2025 Christmas Production ...Production

 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.

The original hem had just been fused up with Stitch Witchery...which was crumbling.

One of the frayed out underarm seams.  The other side was just as bad or worse

The final iteration.  I am pretty sure this one was used in the final scene.

I got plenty of pics of that garment.  Unfortunately, I failed utterly in the photo documentation on the other two.  I do have a 'before' pic of one of the garments...

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...

Here are the components, LOL:

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!

One last Malleus post...

It's still available on You Tube  as of today; the production starts at about the 15 minute mark.

  I finally got a copy of the cast photo...

Now, I have to admit something.  I hadn't really gotten to SEE everything all on stage at once.  And I was flabbergasted at how well all of those randomly chosen old costumes coordinated on stage.  The dancers, most of whom are seated, were all new costumes; we made the tunics for the tiny dancers but we made use of fast fashion sources for the cropped pants and the adult tunics.

What can I say?  We pulled it together in 4 weeks.

See, that's what grace does.  Grace isn't there to excuse indulgence...grace is there to give us the power to do that which we coudn't do otherwise.

Like costume a production in 4 weeks that ends up looking like everything was coordinated.

I should finish the data entry from the weekend tomorrow. I stayed after work today to clear out my stuff from the sewing room.  I'll likely go back in on Friday to pack up the remaining costumes and extra fabric and such.  The theater is rented out very soon and the room we used for costume holding and construction...which is actually used as a dressing room...has got to be cleaned out.

Still don't know where we're going to put the stuff but I am sure someone will come up with something.  We still haven't found a workable place for costume storage.  The theater is rented too much to keep stuff anywhere there.  The home ec sewing room is much too centrally located and is pegged for the expansion of another ministry.  Which is a pity because it would be perfect.  But...location, location, location. Costumes don't need to be right off the public spaces.

We've got about a week to figure something out. Or rather, someone does.  That's above my pay grade, lol.

Problem solved ....more or less...

 But it took a couple of tries.

After the first dress rehearsal, the costume comments were that the floof on the red drapey thing (which our dancer referred to as 'the affliction') was a little too much and needed to be toned down.  And the magnets just didn't hold it toghether well enough; she actually had to try and keep it hung up in the skirts as she danced.

So, on Thursday, I  worked part of the day and then clocked out and went back to the sewing room looked it over.  I took off all of the pieces that weren't actually sewn down, moved them around and actually left one off.   The result was something that had longer, less floofy loops; notably, the bulky bit in the front was now gone.  Good enough.   My sewing cohort Miss K. brought me some larger, stronger magnets and I switched them out.  These were STRONG...'get the ends within a half inch of each other and they jumped together with a click' strong.

Thursday night's dress rehearsal ran through the presentation twice.  The first time, the magnets were too strong and 'the affliction' didn't even come off at all.  Before the second run through, I recommended that the magnets be hooked together  on the opposite side...the one that had all the turned back fabric, so they were connecting through (she counts) 10 layers of fabric instead of two. The bond there was not as strong, so that should work.

And it did...but somehow, in the movements of dance and dramatic crawling, she managed to actually step into one of the longer loops, despite it being on top of the underskirt.  Which meant it caught on her leg, nearly tripped her and had to be pulled off to finish the dance.

So...I tied a couple of knots in that puppy on Friday.  More than one way to shorten a loop...

We were going into the Friday night service without that contraption actually working correctly once yet. My townsperson character wasn't just jockeying for a place to see what Jesus was doing...I was actually trying to see...praying...that it would work.

It did.

Afterwards, several folks told me that that moment brought tears.

Whew.

I took a couple of  pictures backstage so you can see the costume:

Here's our dancer (an official church photo), before the affliction is removed. You can just see glimpses of it through the layers.

And just before we started tonight, she showed me that the shoulder seam on the brown over tunic was starting to come unstitched.   So I have a wee bit of mending to do tomorrow.  Probably will just needle-and-thread it.

Two services tomorrow...and then it's all done but the laundry.  And the data entry.

Just for grins...I made My Sweet Babboo wait to change after last night's service so we could get a picture.  Our costumes are OLD...but so are we, lol.

Problem solving

 Ok, firstly, I need a picture for Facebook's thumbnail ...cause I don't want the one below to be  pasted up with just the middle bit showing, lol.  So here's a gratuitous kitty pic.  Hard to believe it took her 8 years to decide it was ok to relax on a lap.

Ok, so.... here's a thing I made to go in between some layers in a costume for a dancer who will play the part of the woman with the...issue...in the Easter production.  The two layers over it are slit/  slashed, so the red peeps through as the lady dances.  I meant it to be ugly, and lumpy, and knotted, and twisted, and uneven.  All highly symbolic.

It fastens with magnets, so it can be quickly undone at the appropriate moment.

It's very lightweight poly crepe de chine...so as to not overwhelm the magnets.

But it's so lightweight that it doesn't fall...it just kinda hangs up in the layers.  So the dancer, 'Jesus' and I conferred. I reconfigured the streamers a bit and I put a very slight weight into one streamer end, so our dancer can kind of throw it out as she kneels, and 'Jesus' will step on the  that bit when he speaks to her so when she stands up it stays on the ground.

I finally saw the whole event put together tonight at tech rehearsal.  I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with what the team has done.  If all the variables come together, it should be moving.

But...just bein' honest, I'm tahred  (Southern for weary to the bone; I've 15K steps on the fitbit and didn't do any fitness walking.  Just what I needed to do to get stuff done today).  I have just about decided to use some of my comp time for a day off next week.  I think I've earned it. 

It will be live streamed ...6:30 CDT on Fri and Sat, 9 and 11 AM on Sunday.  The Rock Family Worship Center on You Tube.  If you are inclined to see the costumes, lol.  We made about a dozen for this production...the little dancers, the prisoners, the magistrate.  And the woman with..the issue.  Although, to be honest, I'm not sure how it will come across on the live stream.  Not like watching a made-for-TV edited production, but it should get the point across.

