I have figured out yet another way to freak out cats. I wasn't looking for one, per se, but it was a happy accident that I found it. I left a shiny human-shaped skin-sac thing hanging on the linen closet door, and Rabbit came around the corner into the hall and stopped dead in her tracks. She eyed it, and slowly approached, wondering whether this creature was going to reach out and grab her. Naturally, she came to her senses right as I was zooming in with the camera, so I have no proof that she thinks I'm Buffalo Bill, skinning humans for my own nefarious purposes. And she did settle down next to me on the bed in her usual trusting pose, so I guess she's over it now. I have to admit, it does look weird, hanging limply in the hallway.
It took me weeks to pin down my younger daughter to create this shell that will become a personalized dress form. Our schedules so rarely align. But she came by today for a chance to wind down in the hot tub, so I made her stand awkwardly while I covered her torso and arms in duct tape. Yes, there was a t-shirt underneath. I'm not mean or anything. I used far less tape than I expected this to require, and it took far more time to accomplish than I allowed for. I had to leave the arms just roughly shaped, with big green gaps where the t-shirt shows through. I haven't yet taped up the back where it was cut so it could be removed. It needs a lot of finish work to seal it and stuff it and put it on a stand. I will finally have a use for the big bag of polyfill I've been storing in my craft closet for a decade.
The easiest and most cost effective way to create the pattern for the fancy coat I'm making her will be to buy a bunch of cheap muslin and drape it on the form. That way I'm not damaging my good fabric with untested designs. I can find the basic shapes on Pinterest, but none of them are to scale or sized exactly for my kid. The danger with Pinterest, however, is I ended up lost in pages and videos of people who made period costumes, and used boning and cording to make exquisitely detailed pieces, and now I want to make similarly elaborate flourishes. Someone needs to stop me, though. The coat we are recreating is from a comic that is simply drawn. It's more the impression of a greatcoat than the specifics of one. I need to stick with what I'm copying, not add intricacies I will come to hate when they take hours or days to complete.
At least now I can move on to the experimentation phase. I have roughly six weeks to put this one together. Let the games begin.
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