totchipanda

Day 6 (Friday): Finished the blouse except for cuff closure. I will likely remove the cuff though because even though I added 1" to the sleeve, it's still WAY too short. I want to revisit the pattern, I had traced it off with the projector so it may not be accurate.

Day 7 (Saturday): Worked on a mock-up of Gertie's ultimate dress book bodice. I started with only shortening it 1" and stitched a long zipper into the back to help really assess the fit. The back was good but the front was a lil funky. I need to put the inch back at CF only, and there was some bust-area funkiness. I started by lengthening all the darts by 3/4" (bust got extended a bit more) and there's still fit issues. I also noted that I'd like to bring the armscye in a titch on top of the shoulder but did not fit a sleeve yet.

Day 8 (Sunday): Decided IT WAS TIME to put the shelf up in the storage closet, so I did! The shelf is 6' tall, and just barely clears the ceiling lol. I accounted for the width and length of the storage bins, but not the height, so the only fabric storage I can put on it rn is boxed. Two of the bins came out and this is a great opportunity to catalogue them, and I decided I'd also like to build a physical book of what I have, so I declined to start it just yet until I could get to a printer and print out some templates to put in a binder.

After, I sewed the backs onto the stays to try it on with some temporary boning in the channels. I could generally lace it shut (a little tight through the waist) but was otherwise happy with the fit, so I removed the lacing strips, narrowed the back/side-back seam by 3/8", and stitched the back. This fabric is thick enough that I think I'd like to punch holes rather than simply opening them, particularly on the busk channel.

Spent the rest of the weekend lumping. I've started watching Farscape again and it's just so good, I don't want to miss too much by doing other stuff. I did do a couple pans full of dishes which was very necessary, and washed my hair. I will shave the side in the next day or two and can then hop in the shower to get all the lil hairs off of my body!

Day 3: did nuffin. Meh.

Day 4: Realized that if I wanted to make the other challenge of a garment from a designer on BlueSky in February, I needed to actually sew the garment that was already cut out. So I spent 45 mins or so stitching the front of the blouse together.

All downtime the past couple days has been "sitting on the couch playing matching games" which is hell on my hands. I also started watching Farscape again (so so so good) (don't know if I even posted about it the first time, which was literally 10 years ago) so at least I've got my "brain entertainment" for the next few weeks sorted.

This morning I walked into the kitchen and looked at the absolute mountain of dirty dishes all over my counters and said "THIS is depression". Not unrelated, I've been out of my anti-depressant for a week already and it's the brain drug that doesn't cause zappies so I haven't been worried about it but also have forgotten to check in with the pharmacy about it except for a 10 second window at random times throughout the day. Well I logged in to my account this morning and it says ready for pick up, so I'm gonna swing by after work today to check on it. And if its not ready, then to please get it anyway bc gd y'all. Thinking about past years and how absolutely awful I've felt, this is still a vast improvement. But. That is not the point. The point is that I need to get my ass to the pharmacy and get this monkey show on the road. Thankfully this ALSO the drug that worked within 4 hours of first taking it so I should get back to baseline soon.

My budget got weird this week due to unexpected concert, but in some also-good news because February is a short month all of my bills that are usually auto-paid in the early part of a month are delayed by a few days. The one that normally comes out on the 2nd is coming out on the 5th, and the one on the 5th is coming out on the 8th. So budget is still weird but it works in my advantage. I told the counsellor that I have a weird relationship to budgeting and hooo boy this is still true!

This week I was stuck at the front desk for a couple day so I didn't have much chance to think about other stuff, including said budget. I also missed the cut-off for that job I was gonna apply to :( Alas!

Birthday part on Friday was so good, she was very surprised and there were lots of laughs. And the doggos!

Saturday I left the house to get coffee cream and otherwise stayed in bed. I had two naps. I put the sleeves for my sweater onto the needles, but they aren't arranged the way I would like for them to be arranged for knitting two-at-a-time, so I put them away for now. I played an hour or so of video games. I played *a lot* of mobile games.

Sunday was much the same, only I moved to the couch. In the morning, I saw that The 100 Day Project was starting NOW!! I've seen a local friend do it before (twice, or maybe it's 3 times now) with cross stitch projects so I was already aware of it and interested. I have put zero thought into it even 24 hours later, but have started with sewing.

While I got coffee cream, i bought another spool of thread. I went with Coats & Clark bc Gutterman only had the large spool. It's not *quite* as rich in colour but it will do. Later I discovered a partially wound bobbin for the Janome so that will help. But did I sew that on Sunday? No, no I did not. I was sorting a few things at the sewing desk and found the Regency stays pieces with the gussets pinned on. Great! I started stitching with the Janome until the bobbin ran out and switched back to the Singer. Jenny did not like the combo of thick fabric + pins, but Beatrice was just fine.

I went to insert the bust gussets and they were just comically tall, and I remembered that I wanted to shorten the stays from the top so I might need to lower the slits anyway. So, I'll wait until I can try it on again before doing it. I only got the hip gussets in and sides sewn to the front. Next up is adding the busk pocket and the non-seamed boning channels, which I will do tonight.

Stays are obviously not going to take me a full 100 days, so I think my project will be to build a habit of sewing every day. I have these days, the dress, a shirt cut out, another shirt planned, trousers planned, culottes, so many things. It's easy to get bogged down and do nothing because where does one even start?? I'll keep it easy for now. A little bit every day.