I may or may not get another costume post up before the weekend....we'll see...

Well, it's a thing...

 I should be sewing right now but I am letting myself take a bit of a break; I spent most of the day at church sewing and I need to think about something else for a minute, lol.  I wasn't expecting anyone to show up to help sew today; one lady said she might come by later in the morning, so I didn't rush this morning and rolled in about 15 minutes late.  

To find that the 'maybe later' friend actually made it earlier and was waiting on me.

Ain't that always the way?

She brought a steamer and worked on making the costumes a bit fresher...noting needed repairs we'd missed and trimming threads and such as she went.  The detail work that often gets overlooked.  I was really glad she came.

Me, I worked on the Magistrate's robe.  Nearly 7 hours of work, it's not done yet...and this character has one speech that will last about 45 seconds, lol.  Again...ain't it always the way.

I had to modify the pattern for our standard Bible robe.  We wanted a squared-off neckline and a shorter sleeve.  The shorter sleeve wasn't a problem, but the neckline had me puzzled a bit.  Then suddenly I realized I could just draft the FACING and use that as a template to cut the actual neckline after I had rough cut it out with the pattern.

Winner winner chicken dinner!  That was a quick fix.

I actually sewed it mostly on my Old Faithful Kenmore.  Since we were using a compact car for transportation back when we were first married in 1980, instead of getting a bulky something for Christmas I got cash.  It covered most of the cost of  that sewing machine, which I used for 14 ish years before purchasing a new machine.  Not because I was unhappy with the Kenmore, but I wanted some specialty feet that I couldn't get for that high-shank machine.  I think maybe there might have been an adapter available for sale somewhere, but I never could locate anyone who sold it.

The Kenmore became the backup machine; it weighs a freakin' TON but got hauled around to  sewing days at church...made all the Scrooge costumes back in the day  (it's visible on the pictures that used to be linked to those early posts, but Google has started dropping the old pictures from the albums.  Guess that happens when you blog for more than 15 years...)  I have one of my other machines in, but the newfangled electronic Janome didn't have an adjustable pressure presser foot.  The Kenmore does.  Went right over bulky seam intersections without bogging down.  

After I got the back sewed up to opening, I realized that I probably did not need to include the opening at all...the neckline will be wide enough as it is.  Oh well, it gave me a good start/stop for the trim.   Tomorrow...hem and lower trim, and a blue drapey wrap to kind of make up for the fact that the fabric is a wee bit sheer. Strategic drapery should take care of that.

Normally I can crank out a basic bible costume in about 4 1/2-ish hours, but this one ain't basic.  I added pockets in the seams so there will be a place for the mic pack.

I like that Greek Key trim; but it's cheap Offray and pretty much says it's not washable, dryable, ironable...LOL.  I'm going to write on it w/ a sharpie  (on the facing behind the trim on the back) to 'hand wash drip dry'.  Maybe that will work...

Sewing for the 2021 Christmas Production

 Somehow, this year I've inherited the position of Costume Mistress...which  means I'm doing more administrating (making spreadsheets and lists and delegating) than actual sewing.  Not sure I'm entirely comfortable in this position...ok, I lied, I am definitely NOT comfortable in this position...I'd much rather just be handed patterns and fabric and asked to make twelve lame' shirts, lol but, well, it is what it is.  It is good for us to be drug out of the comfort zone from time to time, right? Right?

Anyway, I have squeaked in a little sewing for the production.  Part of the problem is that the sewing room is migrating from the dump nook at the end of the laundry room to a now unoccupied upstairs bedroom, and that is taking much more time and energy than I thought it would, but we had a piece that needed mending so I thought I would do it myself rather than stick someone else with it, since it was all hand sewing anyway.

There was a fur-collared camel cashmere coat that just showed up from who knows where in the costume storage at the old church building; it was clearly vintage and when we did the edition of this show two years ago, two years after moving all the costume paraphernalia,  I looked for it for one of the 1930's characters but couldn't find it anywhere.  This year, the same character shows up in the re-write and I happened to open the right box and found the coat all smunched up.  And  missing all but one of the buttons. And ripped badly at the top of one of the welt pockets  But it fits the lady playing the character and she loved it.  So I brought it home, poked around online, trying to find some 1 3/8" vintage-looking buttons.  Found them at Jo-Ann's, to my shock, and I could order them for pickup at the store across town.

So I picked up the buttons...and a few other things, since a whompin' thunderstorm hit moments after I walked into the store and I had some time to poke around, and did the mending a couple of weeks ago.  Hit it with the steamer tonight to make it presentable to return to the costume shop.

I thought I took a photo of the original state, but, alas, there was no photo on my phone of the pre-mended coat.

I do, however, have some pictures of the damaged pocket...

I tucked the welts back to the wrong side and it didn't look horrid; but, to my surprise, there was no interfacing at all supporting the pocket so I suppose it just caught on something and ripped.

And the inside and outside of the mending job; I was able to whack a triangle off of the welt pocket facing to use to reinforce the rip.  Fortunately, it won't show much from onstage...I hope, lol.

I took a pic of the labels in the coat: just to see what I could find out.

 I googled it.  Turns out Carol Brent was a house label for Montgomery Ward's back in the day.

Never, ever would I have guessed that this coat came from 'Monkey Wards'.  By the time I was shopping MW's in the early 80's it was lower on the fashion ranks than Sears.  But the coat was fairly well made, despite the lack of pocket support,.  There's a surprising amount of hand sewing; the fur collar is hand tacked on so it could be easily removed for cleaning, and the fabric is luscious, slight moth damage and all.  And it is most certainly from the early 60's.  But we're trying to pass it off as 1930's so...don't tell anyone, lol.

My steamer is pretty pitiful,  The coat still looks kind of rumpled; that's as much as I could get before it vapor locked up and quit steaming.  But...it's a LOT better than it was when I started, all the same.  It may not look too bad on an actual body.  I hope.

I DID do some Sewing this Summer...

 And I should have posted about it 6 weeks ago...but I was waiting for all of the pictures, lol.  

