The Princess and the Queen!

Apologies for being so quiet over the past few months it has been a very busy time, but rest assured I am still designing and making away!

I have been commissioned to design and make two dresses for a local company, a 'princess' dress in specific colours chosen by the company, and a Snow Queen dress. For this I have had company head Diana with me every step of the way. I began designing a few months ago, and after a very productive sourcing trip around some local fabric suppliers - I cannot recommend Hansons in Sturminster Newton highly enough, they have an the best range of fabrics that I have found outside of London and incredibly helpful, friendly staff - we sourced the fabric that we wanted.

The first to be made is the princess dress, and we have gone with a lilac tinted silver crepe back satin, to have organza gathered cap sleeves that sweep across the front, to be decorated with clear hot fix rhinestones. The deadline for this dress is in flux and is currently not required until early next year. 

While I am fast at hand stitching, it will never be as fast as machine stitching! However, the best way to get the pleats in the skirt accurate and stable before stitching to the bodice was hand stitching them in place and so that is what I did. The other hand sewing was slip stitching the bias binding - yes, once again it is the return of the slip stitching!

In the mean time, here is a photo of the dress as it stands now - please bear in mind that it will have embellishment, the sleeves and the neckline have to wait until the dress has had at least its first fitting. The skirt will also have structuring under it to give it more volume!

Goodbye to the 50's for now!

Last of the posts about the 50's teapot skirt! I was sent a photo of the lady at the roller disco hen party in her full outfit and makeup that she was more then happy for me to share, so here it is! I an really proud of how it turned out (and how much she loved it!)

Anyone out there looking for someone to design or make a 50's skirt or anything at all, just let me know!

Back to the 50's!

So yesterday I met with the lady I had made the skirt for (last post, making a 1950's style skirt from fabric chosen by the woman I made it for, for a 1950's hen party roller disco!) and handed it  over. It fit! The biggest hurdle, it fit her beautifully and she loved it, and better yet she immediately went and put it on and posed for some 50's style photo's for me at the bandstand nearby!

Fingers crossed I will also be being sent a photo of her in full 1950's attire at the roller disco, skates and all! Always nice to have a happy customer.

A Bit of the 50's!

On Sunday night, my friend asked me the best place to get a circle skirt, 50's style, for a hen party at the weekend. There is nowhere about where we are to get one in person on any kind of budget and online the delivery was more likely to be some time next week, so I offered to make it! So off to the fabric shop yesterday afternoon.

Quirky as she is, in the very best way, this was the fabric chosen! She still wanted to go with the polka dot 'traditional' element but have it in a more fun way. And who doesn't love a good teapot?

The pieces ready to be made into a skirt!

This was a brilliant way to discover that I can make a full 50's style circle skirt to measurements in an afternoon! I decided to make the best use of the sunshine and hand sew the zip in and do the slipstitching to finish the waistband in the sun! Something about the 50's styles is very summery, or at least I think it is.

One of the things I find interesting about this type of skirt is the combination of hand and machine stitching, and how simple it is to make very effectively.

Pre-shortening

The finished skirt!

Hopefully she will be able to model it for me later this week before I hand it over. Fingers crossed!

Goodbye to 'Oliver!'

So Saturday was the last day, a matinee and an evening show, followed by the get-out! I decided to work from the studio, as there were only two jobs to do before the first show started - the matinee show was for the understudies of Oliver and Dodger to have their chance and the Dodger coat for the understudy needed a pocket added to the inside, and another set of trousers needed to be patched, and had the standard assisting one of the ladies into her costume (corset training coming into play again) so it was a fairly relaxed run up to the show.! During the shows the standard issues and quick changes arose but nothing that couldn't be quickly fixed. The cast were all revved up and excited, and the audience reception was fantastic.

Between the two shows there were actually no repairs that needed to be done, but I had one job in preparation for the get out - costume designer Lisa had assembled the wardrobe and knew what belonged to where, but getting everything collected for cleaning/returning with such a large cast could have proven very time consuming at the end, so Lisa devised the idea of setting out bin liners on chairs in the studio (backstage) with signs for the type of garment for each bag, so I set about laying out the chairs, bags, and signs. With the costume changes that many of the cast had they finished with certain costumes and costume pieces at various points through the show and could then place them in the bin liners without taking extra time. This worked really well, and as there were several points during the show where I was without repairs or quick changes I spent the rest of the show folding the costume pieces in the bags to make sure they would pack down more neatly and smaller so that they could be transported more easily!

At the end of the show things got really busy for myself and Lisa, with the cast out of their finishing costumes, they were delivered to myself and Lisa, with the exception of the childrens costumes which one of the chaperones very kindly folded and sorted into piles and left them for us outside the dressing rooms (thank you again so much for that!). The adults dresses and coats were not put in bags, instead I asked the cast to lay them over the back of one of the chairs and they needed to go on coat hangers to be transported flat.
The get out for costume was relatively short due to the organisation - only just over an hour - but I stayed to try and help out with the get out of the set and equipment though there wasn't very much I could do the crew had it very much in hand!  

We managed the whole of the get out before midnight and all of us were pretty much ready to collapse by then but it was a really fantastic day, and a fantastic week with a wonderful show and cast and the songs are still stuck in my head! Bournemouth Musical Theatre are a brilliant company and definitely one to watch, if you're in the area when they're doing a show they are worth coming to see!

Second show down, three to go! And a tribute.

Tonight' show was another triumph! There were very few costume problems, only a few of the standard rips and tears (primarily trousers and skirts) all easily fixed, using my corset training, and assisting on the same quick changes as last night and it all went off perfectly.

 

Today also marks another event, the passing of THE Fagin, Ron Moody, that so many of us grew up watching in the original musical film that made Fagin such a beloved character and lovable rogue, so Bournemouth Musical Theatre dedicated tonight's show to him.

 

It was strange being in a theatre during a heat wave, the last three years I have been on outdoor productions, in 2012 for the Olympic opening ceremony at Weymouth, the year before last it was Romeo and Juliet, and last year for Landance! It is interesting how quickly and how much the theatre heated up, and concerning for those in the cast with thick layers of costume, but thankfully with everyone keeping hydrated and being sensible about it there were no incidents.

Final Run!

Tonight was the last run before opening night, and as to be expected was full of last minute breaks and adjustments! The majority of my time was spent repairing last minute tears, holes and issues (tripping hazards and failing buttons), ironing, and myself and costume designer Lisa 'dirtied' the workhouse costumes predominantly with black and grey eye shadow.

 

The next job will be to repair the adults costumes that were damaged during the second act of the run, for which I have a to-do list for tomorrow! The cast is sounding fantastic and the set looks incredible, it is a brilliant show.