Stage Photos

On the last make up day of the school year...The Actor brought home the CD w/the photos from Aida. So I can finally share the costuming photos!

Note: All Photo credits are to Jeff White


First up are the bathing dresses that we began with...first, we altered a maternity jumper, then cut the dresses and linings. But the linings were struck, and the dresses narrowed significantly even beyond the original alterations. We added the side slits so the girls could walk. I altered the patterns and cut all these out, but I did very little sewing on them.


Then, the matte jersey dresses (there are two more that weren't in the photo). The ones that we made, then had to redraft the skirt. I made the brown one and the three in shades of blue, and I applied the trim to the front of Amneris's robe (it was embroidered organza).



These are the chiffon skirts that I hemmed. I can tell that some of the girls didn't get the 'back' of the skirt in the 'back'! You can almost see the cummerbunds I contributed to for the two guards that are standing on the 'floor' level; the girls' arms are exactly in the wrong place! Oh, and check out the silhouettes of guards on either side of the throne; there were a number of scenes that utilized that silhouette look, with different lighting and colors...it was very effective.


















I cut out all the wedding attendants dresses and made 4 of them; I also did the gold lining on the train, although someone else did the hand stitch finish work on the top and bottom edges. I'm still blown away by the fabulousness of that bridal gown!



And, for Grandma, one of the Actor singing his little heart out in 'Like Father, Like Son'. I didn't make any of his costume...that was one of the 'ministers' costumes, but the costumers (There were 35 listed in the program!) all referred to them as 'Jedi Jackets'.

So...that's this year's labor! Who knows what we'll be doing next year; there's a changing of the guard at the magnet school so about anything could happen....

Opening Night Sucess

Considering last week's grueling rehearsal schedule, and the fact that there had already been a performance for middle school students earlier in the day, the show went very well. I could tell the kids were tired, though. After last night's performance, the director called the cast in and, instead of giving notes, told them to go straight home and sleep for 12 hours.

Which The Actor was most happy to do. Me, I think I slept about 10. Which was probably too much, given what I need to do today. It's our annual Father-Daughter banquet at church; I'm wimping on the set up though, in an effort to get laundry within reason and groceries in the larder. I'll be there at 4:30 to serve and clean up, though.

Also, tomorrow is the Artist's 21st birthday, so I have some cake baking to do.

We will be ordering the photo CD, so I'll post pictures of the costumes on stage as soon as we get it. I counted...according to the program, there were 35 people who helped sew/craft costumes.

And every one of 'em was essential!

The Best-Laid Plans...

often don't work out so good.
My plan was to go to choir practice, then go to school to sew tonight.

But, if you notice the time stamp on the post, it's 8:11 PM and I'm at home.

No wheels.

The Princess had a meeting tonight; My Sweet Baboo had to make a sympathy visit to the next town over after choir. I was going to go with him, but The Flute Player is a bit under the weather and stayed home by herself all day. I just couldn't go off and leave her alone all evening too...especially since she really hadn't eaten anything.

My sewing stuff is in the momvan, which, when last seen, was being driven by My Sweet Baboo. There was an attempt at a car switch; dunno if it will work or not. The guess is The Princess will be home first,so MSB was going to switch cars w/her on the way out of town so she'll bring the sewing transport vehicle home with her. Eventually.

So I still don't know if I'll make it to school for any sewing or not. I wasn't in the middle of a project, so I guess the world won't end if I don't make it.

The flared skirts for the knit dresses were found; those were fixed by other people yesterday. I was making sashes...something a couple of the costumes were deemed to need once they were seen on stage. But I left copious notes on what needed to be done to them since I thought someone might want to work on them before I got there.

Opening Night is tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing the show; I know what the costumes were that I worked on but I've only seen glimpses of things other than that stuff.

I'd go to bed, but *someone's* going to have to get The Actor after tonight's rehearsal...at midnightish...so I might as well stay up and head to school as soon as someone gets home with a vehicle.

We are definitely developing our creative problem solving skills... ;)

Murphy's Law at Work

So, I went to the ladies' study night at church, took my daughters home and loaded the momvan w/sewing equipment and headed back to school (learning in the process that Starbuck's closes at 9:30, not 10 PM as I thought. Rats.)

And what did I find out?

1) The chiffon swirl skirts are uneven.

Well, duh. They have elastic waists; the girls had them on as I pinned around them. They were supposed to be on their hips, not their waists, but you know when you push something down to low hip it's going to sit higher in the back than in the front. Not even considering that more length will be required to go over the booty.