Not that there was much, aside from the wedding sewing, but I did squeeze in a bit.

First up...a church T shirt for which I missed the original distribution.  By the time I got around to picking one up...all that was left was a 3XL.

But that's fine with me...it's a simple little drill:  open the side seams (or cut open the sides, if there's no seam), remove the sleeves, pull out my Vogue 9057 top and lay it over the remaining t and recut everything, then sew it back up.

I got some jeans from Lands End last year in a nice muted green but found I didn't have many tops to wear with them.  So I splurged  on three or four fabrics that had that bit of green; one of them actually got made up.  And it's been worn several times this summer; I really like it.  There really IS green in the ditsy print, lol! Vogue 9057 again, but view D, without the colorblocking:

While I had the red thread in the machines, I stitched up a piece of linen I bought earlier from FabricStore dotcom.  I confess I've gone a little overboard on linen since I found them...such nice stuff!

This is from Cutting Line Designs; the My Heart's A'Flutter shell top with the In the Trenches skirt.  I shortened the skirt about six inches and made it slightly less pegged...it was a good thing; had it been longer or narrower I would have a real problem getting my leg high enough to climb into my Sante Fe, lol.

It's their IL019 linen in Beet...a really nice deep red.  And...this is the reason the pics are so late.  I wore it to work the week I finished it, and intended to take pics after I got home.  Well, we had choir practice in the evening and I didn't have time to take pics before practice.  Then, on the way home hubby and I decided to treat ourselves to some ice cream ...and just before taking the pics I found I had somehow dripped a big ol' ice cream drip right on the front of the top.  So it went into the laundry.  I had to wash it twice to get the shadowy spot out...and then it hung around in the laundry room waiting for the iron.  I finally got it ironed last week and I wore it in while the temps were still hitting the 80's. Such a rich red color helps linen wear well in the warm days of autumn in the south. ;-)  Managed to get the pic without mishap this time...

I have  a pair of black cotton gauze pants about half done but my sewing time has been pretty minimal for the last month or so.  I'll probably finish those up and just put them in the box for next summer.  But hopefully get a picture first, lol.

In other news, the costuming effort has begun for the Christmas production; this weekend is our first pass at getting folks into the costumes we have...or getting them on the list for something to be made or purchased.  SO FAR all that's on the 'to be made' list is a couple of 1980's maternity outfits.  Somewhere,  I believe I have a box with my old maternity patterns.  I don't *think* I donated them to the thrift store...gonna hafta get up in the attic and dig around a bit.   We do have quite a list of alterations and mending to be done but I have some new volunteers this year who are really wanting to Do Stuff...glory hallelujah!  

At least we will NOT be making any tiny sheep costumes from faux fleece! LOL.

The Rest of the Costuming...Christmas Time 2019

Once I had the Angels signed off, or mostly signed off, anyway, it was time to get crackin' on the rest of the costumes.  There was a whole shopping crew who was scouring local thrift shops for things like overcoats and leather jackets and such, but there were some things that had to be made.

Like the Tiny Sheep costumes that would be worn in the kids dance number that opened the show (it was part of the plot...Mom and Sister watch Little Sister in the school production).  Anyway, we've done Tiny Sheep before, when we did the first, much scaled down, version 4 years ago.  And I covered my sewing room and myself in feathery fleecy bits from the faux fur we used; got it down in my bronchial tubes and had a hacking cough for weeks.  Those were about 5 sheep, who were, oh, about 9.  This year's production had 7 tiny sheep, who were all about first grade.  The original costumes were much too big...so we made another batch, in a slightly different shade of white (the original fleece came from Hancock's...so it wasn't going to get matched).  THIS time, I called a work day to make those puppies at church.

Since we are in a recycled high school building, there is a room that used to be a home ec sewing lab.  With LOTS of outlets...some of which stick up from the floor and are a tripping hazard, lol.  It is currently used by our usher/greeter team, and they have stuff stored in the cabinets...pens, offering envelopes, packaged communion sets, etc.  But we got permission to come in a couple of weekends and set up for sewing.

And the sewing team was pretty much the same folks who have been working on the sewing projects since day one.  There were a couple others who came in and helped, and The Princess herself (oldest DD, to those who are new to the family, lol) brought in her sewing machine; she had volunteered to make the circle skirts for the partner dancers in the 50's scene, so she brought that project in.  I had another crew working on mending/ironing;  Miss A had picked up the fleece for us, and she cut out all of the sheep vests while I worked through who -needed-what additional pieces on the bible costumes. We were flying on a wing and a prayer on the sheep; I had only been given sizes, not measurements, and I altered up a Jalie T shirt pattern based more on gut feeling than solid reasoning, knowing that the Jalie T had negative ease and the Sheep costumes (basically, sleeveless pull-on v-neck tops) had to gracefully skim the kids.  I was kinda skeered to do it, but we were out of time and one plan after another to actually get measurements fell through.

I handed Miss A a coverall apron and a face mask to cut out.  She protested that she wouldn't need them, but I insisted and she gave in.  Of course, by the time she'd gotten them all cut out (a front, a back, two tail pieces and two ear pieces...the ears were lined w/ broadcloth) she was covered in fleecy  bits.

Then, basically because I was the one with the serger w/ the white thread, I got to sew them up.  Wearing the apron and the face mask, of course, lol

That fleecy stuff is a BEAST.  I did a bunch of unsewing and grumbling, but they were finished by the costume check....vests, tails pinned on, and ears to be pinned to headbands.

The best news of the week was that they put them on the kids and they all fit.  HUGE sigh of relief; and I told our director that, with all due respect, the sewing team requested that we cast any future sheep dancers according to who will fit costumes we already have, lol.

