2022 Christmas production

A small smattering of pics from the weekend.  The cast picture is from after the 'curtain call rehearsal'...and we're mostly in the bible robes from the nativity finale.  The folks who weren't in the finale are in their...whatever scene they were in costumes, so it is a little anachronistic, lol.  I was ONLY in the finale, because we were short on tenors and I could fill in.    Our Time-traveling Scrooge character was really pleased with his costume; he wanted to keep the cape, lol.  The fabric damage didn't really show up under the lights so all was good.

Now all we have to do is clean and sort and store the costumes for next time.  Rumor has it we will be doing a fairly big Easter production so I kinda think I'm going to have to start sewing Bible costumes.  We just BARELY squeaked out enough for this go.

But first, Christmas.  And sleep, lol.

 

Moving on...

 No pics, more's the pity,  but I did get the waistband on that skirt today.  It was a massive wrestling job and it turned out...acceptable for stage, lol.  The fabric is a wiry poly rayon blend and it does. not. gather. well.  

I actually carted the skirt with me to My Sweet Babboo's  physical therapy appointment; it took nearly the entire time to gather and pin the skirt to the waistband  Sewing the channel for the drawstring was...not fun.  The bulky waistband seam allowance kept wanting to flip up under my presser foot, so I had to try and hold that out of the way while simultaneously pulling the elastic in the waistband out to match the waistband.

It is functional but not pretty. 

I have two more skirts to make from that fabric but for the next one, which I cut out before I quit for the night, I shaved 20" off the top of the skirt.  It will still have 180" sweep, but I tapered the front side seams 5" on each side.  The center back is still just cut on the selvage, but the other two seams will taper down.  20" less fabric to wrestle into the waistband should be a little easier to manage in this stuff.  It may end up looking more Edwardian walking skirt than Dickens but  I don't have time to wrestle with these things.  I just didn't have the right type of fabric to make it.

I have pulled out my Bible costume; I did make the blocking rehearsal so I know what I am doing for the final choral scene.  All I have to do know is learn the tenor part for the song...guess I will make the vocal rehearsal Thursday.

Planning to take some time off of work this week to sew, but I have to chauffer the Recovering One to two doctor appointments tomorrow.

We'll see how things go.

Blew that one...

Welp, I found myself with more skirts to sew after our last-few-folks fitting on Saturday, so last night I was pushing hard to finish the skirt I already had started.  

I had zig-zagged dental floss to the top for gathering, and even gathered a fair amount up.  So I took a deep breath and forged ahead, pushing five yards of rather wiry fabric into gathers around the 45" waistband.  Took my time sewing it and decided it looked good enough, so I cut off the long tails of dental floss that were hanging about.

Then I found that I had put the opening in the waistband, through which the final touch of the drawstring will go, on the center back seam instead of at the front of the center panel.  Too bad, so sad, not redoing it.

Then I set about threading the elastic through it.  And discovered that I should have given myself a wee bit of wiggle room; I had cut the waistband exactly 2x elastic + seam allowances.  With the really bulky gathers, I lost some space and the channel in the waistband was a little too skinny in places.

Minor problems; I forged on.

And found that the doggone elastic would rather fold in half than deal with a too-skinny casing.

I wrestled with it, trying to get it to lay somewhat flat, and even started topstitching the drawstring channel, brute forcing it to stitch close to the seamline.

Then I realized that the elastic had dodged the stitching and instead of being caught and sewn flat, was folded in half. Again.

At that point I realized it just was NOT going to work, so I removed the waistband altogether, wrestled the elastic out and sliced a very slim bit off at the join, pulled out what was left of the gathering dental floss at that point, cut another waistband a half inch wider and went to bed.

Went to work today, and DS the Elder (AKA the Artist) came by after work to help put Christmas lights on the porch eaves, since My Sweet Babboo is still in shoulder-surgery-recovery mode.  And he also brought us our Christmas present...some wifi speakers so we can listen to the same music throughout the first floor of the house at Christmas, which he also set up for us ("I love doing stuff like this" he commented as he opened up the boxes).  It sounds fantastic when we have stuff streaming through it; I just have to load Spotify on one of my old phones or tablets, create some playlists and we will be set.

Then I heated up the rest of the Thanksgiving leftovers...that I haven't already put in the freezer...and we polished them off.  So I am actually going to have to cook something tomorrow, lol.