So, the simple elastic waist skirts now have a definite front and back.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it....although I may need to whack the longer bit on a couple. I *was* pinning them in the dark theater. And it is bias cut poly chiffon. ;)

But that's not the worst thing. D'ya remember those knit dresses? The ones that needed a redesigned skirt? Four of them had been cut with the narrower skirts, and two of those four were in the batch of dresses that I handed off to another mom to sew. Unfortunately, by the time I handed them over I'd completely forgotten that those two dresses had two skirts cut. So I didn't give her a heads up to make sure the fuller skirt pieces were the ones she used.

You guessed it.

2) The wrong skirts were put on the dresses and we didn't realize it until all the girls were onstage last night. And we can't find the remnants of fabric that *should* contain the correctly cut skirt pieces.

Surely I didn't throw them away...I didn't throw many of the scraps away at all; just the teeny useless pieces. I don't think. But, well, it was a long time ago and I was cutting those out at night; in fact, those were the skirts I had to re-cut the re-cut because I'd made a boo-boo on my math and didn't get them short enough. But if they don't turn up, we'll be cutting new skirt pieces.

Just goes to show it's always somethin'....

Oh, someone found a little rule in the City Schools Handbook that said if kids were kept at school past midnight for a school function they were automatically excused from the first three classes the next day. So the kids were dismissed at 11:45 last night. But I was taking apart one of the knit dresses, so by the time I got to a decent stop point and loaded up it was 12:30.

Which was still earlier than I expected.

ZZZZzzzzzzz.....

'Week of Intensity"...day 2

Last night was a surprisingly early night; the kids were released shortly after 10. Tonight, however, has already been pegged as the 'come ready to stay late' night.

I did finish my assigned task last night, though...I had to shorten 5 skirts that are worn by 'ex*otic dancers'...they're swirl skirts (aka 'banana skirts'...those long skirts with the curved gores), mostly made from poly chiffon. They were about 6" too long, since they were drafted to fit at the waist and these are all worn at the low hip.

Originally, the lower edges were just pinked, but with them actually dragging the ground the pinking didn't deter the raveling at all. So I put them on the girls, marked them at ankle length, cut 'em off and rolled the edges on my serger.

They're still woefully uneven...but I think part of that may be that the back of the skirts required more length to go over the backsides. So they'll have to pay attention and put them on with the longer part in the back. Does it look good? Not on your life. Will it work? They'll be moving around for the all of maybe five minutes they'll be onstage in these skirts...it's Good Enough!

But now that that's done, I have no idea what I'll do when I go over after our ladies' night at church tonight. Guess I'll be surprised ;).

'Week of Intensity'

Well, the official unofficial nickname for what is officially 'Tech Week'...the last week of rehearsals before the show opens...is 'H*ll Week'.

Today I thought, "I don't need to speak that negativity over the process."

So in my vocabulary, anyway, this is going to be 'The Week of Intensity'.

I probably won't post much; my projects are not going to be big, noteworthy items anyway. They'll be things like adding 1 1/2" and some wiggle room to a fitted jacket or sewing on snaps.

And it'll all be late; except for tonight, I'll be heading over to the school after some other evening event. But, rehearsal won't be over till 12ish anyway, so I might as well sit at school and sew on snaps and whatnot as sit around home waiting on The Actor to call before making the 20 minute trip to school.

For those who are interested, Here's the article in our local paper about the production and the director.

I'll drop by when I can... ;)

Return of Lame'

I sewed at school Tuesday night and finished my share of the knit dresses; even got elastic threaded through the backs. Each one needs to be adjusted to fit the girl, and they still need either snaps or buttons (Placement to be determined by a fitting), so I've got them as done as I can get 'em.

So it's on to a new project. I *wish* I'd had the camera with me the day they were fitting the costumes initially...this is a heavy white satin wedding dress that was found at a local thrift store. It had some stains on it (you can see where they've been, um, 'whited out' if you look closely), and it has already been embellished a bit (the gold and white sparkly stuff...the lace is original), but, ohmygoodness, what a fabulous dress this was in its day! It fits the actress like a glove; fitted with french darts that begin very low on the hips and curve up; there are about 3 darts at the elbow of the sleeve for ease there. There's no label in it; I don't know where it came from.



















It also has a watteau (did I spell that right?) train...attaches to the shoulders. It's the same white satin, pleated into the shoulder attachment and underlined with nylon net on the back to give it enough stability and structure to stand out. But the back side was just that net. No lining. The job *I* got was to line the train w/gold lame'.