The next last-minute project was black sleeveless bible robes.  We have a quilter on our sewing team who made the most FABULOUS costumes for the Wise Men.  I wish I had a photo...they were amazing pieces of art, pieced and trimmed...a full length vest and an overcoat, with a coordinating turban/hat.  However, the vests only closed with velcro and they didn't offer good coverage.  Our seamstress recommended that we put black t shirts and sweat pants on the guys under the garments...but I wasn't about to put those fabulous costumes over street clothes.  I bought a whole bolt of black poplin from Wal-Mart (a store employee actually came up to me and asked if he could help me find something!  After I picked my teeth up off the floor, we had a really nice chat and he found some suitable black fabric, as well as some other pieces to make head drapes).  On the second work weekend, we cut out three bible costumes sans sleeves, to be worn under the vests.  I brought home one, Miss A took home one, and one of the other volunteers took home the 3rd.  We had to have those done by dress rehearsal the following Friday.

On Sunday's rehearsal, a week before the show, one of the worship staffers was designated to watch the run through and we were told that if she had any comments/notes on the characters, we were to follow her instructions.  Now, the character I was playing was the person who was hosting/organizing/ whatever the afore-mentioned children's dance.    The phrase 'school principle' had been used, so my plan was to give my standard line 'thanks for coming, bathrooms are (here), please silence your phones, no flash photography, yadda yadda, enjoy the program!'   in a warm, welcoming, professional manner.   I planned to wear dress black pants, a white shirt and a red boiled wool jacket with a nice little holiday pin on it.  Well, Monday morning my friend on the worship staff came to my office. 'Did your kids watch The Magic School bus?' she asked.  Oh, yes, of course they had.  'Well, I'm going to need you to put some Ms. Frizzle in that character.  She needs to be kind of over the top Christmassy'.

Whoa.  Paradigm shift.

I had no Ms. Frizzle garments in my wardrobe.  I had a luncheon with some friends just down the road from JoAnn's that day, so after the lunch I buzzed down to JA's hoping against hope that they  had something useable that wasn't more than $5/yd.

'Christmas Toys' was the name of the kids show that I was introducing, and I knew Ms Frizzle would wear a dress w/ a Christmas Toys print.  I didn't have time to make a dress, but I thought I could manage a pull on skirt.  Wonder of Wonders,  one of their least expensive Christmas prints was...Christmas toys. At $4.00/ yd (and that was 50% off the marked price of $7.99)  I bought 4 yards, and a blinky Christmas Lights necklace, and proceeded to make a Mid-calf length version of a Basic Dickens Skirt. Cut it out that night, but I did my black Wise Man underrobe first, so it was Friday morning before dress rehearsal that I actually finished the skirt.  I told The Princess about my character shift, and she said she had a crazy Christmas fascinator kind of thing I should wear.  She brought it to dress rehearsal and I looked at it and thought, oh, I don't know about that.  But when I got dressed and put the thing on...yeah, I needed it.  Oh, yes...it had lights as well.

I wore that hat through the Friday Night and Saturday dress rehearsals...on stage, back stage, behind stage, around stage...no problems.  It fell off three times during the first performance Sunday morning.  Crazy.

I didn't take the time to put pockets in the skirt...I may actually go back and add them just in case I need it again some time...but I managed to make do by pinning a drawstring bag to the inside of the waistband.  It was enough for a tissue and my lip gloss, lol.

Now all we have to do is get the costumes cleaned and sorted back and stored up again.  Probably next week...I'll be really glad when that's done!

A Tale of Two Angels....

Once upon a time, some time ago (6 years?  8 years?  I don't even remember...)  I watched something on stage at church (I don't even remember what that was, either) that involved an angel.  Said angel was wearing the typical satiny night-shirt looking thing that passes for an angel costume in most all church-related theater.  And, for whatever reason, at that moment, I suddenly realized that I was DONE with angels in nightgowns.  It was time for something different.

But what?

I pondered it for a while, thinking about the Biblical descriptions of angels...what few there were.  "Man in shining raiment" seems to be about the summation of it.  Not much help.

But I eventually landed on the idea of angels dressed as knights, with a rampant Lion crest.

I even found a pattern to use.

I would need to find something cool to use for the crest; the included one wasn't quite right.  And I wanted to find basically gold and white metallic knit...where could I find that?

I chatted with our incredibly creative Children's Pastor, Pastor Dave, who also happened to be something of a scholar of all things chivalrous, just to see if he thought it was a good idea.  He loved the concept and said he had some sources for me for swords, armor, etc.

With the assurance that I wasn't totally off the wall, I began a search for suitable fabric.

A trip to Sir's Fabrics up in Fayetteville, Tn netted some very unusual fabric.  They had a bit of thin white poly knit printed with a pale gold foil.  It was subtle...and I suddenly thought it would look fantastic under stage lighting.  As I recall, I bought all they had left.  But it was kind of sheerish, so I also got a knit w/ a kind of burnout ribbed texture, thinking it would show through the goldish top fabric slightly and give a look of depth, movement, hinting at multiple dimensions.  I figured I'd make the trousers and top from the two of them paired up, and bought some snow white poly woven for the tabbard, as well as some gold lame' for the crest.

I took it all home and, by piecing it a bit, managed to get two shirt/pants sets from the gold knit and the lining, and easily got the two tabbards with a good bit left over from the white.  I bagged it up and began playing around with a lion crest, intending to put red beads in the paws and side.  But I was having trouble getting it right, and then I got involved with other stuff and the bag of cut out pieces just got shoved to the back of the sewing nook.

Where it stayed for the next 6 - 8 ish years... Since this was costuming, I didn't add it to my yardage or note when I bought it.  So I don't even know. To be honest, I kind of even forgot about it.  We weren't doing productions at church and it just dropped off the radar.

Ok, fast forward to October of this year.  Our original script idea was to have two lady angels do the  basic narration of our Christmas production, but after the auditions the decision was made to switch to guys...and we had two guys who were sharing one of the roles; one would do the role for the two morning performances and the other would do both evening performances.

My first instinct was to put them both in blazing white tuxedos, but in our first costuming meeting that idea was rejected; Pastor Dave had worn a white tuxedo (with a fair amount of red accent pieces, but still a white tuxedo) as the Angel of Christmas Past in both our productions of The Gospel According to Scrooge 15-ish years ago and they didn't want to repeat that concept.  They actually wanted something a little modern, a little jedi-like, even.

