back in the game

Well, I'm back from my epic road trip vacation, and feeling desperately in need of some photo editing software to deal with my nearly thousand photos. Because you know the scrapbook from this is going to be monster-sized. On the plus side, I think I've figured out a way to do it less expensively. I really like the weathered-looking papers (such as this one from BasicGrey). But I have no idea how much paper I'm going to need, and it's hard to find more than a couple papers from each company in the stories around here. Plus with the color scheme I have in mind, it'll be really hard to find papers that are both subtle enough and match each other.



So I stopped at JoAnn's yesterday to get a coat pattern (in keeping with the Wardrobe Refashion pledge, and as a result of frustration with coats that are never long enough for my arms and still fit everywhere else, I'm going to attempt to make my own winter coat this year to replace my battered, worn and torn leather one. Yes, I tore a leather coat. The upper sleeve somehow got punctured by the screen door handle, and I still can't figure out how I did it. It's being held together by glue.) I just hope I can get it warm enough. Anyway, the point of that ramble was, while I was there, I found this DIY distressing kit, and was able to get it for a decent price thanks to the 40% off coupons. I already have a ton of craft paint, so I think I'm just going to get packs of cardstock in the colors I want (easier to match anyway) and go nuts with destroying it. (And I also got props from the cashier guy for my Nintendo shirt, and it's always fun to get compliments on the stuff I make.)



In the meantime, I'm back to working on my dress. After two episodes of Doctor Who and an episode of Eureka (almost caught up on what I missed while I was away!) and a lot of hand-basting and trying it on, I have a completed muslin, based off of Butterick 6406:

The slightly bluish lines on the right side of the picture are due to me scribbling over all the seams on that side with a highlighter so I can just trim the muslin down to seam allowance size from there. I've decided that the next step is going to be cutting out the underdress after all, so I can be working with the actual dress for the chiffon in case I need to tweak anything else. And though the fit is pretty close overall, I needed to make a few adjustments (trim the armhole, add another dart) that I only did on one side, so that's what I'll be taking the pattern from. So tomorrow's plan is probably going to be starting the ripping out process.