I didn't have a good cutting surface, so consequently the bottom of my 'lining' isn't as even as I'd like (sorry I didn't get a photo! We were rushed right at the end of the evening). I folded the train along the CB seam, then put the hemmed side edges on the selveges of the folded lame' and trimmed away a wedge of the lame', angling out to the bottom, following the seam on the train. Then split the lame' on the fold from where the angle ran off the edge to the bottom. From the wedge I'd cut at the top, I cut a godet that I inserted into the bottom on the on-grain cut portion. That made enough flare for the sweep. (ETA: In hindsight, that was pure luck that it fit; I didn't do any math on it. Whew.) I machine stitched the sides together before we had to clean up and head out, but I think the top and bottom edges will need to be hand finished, because of the pleats at the top and the uneven lining at the bottom. I don't know if I'll do that or if someone else will do that.

Gotta do some laundry sometime...

On the Run

My mother tells me she can tell from the tone of the blogs that I'm feeling rushed.

Imagine that.

;)

I worked at school 'till 10ish last night, worked at work today and will head off momentarily for another evening at school. Rehearsals are going till 10 this week; the show opens a week from Friday.

Next week's rehearsals will likely go till Midnight or later. It's known as H*ll Week...for cause...

Anyway, I got dress 4 finished last night and got a significant amount done on dress 5. I probably would've finished it, but my sewing machine was acting funny.

Don't suppose it had anything to do with being dropped last fall... I meant to take it in for a check up, but never got around to it.

So it was just a little...whiney...last night.

3 Down Now

I finished a second dress Saturday morning and took the two completed ones in to the costume decision-makers; I wasn't happy with the way they draped on the side. But the girls tried the dresses on and everyone was well pleased so...good enough.

The lady who's making the other five came over Saturday afternoon and I walked her through the parts that I've changed in the sewing order and shared a couple of tips for working with this pattern and shortly thereafter finished the third dress.

Dress 4 is about 1/2 done...I should've worked on it yesterday but, well, sometimes ya gotta catch your breath, if you KWIM.

So, my breath is caught and when I get home from work I hope to put my head down and sew so I can take the finished dresses to the sewing work night this evening. Hopefully to just spend the evening doing jobs there...so I can spend my at home time doing at home things, like laundry and vacuuming and dish washing and maybe even a little sewing of my own...

One of Five

Sorry for such a poor photo; I don't have any means of displaying this in a vertical position (gotta get me a decent dress form one of these days!)

This was actually the sample dress, so before I could make it I had to take the skirt off and take the bodice apart.

Severe weather kind of messed with the evening; it was close to 9 PM before I got the dress apart and ready to put back together with the self-lining and the new skirt.

I was greatly encouraged to only take an hour and a half or so to get it as far as I can take it.

It needs elastic, which I don't think has been purchased yet, across the back (I just made the casing), and we're still not 100% sure how we're going to fasten the back neck. Buttons are the most likely closure, as they'll be fairly quick to do and pretty secure (can't have it coming undone in the midst of the dance! Oh, no, that wouldn't do at all!)

So...one down and four more to go.


ETA: I am *SUCH* an idiot

When I hit 'view blog' after I posted, I saw the photo and realized with a HUGE cold knot in my stomach that I forgot to put the drape on the dress!.

There's supposed to be a scrunchy drapey thing with ties on the front. I totally forgot it. Guess the whole storm discombobulation just messed me up.

Looks like I'm going to be spending some more quality time with the seam ripper.

ARRRRGGGGGG!!!!

E(again)TA:

Ok...this is the THIRD time this dress has been assembled; that should be IT.

Moving on now...and this time, you can bet I don't forget the drape! ;)

Canceling all engagements...

...for the week. I still need to
1) finish the green silk Tribeca top. I got a lot of work done on it yesterday evening while the young fry of the family indulged their video game itch. Can't hear it as much in the sewing nook....

2) Finish cutting the replacement pieces for the last two knit dresses

3) remove the original, unflared skirt from the test dress so it can be replaced with the new flared skirt

4) make the five dresses I now have in my care. Dear Costume Mistress is going to try to convince one other person to make the other five.

All this by Saturday, if at all possible.

So, I will not be going to the monthly Scrabble (R) party tomorrow night. I will be sewing.

Hm. I may settle for just getting all the pieces attached to the green blouse, to finish the edges and add buttons/buttonholes later....

Still Cutting Knit Dresses

Not much to talk about; I'm going to be cutting (and doing laundry) all day today.

So I thought I'd just show a photo of the altered-up front skirt. I taped the addition to the center seam, but the addition for the side seam is marked so I can just overlay it to whichever size cutting line I need; it's just pinned in place. When I cut the 8's and the 6's, I'll move it in. Saved tracing whole new pieces....