Suddenly I remembered those cut-out things from years past.  That would work...or, rather, I could make it work...if I could find them.

They were interested, so I came home and began digging.  The bag turned up fairly quickly, and I did a quick construction of one of the trousers...no elastic waisline and no hem...and took it in to see if that would work.

The fabric was a hit, and I had the green light.

But I didn't have a lot of chunks-of-time.  I worked on them off and on for a couple of weeks, and got the bottom layer, the tops and trousers, assembled to the hems...and brought them in for the guys to try on.  I pinned up the hem for the guy who would be playing his angel character all weekend, but one of the two double cast guys needed just the edges turned under.  His alternate actually needed some hemming.  BUT...they were going to wear gauntlets that were being made by another lady on their forearms, and we decided to have them wear painted army boots, so the legs could just be stuffed into the tops of the boots.  Sleeve and leg length became much easier at that point.

One of the angels could wear the tabbard pretty much just as it was; but the other needed a wrap style, with a bit of shoulder emphasis.  I had enough of the white fabric left over; I cut the front that I had in the bag on an angle and shortened it to the short-tunic length of the pattern, then flipped it over and cut out a mirrored piece for the other side and cut two football-shaped pieces for the shoulder extension.  I also made an obi waistband from the white, with a gold overlayer made from the remnants that I had saved.  I had JUST BARELY ENOUGH.

Brought the costumes home and found that my sewing machine did NOT play nice with the fabric when the right side was out.  The right side was almost sticky...definitely kind of tacky...and my sewing machine does not have a variable pressure on the presser foot.  I did a lot of unsewing.  I knew they would be hidden THIS time, but who knows what will happen in the future, so I wanted them, well, at least, not horrible.

I had to have them done for a photo shoot that was scheduled for Dec. 7.  It was a close squeak...but I got them done.  (Then they decided not to use the footage with the angels but have them do that scene live).
Poor hanger shots before delivery:

After the folks saw the costumes on them, they decided they weren't quite edgy enough and ordered some white overgarments from a trendy online vendor (yes, they were MENSWEAR).  We also added a long tie belt to the one on the left, which had to be pieced from several scraps, and an actual purchased Jedi-costume belt to the one on the right.

I looked at the result at dress rehearsal.  I felt like the amazing shimmery fabric was just so covered up it wasn't even really showing.  One angel had on a long kimono type garment...only with short, non-kimono sleeves.  The other was a cascade-type jacket with long sleeves.  As I looked at them the day before the show, I suddenly realized that I could remove the sleeves from the toppers.  I approached the director, who said she liked the longer garment just as it was, but gave me the ok to remove the sleeves from the other one.

I hung out about an extra half hour after the rehearsal and performed a double sleeve-ectomy.  I could live with that.

Here are the morning-performance angels in makeup (although you can't see the gold glitter on their faces in the gym / backstage lighting), courtesy of Wayne T., who is the angel on the right:

Actual army boots proved to be cost prohibitive, so, well, the painted barn boots were good enough on short notice.  Maybe next time for the better boots.

The guys did a fantastic job.  And I'm delighted they weren't in nightgowns.

Curtain Tomorrow....

Well, well, ready or not, tomorrow is IT.

I stayed after this morning/afternoon's dress rehearsal to alter up a costume piece...in my opinion, it would look better without sleeves, so after some discussion I actually got permission to perform a double sleeve-ectomy.  I hope the directors like the results; I know the actor will like it because it will make his costume cooler, lol.


The show has come together nicely.   It's been over 10 years since we did a major production; we're kind of relearning the ropes.  If you're curious...it will be online at 9, 11 and 6 PM tomorrow, and 7 PM on  Monday, at https://www.facebook.com/therockfamily.tv/.

I will hopefully post some costume shots and talk about them after Christmas.


So... it's only 5 PM and I am home with no costume sewing to do.  It feels really  weird.  But, you  know, I think I'm going to go on a search for the bottom of the laundry hamper...and at this point, I have to start by unearthing the hamper, lol.

I need to wrap a few Christmas presents as well...like, all of them...LOL

Still don't know if I will get my December Outfit made by the end of the month...although I did order some black stretch velvet from a certain vendor's moving sale, lol.  I could POSSIBLY sew it up in the week off between Christmas and New Year's.  Possibly.

Down to the wire...

I still have two pieces to finish before dress rehearsal on Friday...and today, I had a rather unexpected sewing project....

Right after our staff Christmas luncheon, I got called to the auditorium; there had been an accident.  My heart was in my throat for just a moment, but turns out the only harm done was that while the stage was being adapted for the weekend production one of the wing curtains had been damaged by a falling beam (I still am not sure quite what happened).  There were about a dozen corner slashes from starting about 10 feet off the ground and going almost all the way to the top (I don't even have a guess as to how high 'the top' was...).

Being the resident seamstress, I was called in to do a quick mend job.  With the production 5 days off, there was no time for a real repair.  My suggestion to slap gaffe tape on the back side was not accepted...only sewing would do.

But, my sewing box was in my office, so I fetched it, climbed up in the lift and, with a little instruction, raised it all the way up to the topmost gash.

Now, a little backstory.  I actually am afraid of heights.  One of the most terrifying things I did as a teen was to 'cap the grain bin'...pull the lid down and lock it after it was filled.  There was a ladder up the side of the bin, and another set of rungs along the roof, so I had to climb all the way up to the roof, then onto  the roof and up that ladder, pull down the access hatch  and secure it...then back down the ladder to the edge of the roof and rather blindly find the  top rung of the ladder going down the side.  Scared me spitless every time I had to do it.

I have nightmares about climbing ladders or rickety stairs and getting vertigo and freezing, unable to go up or down, that have recurred from my early 20's (I actually think that is a subconscious fear of aging, but it always is climbing up beyond my comfort zone and then shutting down).

And the lift rocked a bit...which was normal...but very unsettling.

