Sewing, Sleeping, Shingles.

In that order. There has been blog silence because I came down with a lovely case of shingles... on my face. FYI if you even suspect that you are getting shingles, get yourself to a doctor in the first 72 hours. There are antivirals that can cut pain and recovery time greatly. I chalked my extreme tiredness and rash up to a raging case of pms and didn't go in until it hurt to touch my scalp. I still got the antivirals, which did help, but I think I was already nearly at the peak of discomfort, though, it could have been much much worse—shingles on the face/scalp can affect you eye. Luckily, mine did not... well, except for the extremely attractive scabbing I've got going on in my eyebrow. Lovely.

I thought I was on the road back to 100%, but started to feel quite tired again. I decided to keep going to bed early and taking naps when I need them. Shingles can take a while to get over (the internet tells me 2-4 weeks and I think I'm looking at the whole 4 weeks—I'm coming up on the 4th week now), so it's best to just take it easy. 

That being said, I have not lost my momentum with physical activity. I've managed to keep up with my 1800 minute challenge thanks to this lovely website that I am in no way affiliated with but like so much that I am sharing it with you.

www.http://www.fitnessglo.com/

I started the advanced 8 week class schedule a couple of weeks ago and really like it. Fitnessglo is an online fitness class. For $12/month (15 day free trial), I have access to all classes at home and I don't have to waste time going to a gym. There are work outs for all levels (beginner to advanced),  time availabilities (10 to 60 min) and work out type (stretch, strength, cardio, sports drills etc, etc, etc.). I thought that after P90X and turbofire, I would find that this didn't push me enough, but yesterday's workout was incredibly challenging (nearly killed me) so I've changed my tune.

To be honest, I've only ever completely finished one round of turbofire and a round of Chalene Xtreme. I crapped out of P90X with only 2 weeks left because of sheer boredom (and the hour workouts are just too time consuming). Fitnessglo is great because I never have to do the same exact class so I'm never bored, and, though you can do as many classes a day as you want, the 8 week program averages 40-45 min/day so I'm not killing myself—resulting in a much less rampant appetite. It's a much better balance for me personally.

As for sewing, I've been working on two costume dresses for Summer Players:

The one on the left is almost done. I finished the back of the overskirt at the zipper incorrectly and need to fix it before I call it officially finished. I got hung up with the instructions for the dress on the right and had to get some clarification yesterday with the costume designer. I'm sorted out now and will hopefully be able to finish it this week. I don't have to hem them (done at a later date) which eliminates the part of construction where I usually crap-out in enthusiasm. As fun as these are to put together, I'm really looking forward to some selfish sewing. There's a pile of projects that I've been accumulating in my head and I managed to buy more fabric yesterday... all for actual planned projects I swear!

Butterick 5505 View B – I found some really nice vinyl for this.

NewLook 6697 View C or E (Short sleeve - no ties) – in a dark green/purple/gold paisley)

Sorry, no fabric swatches because I'm too lazy to take pictures and besides it's in a prewash at the moment.

Armed with some fitting knowledge from Trena's blog, I feel like I might be able to make this dress without resorting to flinging it across the room in a rage half way through. Plus it looks easy enough that it's won't be a huge time-suck in the event that it doesn't turn out. My fabric is quite stretchy and one review from PR said it ran big so I'm going to measure carefully and might go down a size from my usual 12. I also picked up some clear elastic in anticipation of some boop-gapeage-avoidance. If you've made this let me know how you found it.

I've also recently picked up some interesting fabric from Ikea to make another (this time hooded) Minoru.

I'm hoping to do magical things with pattern placement. 

Next time I post, I hope to have the costumes done and some other projects ready to post—but I make no promises.