This particular dress was cut before the alterations were made; so the skirt is getting re-cut, and we ditched the filmy knit we were using for the bodice lining and will self-line instead. I've got two additional pieces of fabric for each dress that has to be recut...enough to get bodice/skirt front on one piece, and the bodice/skirt back on the second.

So.

Off I go....

Why are my brain cells scattered?

Must have something to do with the 'nearly max commitment' level of life at the moment...

I haven't been able to get to my cutting table to work on those knit dresses until around 10 pm any day this week before today.

And today I discovered I'd made some mistakes in what I'd done. I looked at the wrong numbers...put the wrong numbers with the wrong girls' dress...arrgghhh! Guess it's because I was working tired. It's fixable, but it means redoing some cutting. Grumble, grumble.

At least there is Nothing On My Schedule tomorrow; I'm really, really hoping to get a serious amount of cutting done.

'Cause I *still* want to wear my Tribeca shirt Sunday....and I've only sewn one dart...

To Recap: Aida knit dresses

The next project I'm working on is a set of nine 'bathing dresses' from Simplicity 4577. They are to be made from poly matte jersey in various muted pastelly colors like seafoam, mint green, peach, aqua, etc.

I cut out two dresses; two more got cut by others last week when I was tied up with other things and couldn't make it to the work sessions. The largest dress was quickly stitched up and tried on, with the following notes:

We don't need the zipper in the back, but we do need some elastic across the top of the back bodice

The skirts were too long; 2" above the knee is the new target length

The skirts were too straight. Godets measuring 12" at the bottom were inserted into the seams of the test dress and that was deemed adequate. However, the seams don't look good and the flare is too concentrated at the bottom.

So.

Costume Mistress purchased an extra 3/4 yard for each of the dresses and I picked up all the pertinent materials from her yesterday and last night I altered the skirt pattern to have 6" of flare on each seam of each piece, starting just below the waist.

And discovered that the dresses already cut will need an additional 3/4 yard; the skirt is too wide to fit the pieces side-by-side. I *may* be able to squeeze it on the fabric for the uncut dresses; that's tonight's assignment.

I'm starting to think fondly of last year's lame' shirt project....

Bringin' It Home

I tried really hard to keep those costumes at school. But it just wasn't gonna happen.

The knit 'bathing dresses' have issues. The skirts are too long and too narrow; the mesh sold as 'swimsuit lining' at Wal-Mart is too thin to work as a lining. So, after some discussion, we will self-line the tops and alter the skirt pattern so that it has more flare (one sample was made using godets to flare the skirt, but it just didn't look right). So.

I brought home the patterns and all the fabric we have, with the plan to spend my evening altering the skirt pattern and then figuring out whether the extra 3/4 yard our Dear Costume Mistress purchased will be enough (we will just use the 'already cut' skirt pieces for the lining). We will need to recut the skirts for four dresses; that's all that have been cut so far.

Did I say 'We'? Um, that's my assignment for the week. I'm hoping to get the pattern drafted and the fabric call made tonight (there's only a limited amount of one of the fabrics left at Hancock's), then cut one dress a night for the rest of the week.

Sigh. Now that it's in the house, every minute that passes is a minute I Should Be Sewing Costumes.

Gotta pace myself.... ;)

Only a minute...

Home from work, grab a bite and the sewing supplies, and then I'm off to school to cut some more! I got the pattern traced for Simplicity 4577, the pattern for the second set of 'bathing dresses', to be fabricated in poly matte jersey.

I'm hoping we can leave the zippers off; the fabric has some pretty substantial stretch. We sized down for everyone so it fits snuggly, and plan to alter the back neck and back darts for individual fitting.

But...whew...I'm off... ;)

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!

Here We Go...HSM '09: Aida

I got The Call today...could I come down to school tomorrow afternoon and help with the preliminary costume pulling/idea kicking around for costumes for this year's musical? The show actually went into rehearsal last week, but because The Actor was involved in a drama department production that was presented last Thur-Fri-Sat, he was excused from the first couple of rehearsals. The show dates are April 17,18,19, 24 and 25. I've not seen Aida at all, so I've got nothing much to go on for ideas at this point.

The decision was if I could get Pastor N.'s coat done to the lining, I could run up to school for an hour or two to begin the percolation process. There are 50 cast members, so it will be about the same size as last year's show.

This will be...interesting....

First up, though, is to finish preparing the lesson I'm teaching tonight, then pushing the coat through the machines.