So, I carefully knelt down and opened my notions box, which was sitting on the floor of the lift, threaded a needle, and slowly stood up and grabbed the curtain and began to whipstich the cut edges back together.  I focused on breathing slowly, looking only at the work in front of me and NOT looking down.  I was terrified I would drop my needle or my scissors.  I wasn't worried about falling, really, but just the sheer height of it was enough to make me a little giddy.   I could have touched the conduit that runs just below the ceiling if I had tried at all.

I had lowered the lift back down to about the third slash from the top before I felt stable enough to even pull out my phone and take a photo.

We have an LED wall that can be lowered; it's currently in the raised position; that's the bottom edge of it that you see beyond the edge of the curtain.  If you look closely, you can see the needle and thread and the edge of the gash I was working on here.

I think it took me about 45 minutes to get a poor whip stitch done on all of the cuts.

Faced my fear and conquered it.  Booyah.

A Snowy Afternoon....

Well, well, well, there are visible flakes in the air in the Rocket City and, despite the fact that the whole system is going to blow through really fast and the ground is crazy warm as it's been in the 60's for the last few days... one of the local school systems closed early, which mean my office also closed early, as we follow the schools.

There are perks to working for a ministry, even if the salary might be below industry standards.  I got to come home at 2 today.

So I thought I'd take a minute and catch up on some stuff.

Like, where I have been for the last...month...lol.

I have been appointed the head seamstress (NOT the costume mistress, lol...I am only in charge of the costumes being sewn) for an original production we are doing at church the weekend before Christmas.  I've held off on posting pictures, because, well, I don't want to spill any beans.  But I have made a couple of angel costumes unlike any other angel costumes we've used in the past.  They did some video taping Saturday, and the only change I have to do is add a wee bit of velcro hook to the hem of one of the guy's britches (yeah, britches) so the pants will grab his socks and not work up out of his boots (yeah, boots).  I will post some pics after Christmas and you can see what we had, lol.

But that wasn't the end of it.  Spent Friday and Saturday at church, working on the Tiny Sheep.

Four years ago, we did the first version of this production, and we had some tiny sheep who were, like, 4th graders.  This year, our tiny sheep are, like, kindergarteners.  The costumes from the previous show are way too big, but I didn't want to cut them up in case we needed bigger ones in the future.  So we got some more of that crazy curly poly fleece and made 8 little v-neck vests for the current crop of tiny sheep.  Remembering the mess from the first set, I  was determined to make them at church, instead of either a) bringing the mess home or b) sending it home with someone else.  So we had a workday and a friend cut them out.  I gave her my coverall apron and a construction filter facemask...she was puzzled but wore them when I insisted.  She soon saw what I meant.  'This stuff is worse than styrofoam!' she said.  We swept the floor about a half dozen times but there was still feathery fluff on it on Sunday morning.... The fleece did NOT play nice with my serger, which seems to be having knife issues again, and what I thought would take 90 minutes took all day Saturday and then some...I still wasn't done.  Grumble grumble grumble.

Fortunately, I have, like, 17 hours of sick leave to use or lose by next Thursday, so I am going to burn sick leave...in order to avoid getting sick by staying up until way late trying to do stuff.  I got a good bit caught up yesterday afternoon, and should be able to do the last bits in a couple of hours.  The other ladies worked on alterations and ironing all the Bible costumes we have for the nativity scene at the end; unfortunately, we seem to have lost a number of our Bible costumes pieces over the years.  I'm short a few robes, but I am REALLY missing the head drapes that we use.  I like to use two for the ladies and I don't even have enough for one apiece at this point.  The guys wear smaller drapes and can actually go bareheaded if necessary, but the ladies MUST have something on their heads.

So, I will be hitting my stash this evening at some point to see if I can find some 'why did I buy this?' fabric that will work for head drapes...our cheap fabric sources have gone away and I can't do $5/yd for the head drapes that get lost so easily.  So maybe I have something up there that will work... I hope.

I haven't forgotten my 12-months - 12 outfits challenge, either.  This month Janice posted dressy outfits...mostly sweaters and skirts...with accessories.  I'm not sure I'm going to get anything done on it; certainly not before Christmas.  Maybe after, which is a shame since the dressy outfits are intended to be worn to the Christmas festivities.  And I really, really want some black stretch velvet pants. Cross your fingers for me, lol.  I actually HATE sewing stretch velvet, but after that sheep fleece, it should seem simple...

Another Project Due May 1....

Well, well, everything always happens at once, right?

Our church will host the Holocaust Memorial service this year in our auditorium, and the drama team has been asked, by the organizers of the event, to present a dramatization of Martin Niemöller's short poem, 'They Came for Me':

First they came for the Socialists, but I did not speak up, 

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, but I did not speak up,

Because I was not a Trade Unionist. 

Then they came for the Jews, but I did not speak up, 

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me...and there was no one left 

To speak up for me.

So we have, on stage, a character representing Niemöller, and groups of folks who represent the socialists, the trade unionists and the Jews.  And the Bad Guys, who I am not going to name.

One of the young guys in the worship team has created an incredible audio/video piece w/ music, newsreel footage and photos, and a voice over w/ Niemöller's poem, quoted line-by-line, first in German and then in English.  We were going to go rather abstract, just using different colored t-shirts to indicate the different groups, but apparently the imagery on the video is so compelling that the leaders felt abstract costuming would detract from the narrative rather than enhance it. So it's a last-minute change of direction and we are scrambling for costuming. Other team members are scouring thrift shops at this moment to find suitable things.

So my job is to make the armbands for the, um, Bad Guys, with their well-known pinwheelish Symbol That Shall Not Be Named, and gold stars to pin on the Jewish characters.  The others will just be in somewhat period suggestive garments and identified by the voiceover.

I hit Hobby Lobby yesterday afternoon to get the bits of fabric in the right colors.  Including the Wonder Under for the applique, it was less than 10 bucks.  ( And I'm not running this through the yardage in/yardage out...not worth it...)

