenth-century naval officer.

<subconscious whines, “But it sounded fun! Er, not the buttons part.”>

Assorted thoughts: I really don’t have the body silhouette to pass for a man, what with my hips being bigger than my shoulders. (Caused more by lack of shoulders than pelvic endowment.) Which leads to trouble when the only measurement they give on a men’s pattern is the chest; I basically had to cut different sizes for the top and the bottom, and only figured that out halfway into the cutting. I am, however, getting more confident at modifying patterns. Someday this may lead to me sewing without a pattern, but that day is not today, nor tomorrow. True to form, I’ve made several mistakes so far that required ripping out one or more seams, but I must be getting used to it; I’ve hardly sworn at all so far. Then again, the project is still young, and holds a million and twelve buttons in store for me.

Also? The Horatio Hornblower series is pretty good, though I still think I like Aubrey and Maturin more. Ioan Gruffudd makes me appreciate Hornblower more in the movies than in the books. But I do get a little tired of somebody constatly taking a dislike to him for no good reason, when We the Audience can clearly see that he is noble, clever, loyal, and kind. It is not, however, a flaw that gets all that much in the way of my enjoyment.