I should have headed upstairs and faced the mess again but...Cyber Monday... I had to go hunting for  a couple of things.  DS the Younger (AKA The Actor) did some streaming so I watched him as I perused the electronic aisles, and I decided to tackle a project that has been waiting for nearly a year.  

I got a cotton sweater on sale from Lands' End last year... a subtle Christmas sweater.  It was tan with knitted in evergreen trees...nearly missed getting a pic before it sold out but this is it...

It was backorded when I  submitted my order in late October of last year, supposed to be delivered in early December if I remember right. Delivery kept getting pushed back...I think I got in in February of this year.   It fit well, it was super comfy (like all the Drifter sweaters) and I loved the barest hint of 'Christmas Sweater' in the knitted-in tree shapes BUT the color is a lot more ...yellow/beigey... in person and it looked ghastly on me.  What to do, what to do...

Rit dye to the rescue.

So, as kind of a palate cleanse after the disaster yesterday...I am dyeing the sweater tonight. It's been through the dye bath and is now in the post-dye wash cycle; I was shooting for a deep blue-green color and I *think* that's what I have.  Won't know for sure until it's dry, but it will be a much better color for me than the beigey-tan it was to start with.

I have to work 4 hours tomorrow and take My Sweet Babboo to therapy, but I think I'll be ready to face that waistband...

I'll post a pic of the sweater after it's dry.

In which she encounters problems

 

...and no, it's not just the fact that the kitty wants to sit on exactly the thing I'm working on...

This is the pattern I started with for the cloak for our time-traveling Scrooge character.  I intended to just use one shoulder cape, but otherwise I wanted the same.  I made one years ago when we were doing the Gospel According to Scrooge.  I never saw it after that production.  Dunno  what happened to it...

Anyway, I had something close to 6 yards of brown poly moleskin...it's a heavy, drapey, sueded fabric with a satiny back.  It was quite popular, you know, fifteen or so years ago.  Can't find it anywhere now.

HOWEVER...today...I pulled out the pattern and, instead of having 3 actual shoulder capes, it has ONE..the other two faux capes are flounces sewn directly to the main cloak.  So I couldn't just use the longer one, as I'd planned.  I couldn't remember what I did with the first one (it was 2005 when I made it...) but I figured I probably just added onto the actual top layer; it was the only one of the short cape pieces that was cut out. Simple enough to do. 

So I pulled out the brown fabric that had been in storage at church since 2005.  We'd made some short ladies' capes from it, but there was a goodly bit left.  Just rough measuring it before I brought it home, I thought it was close to 6 yards.  Turns out it was 5 3/8...and it was a scant 45" wide.  Oof.  I couldn't put the main cloak pieces on a folded piece of fabric; I was going to have to cut them one at a time.  And the cloak pieces by themselves required 54" of  length. So, not including the top cape, the collar or the collar stand, I needed 6 full yards.  Shortening the cloak really wasn't an option...remember, our Scrooge actor is 6'4".  I didn't want the cloak to hit his knees.

What to do, what to do.... I abandoned the sewing room for a time, doing a frantic internet search for ANY black or brown fabric that had a nice drape and found absolutely nothing.    My go-to fabricdotcom has been assimilated into the Amazon abyss, and somebody needs to tell the folks at Amazon how to make filters so you can actually find something.  Fashonfabrics club was also a fail.  I didn't want wool fabric..1) $$$ and 2) moths... and there was just nothing in a drapey poly or poly rayon blend to be had.  So I had to make do.

Well, I *could* fit the pieces all on the fabric if I ignored the fact that there is a nappy, sueded surface and just count on the lighting to hid the difference in the shading.  We had to have SOMETHING.  So, I figured I'd go ahead and make up what I have, and keep an eye open for some wider fabric to make a last minute switch if possible.

Then, when I was laying the pattern out, I noticed that one selvedge of the fabric looked odd.  Backed away from it and...it looks like water had soaked all up on only one side, leaving a wavy border that extended as much as 7" in from the edge the entire length of my fabric and was devoid of the nappy surface.  It's the weirdest thing.  I can't imagine what could have done that.   But I had already looked for replacement fabric so...I decided to just keep going, and then run the thing through the laundry. Mayhap if it's just that it got wet and soaked and dried flattened, a trip through the washer and dryer would revive it.  

Maybe.

So I got about halfway through it before I ran out of bobbin thread on the sewing machine and decided to call it a night.  If I can get it finished in time, I'll run it up to the rehearsal tomorrow afternoon and see how it looks in movement.  It may not matter if the nap isn't quite right.