So I'm interrupting my dash to the finish for the SWAP and the 12-months-12-outfits challenges to do a little bit of fiddly sewing.

An update on the cropped pants...I wasn't happy with the way they looked.  They are still too loose in the leg to be what I envisioned, and I should have started the flare  about 3" higher than I did. I also didn't like the way the deep hem looked.  So I'm probably going to do a little hacking and re-sewing on those.  The black and white striped mariniere  top will take a couple of hours, start to finish, so I'm not really worried about it...much. 

But the Holocaust service is May 1st, and we have two rehearsals between now and then.

So, yeah, gonna be sewing. 

Hit a sale....

What possessed me to click on Fabric Mart's website a couple of weeks ago?

And discover that they were in the midst of a 60% off everything sale.

So lookit what landed on my doorstep last Thursday...

4 pieces...the most expensive of which turned out to be $6.04/yd, after taking into account the discounts, the generous cutting, and flat rate shipping.

Gray cotton/poly/lycra suiting...for next year's wardrobe, the gray is good with the scarf, as is the creamy white of the denim-like stretch cotton/lycra twill.  Spring/summer, probably, as light as the colors are.  The royal blue and white was a bit of a disappointment...it's REALLY thin and sheer.    Not sure what I'll be able to do with it.  Not what I'd planned, that's for sure.  But the brown/white/blue print is a nice weight rayon jersey.  Haven't put it up against the scarf yet to see if it will work with the colors, but even if it doesn't it will be a good knit top.

And that's pretty much all the sewing anything I've gotten done in a month, lol.  Well...not quite.  We did a scene from the Gospel According to Scrooge at a small town 'tree-lighting' celebration last Friday, and it was, well, chilly for these parts.  I found the renmant of the army blanket I'd whacked ironing board pads from, squared up the dangly bits and made a stout wrap to keep me somewhat warm whist we haggled over Scrooge's fine linen shirt and bed linens wot we took off 'im whilst 'e was lyin' there....lol. I also found one of the first attempts to make skirts for the charladies...a straight draw-string skirt that didn't work for the era...and sewed up the bottom to make a bag for 'aulin' th' spoils'....So maybe I did get a bit done   Kind of appropriate as last week (the 4th, actually) was the 13th anniversary of the day I logged on for the first time to talk about costuming the 2005 production of  Scrooge.  The plan was to just do the scene for the Friday night event, but rumor has it that we will be doing it again for a Sunday morning service in December as a 'teaser' for the revival of the show in December, 2019.

Hm.  I may have blogging material again. LOL.

Sewing in an Apron...

..in an attempt to keep the white feathery debris from adhering to my clothing.

The costuming task that I have is to create costumes that suggest sheep for 5 little girls, who will be with Bo Peep in the Toys segment of the Christmas Eve production.

We've had pretty short notice, and I'm making it up as I go...per the usual costuming gig. ;-)

We have white sweatsuits for them, so we're layering a tunic vest made from the poly fleecy stuff.  It is ALL OVER.

I finally got smart and took each piece as it was cut,very carefully folded it and carried it over to a large shopping bag I'd hung from a doorknob, draped the piece into the bag and then shook it like a terrier to get rid of as much floof as I could.

Pity I didn't think of it sooner...

Looking down the apron after cutting out one sheep set...

 Debris on the cutting table...

The tail to be wagged behind her...

I have made all the ears and all the tails and one of the vests; two more vests are cut out.  We have a rehearsal tomorrow night (I'm just a body in the gospel choir finale)....hoping to get them done so I can check the length of the tunics.  They may need a little adjusting...

I'm thinking tomorrow's going to be a rather short work day.  But I have some vacation time to burn, so it will be fine...

The Skit that Almost Wasn't

Our 40's detective skit finally made it onstage today...after much rescheduling and shuffling. One of the castmembers was playing bass guitar during worship when this picture was snapped, just a little before we went on, but that's our Detective, a couple of clients, and his 'faithful secretary Trixie', which would be me. The fake furry thing on one of the 'clients' is just a piece of faux fur, cut in the rough shape of a fox pelt. I'm really glad we got to do it...I'd stabbed myself in the thumb really well cutting that and I'd've been sorry to have bled for nothing ;).

But the skit went well...actually, it was one of the most fun things we've done. Talk is that this could become a series.

I need a black-and-white polka dot rayon for the next one ;)

Trixie's outfit

I finished Trixie's secretarial attire Saturday; *I* think it's wonderfully homey for a poor spinster secretary. The blouse is an OOP Simplicity pattern, and I used a serger rolled edge to simulate piping. I need to work w/a hairstyle; after My Sweet Baboo snapped this photo, I played with my hair some more and got a much more convincing style; I just hope I can recreate it for real.

Due to technical difficulties (um, it would take more time to tape and produce than our production team has available), we'll be doing it as a live skit on the 24th.

Which means we won't get multiple takes...

But in all honesty, I kinda like that skirt (OOP Butterick that I mentioned here). It's got five gores; two in the front and three in the back. The center back gore has some nice shaping in it and the skirt skims my backside very well. It's more A-line looking than the envelope picture shows, but I think that's because the poly doesn't drape well. I thought about taking the sideseams up so that it was straighter, but I'm afraid I wouldn't have room to walk if I did that. So it'll have to do. But I may make it again to wear in real life...from a nice drapey something. ;)

'Trixie's' Skirt...Making it Work

Next church costuming project: a skit that will be videotaped and shown during an upcoming service. This is a 40's detective at work (it will be in black-and-white), and we'll all be costumed accordingly.

Which is kinda fun...the 40's is one of my favorite fashion eras. I'm the underpaid wise-cracking secretary, Trixie, so I won't be wearing the fancy suits, but I do get a skirt and blouse appropriate to the era. Yesterday I decided it'd be simpler to just make a new skirt than to try and make one of the skirts currently in the wardrobe work; so I started digging through the pattern stash and the cheap fabric bin to see what I could come up with.

