It's official...there was a bit of hesitation over whether we would do it this year or not, but the decision has been made and auditions are this coming Sunday and a week from tonight.
And we have nowhere at church to set up Ye Olde Dresse Shopppe. Literally the day after the show closed last year, a work crew began ripping out the walls in the area of the church where our costume sewing room/hallway was. It is now a proper carpeted hall with offices on either side...and no sewing space. All the classrooms and offices that were created in the remodel are occupied...there's nowhere there any more. The sewing/cutting that we have done for HMC have all been day projects...carry the stuff in, work like a bandit, then carry it all out. If we have to do that for the duration of the production, it is SERIOUSLY going to limit how much new costuming we can do. We could probably get by with just what we had from last year if we had too, but many of those costumes, being hand-me-downs from a church who did the production several times 15 years ago, are not in very good shape anymore. I *think* they can make it one more run...but they are going to need replacing sooner than I care to think about.
We need a sewing room. I've been over the church a couple of times trying to scout out a place and right now there just isn't any. Our best bet is to clean out a corner of the attic and add some electrical outlets up there...but that's not ideal. Besides the obvious problems of having to carry equipment upstairs, there are large transformers up there that HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM incessantly. I suppose we could just keep a boombox going with music to cover it up (the old Olde Dresse Shoppe was next to the food pantry...which had an electronic rodent repellant that emitted a BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP all the time...constant music made *that* bearable...). But if we have to set up and break down on a daily or every-other-day basis it will cut dramatically into our sewing time. The HMC costumes could've been done by now if we could've set up at church and stayed set up until they were done; it just takes so much longer to carry stuff home and do it. Not very efficient, that.
So here we go...maybe major sewing, maybe just make-do for now. We'll see...
I've been lurking and enjoying your blog. Just thinking, how about meeting at someone's home? Or at a local senior center, church hall, school cafeteria after school, etc. Hope you find somewhere! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteWell, truth be told, meeting is not the problem. We could meet at church...so long as we dismantled all our equipment/set up twice a week and put everything away so the room could be used for other purposes. What we need is a space where we could set everything up and leave it set up until we're done. Setting up/taking down/putting away/cleaning takes so much time that it really slows the whole sewing process down. I'm really hoping I can get non-sewing administrative folks to understand this...but I still don't know where they'll put us.
ReplyDeleteBTW, thanks for saying 'hi!' I like finding out who's stopping by!
Time for the church to buy a little ol' house (with reliable electric), yes? You all do too many productions for the costumer to be searching for a space. In the meantime I've got an article on a portable sewing room (no such thing in my mind) that I'd send you but how to do that?
ReplyDeleteI just put an email link at The Stitchery blogspot if you want to contact me
ReplyDeleteQuote Mary Beth You all do too many productions for the costumer to be searching for a space Yeah! I'm hoping that one of these days that revelation will dawn on someone other than the sewing ladies ;)
ReplyDelete