Disney, Epcot
Today, (Friday) we decided to go to Epcot in the morning and do some rides in hollywood studios.
The main thing that stands out in Epcot is the topiary
This is just a selection of what they have, it just seems that if it is a disney character they have cut a plant into the shape of it.
They also had a water/fountain feature.
They have an area around the back that has various country setups, London, Paris, and so on.
We then went back to Hollywood Studios to see the Indianna Jones Stunt spectacular, and movie history ride.
Sorry it is a bit blurry, the Stunt Spectacular wasn’t exactly what we were expecting, there were the stunts which were amazing, what we weren’t expcting was all the ‘show’ crap that went with it, I suppose that it does make it more of a show but it did get in way of our enjoyment. As far as I can work out they were pretending that they were at the actual filming of raiders. The stunts the were done were the boulder scene from the beginning, then the kidnapping scene from the bazaar and the one at the areodrome where Indy fights the Large man while Marion is trapped in the plane.
The Great Movie Ride experience was also not what we expected, what it was, was a ride through lots of sound stages with set up of certain famous scenes, such as Gene Kelly swing round a lamp post from Singing in the Rain and the farewell scene from Casablanca. Some of the Animatronics were quite similar to the actual actor and others not so much. I don’t know what Simon was expecting, but I was expecting a more interative experience with video and more of a walk through the history of the movies, instead of just one dodgy movie set after another.
We completed day three with takeaway Pizza.
Disney, Hollywood Studios
Last night we went to the Red Lobster for dinner and I had Lobster tail and half order of snow crab legs which were delicious, Simon had the Ultimate Feast which consisted of Lobster tail, snow crab legs and two types of shrimp. we did have a bit of drama, while cleaning the butter off my hands my wedding ring and engagement ring just popped off and fell on the floor. My Wedding ring I found immediately, my engagement ring not so much, the staff were very helpfull and took the bench seat apart to find it.
Both rings are back on my hand, and if we go back to the Red Lobster my Rings are staying at home.
We started the day with brekfast at Dennys
Disney, Hollywood Studios….
Hollywood Studios was every thing we expected it to be, it was great to walk round, lots of things to see and take photos of.
Mickey, obviously was everywhere, but there were sections for StarWars, The Muppets and Indianna Jones, to mention a few.
At either end of one of the roads was a mock up of San Francisco at one end and New York at the other
‘Star wars’ shot for Denise
Epcot and a few rides tomorrow, (i might even catch up with my days, at the moment I’m one behind.
Disney, The Magic Kingdom
Day one:-
We spent a lot of time in the car today, there were a couple of things that we had to do, we need to go to the Virgin offices ( do they never get tired of wearing red?) and register the Villa.
We then had a late breakfast at Dennys
we decided to do The Magic Kingdom first.
it turns out that one of the problems with my little panasonic camera was that the SD card in it wasn’t fast enough, as you can see it had no problems taking these photos while moving…
Once at the carpark you get on a little tram which takes you to the ticket offices, where I was complimented on my dress, not blogged about yet.
we took the ferry instead of the monorail, over to the actual Magic Kingdom.
The Magic Kingdom, at first sight is everything you think it is going to be, it is only after you have walked around for half and hour or so that you realise that something is missing, or rather not living up to my expectations. I suppose that i thought there would be Disney characters around every corner, and there isn’t.
Don’t get me wrong, it is an amazing spectacle, the time and effort that has be put into one of the most well known theme parks, probably in the whole world.
One thing I was impressed with apart from Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, was how clean and well organised it was.
Hollywood studios tomorrow….
Disney, Florida
Well our Florida holiday started yesterday, 8 hours on a Virgin areoplane, we decided to go Premium Economy, very good decision and one I would highly recommend. The main reason being the amount of extra leg room available, the meals served on china is a bonus and the constant bringing round of drinks is a plus as well but on a 9 hour flight the extra space priceless. to put it into context, a Premium Economy row had four seats in two set of two, where economy had six seats per row. So not only did we have more leg room we had more space in general.
Getting our baggage out of the airport was a bit of a palava, we picked them up off the first carousel, then they were taken off us again so they could be sent to the main building, where we then had to wait around another 20 mins for them to arrive.
we picked up the car and Simon then proceeded scare the shit out of me, when driving out the carpark, he drove in front of a pillar as he was supposed to and i wasn’t expecting the car to be at that angle, ( I suppose to be fair I scared Simon with my yelp of fear)
45 minutes later we arrived in one peice at the Villa, which is very light and airy, it has four bedrooms, an open plan living space and a pool.
pictures to come later.
Butterick 7240
This is the ‘companion’ dress to Vogue 8781, they are only companions as the fact I’m making them together.
