I didn't do much by way of costuming for this year's Christmas production; back around the end of October I helped find and sort our Bible costumes and I brought home three garments that needed mending/ alteration. The only sewing I did was to take care of those. I thought I had pics of all of them but apparently I just thought I did, lol. The first garment was a green canvas robe that had places where it had fayed out in the seams. It was stiff and heavy...not suitable for a robe, anyway, so I took the sleeves off, opened the front , and extended the armsceyes and turned the whole thing into a vest...vests being something we are ever short on.
Believe it or not, that was the FRONT of the robe; the neckline was lower, although you can't tell from the pic. Both of the other two garments were made from this pattern; the unphotographed one was a black/white/ red glen plaid wool with moth holes. They were two of several garments that have an unknown origin; they came from someplace else, so I have no idea why they were made with the great gaping opening. I rehashed them in a similar manner; opened the front seam, removed the sleeves and opened the side seams down a bit from the underarm I also took off the ties.I shortened the plaid one a bit to remove some of the worst of the moth damage. (Why wool is NOT a good fabric for stage costumes...) Two more vests... I think the greenish one was used in the the finale as well, I am not sure about the plaid one. It would have been good for it, as the finale was a show-within-the-show small church Christmas pageant, but I was not on stage for that and I'm not sure if the plaid vest was needed.
The last thing I created for the production was a stage baby; my own prop. I had the part of Elizabeth, mother of John, and the setting was the bris celebration for John, so we needed something that resembled a newborn from a distance. I wanted the prop to have the heft of a baby, and also the need to support the head area as we (I was double cast and there was another lady who played Elizabeth in half the shows) had to hand 'John' to someone else to hold for a moment. It was obvious from rehearsals that our subconscious needed to BELIEVE it was a baby or we'd slip up in handling him. Just before tech week, I got an idea and threw something together...
The sawdust pressing ham I inherited from my grandmother, some BB-filled pattern weights wrapped up in a pressing cloth, a square of linen, a baby blanket, and some cotton strips. The 'hair' is black Decor 6 thread stitched onto a couple of short lengths of ribbon.
Stage baby was hefty enough to trigger the 'I am holding a baby' response...my arms were sore after the tech week rehearsals and two shows, lol. Someone did bring in a doll with fuzzy hair and the other Elizabeth felt more comfortable using the doll...but I'd practiced with Stage Baby so that was what I used. I didn't want to do anything to change what I did on stage and the doll...felt like a doll.
I grabbed an image from a retrospective compilation from the production that was posted on social media; this is the moment when Elizabeth is describing how John leapt at Mary's voice...
Don't be weirded out by the anachronism; we were playing with time travel in the script, lol.
Not much sewing has happened in 2025, which makes me sad. Hopefully I can manage to get into the sewing room a bit more in 2026. I miss creating....Hope springs eternal!
A happy and creative 2026 to all my friends who stop by here!