I had three or four reproductions of 40's era patterns, but found that one of them already had the skirt pattern traced and adjusted, so it won the toss...it's an out-of- print Butterick:


I found a yard-and-a bit remnant of black herringbone-weave poly suiting and squeezed the skirt on. Then, when I sat down to serge the edges, I saw the piece that had been cut from the folded-under portion of the fabric had a slight problem ...there was a roughly-quarter circle chunk missing from the upper left front side seam/waistline corner. Aaaiiiieee! Wait, though...it's shaped like a shallow pocket opening! Quick, back to the cutting board. I traced off the cut edge, and used the skirt pattern and the boo-boo shape to draft pocket yokes and facings, then installed them. Hey...it worked! And, bonus...I get a skirt with pockets!

The skirt also had a side zipper; not my favorite zipper installation but I was going to go with it just because I didn't want to take the time to put a CB seam in the little narrow back piece. But, guess what...I had no black zippers. And it was too late for a Hancock's run. Now what...do I finish it to the zipper? But, hey, now I've got pockets! And I had cut the waistband extra-long, just because ya never know, so now I *could* do my favorite zipper installation in the pocket! I removed the serging and the stitching on the inside edge of the left pocket so I could get at the left pocket yoke and stuck a blue zipper there-in. No one'll ever know....

It was a fortuitous circumstance all around.

All that remains is to put a hook/eye on the waistband and hem it. Now I need a blouse. I looked around a bit online at 40's fashions and have two or three blouse patterns that would do just fine, with the right fabric. I really wish I had some black-on-white polka dot fabric in the stash for that, but I don't. Maybe a plain white blouse w/black rick rack trim or something.

I'll puzzle it out while I hem the skirt. ;)

A Close One

Before I could actually start sewing the ITT outfit with a good conscience, I needed to finish off a bit of detail work on some, um, unusual puppets for the kids' puppet team at church. I'd had these characters...in a rubbermaid bin which occupied a fair percentage of my very cozy sewing nook...since before Christmas, with the knowledge that they really weren't needed until the end of February.

Ok, since it's the end of February...

It wasn't difficult, but it was rather fiddly and tedious and made a little more awkward by the fact that the well-meaning puppet master had already stuffed the bodies of the victims. Overstuffed, actually...they had kind of a rigor mortis look about them. So, I unstuffed them substantially, added the details that were necessary, then stuffed them reasonably. And had two large zip lok bags of polyfill left. Now the rubbermaid bin will be leaving the house when the kids go to puppet practice tonight, and I'll have another couple of square feet of space regained.

But, that put me rather late changing the thread and such to start on the ITT.

And I discovered I couldn't find the thread that I really believed I had. I found one lowly little bobbin that was the right color...but nothing else. So I had to make a trip to Hancock's at 6:45 last night. I went ahead and picked out buttons...that took a few minutes because the only buttons in the right color and size were on a different display than the button wall (they were also more expensive than the ones on the button wall. Sigh.). While I was dragging my little fabric swatch across the rack of Metrosene thread, an announcement came over the PA: 'Thank you for shopping at Hancock's Fabrics. We are now closed. Please bring your purchases to the cash register.'

Yikes! I thought Hancock's closed at eight! I spotted the matching thread and grabbed two spools and hotfooted it to the cash register.

The clerk said that they'd had the new hours for a little while now; the corporate offices just rather abruptly notified them that the hours of operation would be cut back. 'It's nice for us', she said, 'We get to go home a little earlier.'

But the lady who let us out just shook her head. 'They'll change it back one of these days...probably with no notice then, either.'

But, knowing that Hancock's is in financial difficulty, it kind of scares me just a little that they have whittled the hours a bit. I pulled out after procuring my thread and buttons in the nick of time, just as some folks with out-of-county license plates parked and walked up to the door. Guess they hadn't heard about the new hours yet either.

Anway, Wednesdays are pretty full days but I'm hoping for 30 minutes or so of sewing this afternoon. We're leaving for the Expo a week from today...and I'm determined to wear this ;)

Peter Wimsey and Church Drama

I have been a Lord Peter Wimsey fan for absolutely years; imagine my delight when, not too long ago, I discovered that the heirs of Dorothy Sayers had authorized a writer by the name of Jill Paton Walsh to undertake a couple of additional Wimsey family novels, both based on the writings of Dorothy Sayers. The first of them, Thrones, Dominations, is a novel that Ms Sayers had at least started well and then set aside to collaborate on the staging of Busman's Honeymoon. She never got back to it, and Ms Walsh picked it up and finished it out. If it is a little overly concerned with referencing earlier Wimsey novels, it's still quite a good read, taking place right after Peter and Harriet finish their nuptial journeying and take up residence in their house in Town. Historically, it occurs during the same time period of the death of King Edward, the scandalous courtship of his son with Mrs Simpson and the events leading up to WWII.

But the bit that caught my eye and motivated me to actually mark in my book was a little discussion between Peter and Harriet over Harriet's future as a writer of detective fiction. Harriet is somewhat at odds with it, considering that heretofore she had done it to earn her living and, as Lady Peter Wimsey, she is no longer obligated to write for survival. Furthermore, she considers that her creations are neither Great Literature nor edifying non-fiction, and she wonders if it is a worthwhile way for her to spend her time. Peter, however, is convinced that the work she does is worthwhile...not because it is Great, but because it is idealistic. And not because it is intellectual, but because it is popular. "Detective stories contain a dream of justice," he tells her, and continues that "...they feed a need for justice, and heaven help us if ordinary people cease to feel that."

Then, on the next page, "You get under their guard," he said. "If they thought they were being preached at they would stop their ears. If they thought you were bent on improving their minds they would probably never pick up the book. But you offer to divert them, and you show them by stealth the orderly world in which we should all try to be living."

That struck me as remarkably similar to what I had posted about doing drama back in June on Costume Musings: That entertainment can reach a place inaccessible to other means of communication. What Peter said about Harriet's writing also applies to the ordered silliness that we sometimes do in our dramas at church: it gets under their guard.

Which is kinda cool.