I also have this pattern, bought while I was in the phase of (what difference is there between a kimono sleeve dress and a set in sleeve dress) I still haven’t laid them side by side, but I’m sure I’ll get around to it sooner or later.
As I stated in my previous post I love this dress, it is totally impractical for wearing to work, especially with the office chairs on wheels, but if it gets hot enough I might just throw caution to the wind and wear it anyway.
This pattern is advertised on the packet as a long bodied dress, it has a front and back panel which runs the entire length of the dress, and you add two side skirt panels at hip height to give the skirt a lot of fullness over the hip. The back panel has a center zip.
I have machined the two front pieces together and the both the back pieces, I have even put in the zip, (unfortunately that will have to come out, as it isn’t sitting right)
Each side skirt consists of two pieces, they are also stitched together, all are waiting for the iron….
as you can see by this picture the hip inserts are long enough to wrap round my body as is.
it has one of those collars that is part of the front bodice then wraps around to the back, leaving a small stand at the back and a flappy collar at the front, more photos on that as I make it
Vogue 8781
Howdy, after realising that there is only two weeks left before our holiday and I haven’t managed to do nearly as much sewing as I expected, I’m panicking slightly, so I thought I would just make a couple of dresses that I knew fit, and worry about the new patterns after the holiday. so I picked Vogue 8781 and Butterick 7240, I love both of these dresses, the Butterick one so much that I also bought the version with the proper sleeves (set in rather than kimono) the version I am making is the kimono sleeved one.
First mistake, the vogue one is 32 bust and as it is a little bit tight I thought I would extend it a bit, it is now too big. The bodice detailing a beautiful on this dress so I thought I would share some photos before I take it apart and try again.
the bodice instructions
If you look closely you can see the pattern markings
if you look closely in the circle you can see the small triangle stitched in
small triangle cut out
Here it is turned the right way out the next thing to do is to stitch it over, then you have a lovely detail/bust shaping.
Hopefully more later…..
Sewing Table
Hello, Easter weekend and Simon has decided that the first thing he want to do (get out of the way)is my new Cutting table, as I remarked in one of my previous posts we had all the bits they just needed to be screwed together.
We didn’t actually have all the bits, but a quick drive to B&Q fixed that. We bought the base, castors and fixing blocks.
I had already put together the Kallax units, Simon just went round and tightened up all the joints so they were all flush with the top.
He set the units up on a spare peice of wood that we had so he had a firm base to work with as the end unit wasn’t quite as wide as the two units together he centered the one on the end, now he says he wishes he had lined it up with the front, his original thought was to make it reversable.
after some careful measuring he screwed the base on so that all the units were held together by 1/2 inch board.
Then we had a discussion as to whether we should screw the wheels on first or just turn it over, he decided to put the wheels on first we decided on 6.
Simon enjoying a cup of tea before continuing the build
After turning the unit over onto it’s wheels, Simon straped the two pieces of the top together
As Simon had decided to use corner brackets to attach the table to the base units he decided that this could hold them together. He had initially thought to use another bit of board to hold the structure together but looking at it on its wheels he thought it would make it too high.
Simon added a couple of white fixing blocks to give the top added stability and there my new table was all lovely and screwed together.
I can pull the table out when I want to walk all the was round, it’s a bit hard to start but once it gets moving it is all right, the only thing we aren’t sure about is if I’ll be able to use my sewing machine on it. The table is great for standing at and cutting out patterns which is what I wanted it for, I was fed up with kneeling on the floor, but might be too high for sitting at, but as I pointed out to Simon there is plenty of room at what is now my new computer desk (old sewing table) for me to put my sewing machine on if I find it is too high to be comfortable.
Vogue 7966
I promised you more stitching and here it is, well sort of, I have cut out a new dress, the fabric is a nice cotton, purple with white polka dots, bought from Kayes Textiles here in sunny Southend (technically it might be Westcliff but wet Westcliff doesn’t sound as good a Sunny Southend)
I haven’t made this pattern before, I got it as part of a job lot on ebay, it is a bit weird though, I am missing a pattern piece (the gusset) but I have a left front pattern piece extra. of course it wasn’t until I cut out the skirt pieces that I realise that there was a bit missing, when I looked at the bits I checked for the skirt pieces, the bodice and the facings, check, check and check. it wasn’t until I was cutting out the bodice that I realised there was an ominous slit under the arm.
I’m going to try the print enlarging technique from last year, failing that as long as I can work out how long the under sleeve part is hopefully I can work my way back to getting a shape, I think if it had been a long sleeved dress it would have been easier, because you have all the variables, but with a pentagon you are a little bit stuffed.
