Cutting Up

I managed to get two tops from the green silk...the Sewing Workshop Tribeca shirt and Brown Paper Pattern's Basic Shell. Love it when I can stretch that yardage into two useful things! Makes the $$ spent on the fabric not so bad.

Then I met the our Fearless Costume Mistress at the high school to begin the costuming process for Aida. The first project was nine 'bathing dresses'...costumes the 'Nubian women' are wearing when they are captured. We began with Simlicity 8589...a maternity pattern. (I didn't pick it! Neither did Costume Mistress! The director thought it would be a good loose dress pattern....). Anyway, other than a little extra ease in the bust, it was basically just a tent dress, not shaped for maternity (larger front than back, extra length in center front) after all. So we just took some of the fullness out of the skirt and lumped sizes 6-8 into 'small', 10 - 12 into 'medium' and 14-16 into 'large'. One girl is very short; her costumes will all need to be truly petited; the lead girl is very tall...her costumes will all need to be lengthened. But we had four girls who were all about 5'3" and in the 'small' size range, so I shortened the small pattern slightly to use for them.

The fabric for these dresses is mostly very gauzy and sheer; one piece was loftier but loosely woven. So, the dresses will need to be lined. We had a goodly chunk of very nice muslin to use for the lining (no, they will not be washed. Ever.) (No comment), so we folded and cut and refolded and cut and managed to get the four small/short dresses and linings cut before I had to leave to go to church choir practice. I was a bit late to choir, but a crew was to come in with sewing machines just after I left and we wanted them to have something to sew. I used all the muslin we had on those four dresses, so we couldn't go any farther in any case.

There's another work day scheduled for tomorrow from 9 - 3 while the kids are rehearsing; if more muslin is procured today we should be able to finish those dresses and move on.

The next project is another set of 'bathing dresses', but these will be in poly matte jersey and be much more fitted. I have a sneaky suspicion those dresses will turn into the 'lame' shirt project' for this show...we'll see...

But for today, I'm going to see if I can get one of those green silk shirts put together! Gotta have something to wear in choir on Sunday!