Maybe.

One down, ??? to go...

 As I have heard MANY of the contestants on The Great British Sewing Bee exclaim, 'I am chuffed!'    I sewed on ALL the buttons whilst waiting on My Sweet Babboo at physical therapy today.  They are blind buttons; the vest actually closes with velcro and has a little wiggle room for fit, although the stripes won't line up quite so nicely if it isn't fastened up perfectly.  

I have to admit...after looking at the photos I posted of the vest-in-process, I decided the pockets were marked too high, and I moved them down about 3/4".  Basted everything in and made sure it was all on point, then took a deep breath and sewed the box for the pockets.  Had to redo one about three times because I kept catching the end of the welt, but once I had verified that everything was stitched right I slashed through and just kept going.

Since I put a muslin of it on our actor playing the Scrooge character I'm fairly confident it will fit.  

It's going to be Friday before I can have a block of time in the sewing room again.  The caped cloak is next...

Back in the Costuming Zone...

 Four weeks from LAST night, the 2022 Christmas production opens.

Yeah, I'm just a little anxious.  Life has been very busy.   My Sweet Babboo had shoulder surgery last month and he needed more repair and so has a lot more of a recovery than I did.  He's not going to be driving for at least another 3 -4 weeks, so I'm doing the chauffer thing just about daily.  Working from home to minimize the to-and-froing,  I also scaled back my costuming commitment...someone else is handling the Costume Mistress role for this production, I am kind of organizing the opening scene, which is a play-within-a-play Dickens scene.  I expect to be making a bunch of little girl pantalets at some point but for now I have a specific assignment.

One of our main characters is a time-traveling Ebenezer Scrooge...long story.  Last year, the part was played by a guest actor who had his own costume.  But he's unavailable this year; he's traveling with a production called 'The Ebenezer Experience'...if you get a chance, it's worth seeing.  So...one of our own will play the part this year.  So he needs a costume.  And he's 6'4" tall...so we had nothing in our stash that worked.  So 'tis my job to get something for him to wear.

He's providing his own pants and shirt, so I'm working on the vest and cloak.  And, as the gimmick used for time travel is a pocket watch, the vest must have functional welt pockets.

I had been picking up costume patterns over the years whenever Hancocks (RIP) had a Big Sale, and I pulled a pattern from the collection that really looks rather hideous on the envelope photo

but had a suitable starting point for a vest.

I'm using view B, but I altered the neckline considerably.  In addition to making it about 3" longer, lol.  I also added a center back seam and a slight curve to the upper back after fitting a first pass muslin.

The fabric came from one of the other ladies on the costuming team...she has an upholstery business and this was a remnant.   I had to make an emergency trip to Joann's for lining and paid a truly ridiculous price for some poly lining...I couldn't manage to pull one of the '40% off any full price fabric' up on my phone in a timely manner; apparently I had to have a password for the app to do that. I'd made the run to the store while My Sweet Babboo was doing his physical therapy so I was on a time crunch.  I gritted my teeth and paid for it, and grumbled all the way home.  Grumbled more when I cut it out, but what ya gonna do?  They're the only fabric store in town.

Took me three tries to get the welts right; first ones came out too small, even though the pattern measured right.  I did an envelope-style welt so I'm guessing something happened with the diagonal seams.  Block fused interfacing to another piece of fabric to cut longer welts and cut the first one out upside down (the stripe order matters).  Fused another piece and recut that welt a third time.

I have absolutely everything done on the vest I can do other than the welts.  The lining/ facing assembly is constructed, the vest back has the tie ends attached...I'm gonna hafta take a deep breath and tackle the welts.  I cut them with the stripes going horizontally, so I'm going to have to sew them exactly right or the stripes will show the boo boo.  But I've got to sew it with the lining on top of the welt, so it's going to be blind.     Gonna do that tomorrow...when I'm a little fresher than I am at past midnight, lol.

Once that's done, it's just a matter of bagging on the lining and adding the velcro closure and the just-for-show buttons, which I don't have yet.

After this, it's a cloak for him.  I have nearly six yards of fabric; I'm going to make a cloak with a short cape and a collar.  I hope.  The fabric is narrow; each piece, except hopefully the collar, will need a length of fabric.  So it's gonna be close.

After that, I have some skirts to make up...and then possibly the bloomers.  We'll see.

Costume check will likely be three weeks from tomorrow.  I'm running out of time.