This Pattern is actually a size too small for me a 32 rather that 34 which I usually use, but as I am small busted I can sometime get away with it, to combat the missing 2 inches I’ve added roughly 2/8 inch on the sides of the patterns and will hope for the best.
I actually wrote this post last week, since then I have recreated the gusset peice and attempted to fit it, needless to say, it didn’t go well, what hasn’t helped is that while putting it on my dress makers dummy, I have realised that my fabric choice is so wrong so very, very wrong. I’m not sure that the dress will actually be wearable even if I manage to fit the gusset.
What? I hear you say is wrong with the fabric choice, you can’t go wrong with polka dots, you can if the pattern is quite boxey to start off with and then you have the dots going straight across, making it look even squarer, if I had put them on the slant it might have been alright but I’m not convinced.
A polka dot skirt might be nice and I can use the top half for perfecting the insertion of the gusset.
Princess dresses, never too old?
As I was travelling to work this morning I saw a family walking into town, the two girls were wearing princess dresses, I’m assuming Frozen as that was the colour, the older (8ish) one had leggings on the younger (5ish) one had a longer coat on.
It lead me to thinking, at what age do we decide that it is too impractical to wear princess dresses all day long and is it this wish to look pretty and wear swishy skirts what lead most of us to the 1950s with the Dior New Look patterns?
Out of the dresses that I have made, I love the ones with the big skirts and the little details on the bodices but they are the ones that are worn less and when I do wear them it isn’t with net underskirts partly because I don’t own one, and every time I try to make one the cats appear to like eating and clawing at them, but mainly because although I spend most of my time sitting at a desk it isn’t the done thing to wear pretty, swishy dresses to work.
Of course growing up in the 70s Disney hadn’t worked out a way of marketing princess dresses en mass to the UK, if they had my sister and I would have had them, not real ones of course but my Mum and Aunts were all experienced dress makers (I had a fake EMU to prove it)and my Mother made a lot of our clothes. So maybe I’m making up for a lack of princess dresses in my formative years, I do know that I’m drawn to the patterns with the bigger skirts, but still feel slightly uncomfortable wearing for everyday.
Musings
Hi, I’m not sure where march has gone, like a lot of other people I know, I have spent part of it ill, not flat on your back can’t move ill but generally sore throat, blocked nose can’t get up the enthusiasm to do any thing ill.
We, that is Simon and I have spent the last week at home on leave, we began our ‘holiday’ by visiting my Sister in Derbyshire, I think it was Simons excuse to drive his new car or an excuse to see my niece who turned two the beginning of the month.
It was a lovely weekend, we arrived late Friday night, and sat up talking for a couple of hours, then up early Saturday morning, my niece was a bit snuffly and cuddly, but apparently that is best for cuddles. we took her present with us, as soon as she saw The Gruffalo’s Child DVD she lost total interest in anything else and toddled off to the living room to put it on.
We went to Calke House for lunch, if you like stuffed animals it is a must see, there are lots of other things to see but I thought it particularly sad at the state the upper floors had been allowed to get into with peeling wallpaper and blown plaster, the weekend we went they had a lambing day, Simon was over the moon, apparently he loves lambing.
The rest of the week we have spent throwing things away and tiding up, Monday I threw out six bags of rubbish and Wednesday we took about 15 bags of stuff to the local charity shop. The upshot of this week is that we are both happier with the state of the house and I nearly have a new cutting table.
I’ve discovered that the older I get the less inclined keep stuff I am, a lot of the things that have been removed from the house this week a couple of years ago I was adamant that I couldn’t do with out them, now I can’t wait for them to go.
I can show you a pictures of my new cutting table which Simon hasn’t completed yet…all the component parts are here they just aren’t screwed together. While surfing the internet, I came across Horn Furniture, while it looks good it is hideously expensive. I also came across pictures of three Ikea Kallax units put together with a top and sometimes wheels on the bottom, after showing Simon he said “I can do that.”
The upshot is that I lost one chest of drawers and a computer desk and gained a cutting/ sewing table.
I’ve moved a single book shelf unit to sit with the others, it just clears the light switch,
and moved my existing sewing table into the corner vacated by the computer desk and book case,
taken apart my expedit units, the 4 hole unit sitting next to the table and the 8 hole unit sitting on its side were the sewing table used to be, my new cutting table is taking up the space emptied by the chest of drawers.
Although it has just as much furniture in it, the room now has more storage space and because it is all lower the room seems bigger.
Fluffy is making use of the extra carpet to put fur over a lot bigger area..
As you can see by the black and pink bags, I’m still tidying up.
I’m hoping to actually get some sewing done soon, it might just be a another Gerties Shirtwaist dress but it would be good to get something done.
What about you, are you less attached to things the older you get?
Musings of a Craft Enthusiast 