Dahlicious day and Willy Wonka

Friday is Dahlicious day!   I forgot!

I remembered it yesterday morning.

For those that do not have children, or work in a UK primary school, Dahlicious day is a celebration of Roald Dahl and, of course, it requires dressing up as a Dahl character.

http://www.roalddahl.com/charity/fundraising-and-events/dahlicious-dress-up-day/running-your-dahlicious-day

So I quickly ran through the options and quickly ran out.  I could be a ladybird from James and the Giant Peach as I do have a red dress with black polka dots…but that is letting down the costumer in me. 

I could be a witch with gloves and a wig, but I don’t want to wear a wig all day.  

Miss Trunchbull was a good option, but I had absolutely nothing that I could wear for that so it would require manic sewing to complete as I had forgotten all about it until yesterday.

So, although I scanned the internet I was left with one option…Willy Wonka.

This was purely on the basis that I have a top hat, I have trousers, a shirt and a waistcoat and the description of Willy in the book;

“Mr Wonka was standing all alone just inside the open gates of the factory. And what an extraordinary little man he was!

He had a black top hat on his head.

He wore a tail coat made of a beautiful plum-coloured velvet.

His trousers were bottle green.

His gloves were pearly grey.

And in one hand he carried a fine gold-topped walking cane.

Covering his chin, there was a small, neat, pointed black beard — a goatee.

And his eyes — his eyes were most marvellously bright. They seemed to be

sparkling and twinkling at you all the time. The whole face, in fact, was alight.”

I  have a walking cane and a pair of gloves, albeit white not grey. Also, most importantly, I recently made up the tail coat pattern for the Beast and have made it three times in the last few weeks so it should be relatively easy to sew together.

On the minus side I had no ‘plum coloured velvet’, but a quick trip to my local sewing shop revealed that a delivery had arrived that day including…purple velvet (I promptly decided that Damson plums are purple so it is entirely appropriate, especially as Gene Wilder wore a purple one in the original film).

I also bought the buttons that look just like a chocolate :d

For some reason the picture makes the velvet look blue but it is actually a lovely cadbury purple!

Now it is just a matter of making it before Friday and not for the first time, being incredibly grateful I have an overlocker to whizz through it…not panicking at all!

Getting on with things

The first rehearsal has been and gone and all the made or part made costumes were tried on with only one minor problem with the lilac Belle bodice being a bit small, but that is easily remedied by putting a strip of the fabric in at the side seam.

There was a lot of mumbling and grumbling, which is pretty usual and makes me feel totally unappreciated and taken for granted but I am used to it and tend to have shrugged it off by the next day.  So Saturday came round again and I finished off the maids dresses for the good fairy and her baby fairy assistant.

I was also able to check the sizing of the silver jacket from our Snow White production, which needs a little bit of adaptation in the chest area for it to fit the horse/prince character who is under the bad fairy’s spell.

We were going to make the horses head from upholstery foam but were unable to find any locally and postage costs made the whole thing unachievable so we settled on one of those horribly scary looking heads you can get in any fancy dress shop. 

We have tried to figure out how to de-horrify it, the only suggestion so far is to add false eyelashes to soften its ghastly stare! Have you managed to prettify one of these?  Any suggestions greatly received as we really don’t want scared children screaming their way out of the performance.

I am pleased to say my  list of things to do is dwindling fast and I really am hoping to have it all finished by the end of half term barring a bit of decoration and adding on of fastenings.

Daughter is  due to give birth the beginning of January and I absolutely refuse to still be finishing costumes (apart from hers of course) when I should be supporting her and getting to know my new grandson  so I won’t be accepting any extra requests to those already on the list.

But there was a delicious postal delivery that arrived today!  Samples of the fabrics we are thinking of for the bridesmaids dresses.  Daughter had fallen in love with the idea of teal shangtung silk so that is what we sent off for but to be on the safe side also went for a sample of satin back dupion.  We then searched for teal dress net for the petticoats but couldn’t find any and instead sent for two samples of French navy and forest green.

It was with great pleasure that the shuntung was as we hoped and also congratulated ourselves that the two dress net colours combined together for a perfect match to the dress fabric.  I will be ordering a roll of the teal fabric and a roll each of the two net colours next week so that can sit safely away in the bought and paid for corner until we decide it is time to start on the bridesmaids dresses.

At the moment we are waiting for my mum to return from a holiday abroad as she is going with my daughter to book the wedding date!  Once that is arranged we can really get going on deciding what will be done on the day.  Luckily we are a very crafty family with artists, bakers and sewers in the mix all ready to do their bit for the big day.

Interestingly this is going to turn out to be a very cheap wedding even though it is exactly what my daughter and her boyfriend wants, so I thought I would keep a tally of how much we actually spend on the whole affair.  I am starting off with the first item on the list;

One wedding dress… Vintage 1950’s wedding dress donated by a friend, made and worn by her mother….   £0

Here is the dress straight out of the bin bag that had been stashed in the loft for goodness knows how long!  It will of course be receiving tlc in the next few months and some adjustments but there are no signs of wear and tear so it’s all good

Not a bad start and probably saved around £1000 from the average wedding!  But it was the dress daughter fell in love with so that is what she is getting.

I will keep you updated as further decisions are made :D

Pantomime costume update

As promised here is the update!

Belle’s gold dress is now as finished as it will be until nearer the performance (the actress is on a diet so I don’t want to burn my bridges with that) and here is the photo…

 We also made up the costume to the Beast’s man servant, Pierre, using the same tail coat pattern but in a stunning shade of pink with gold flowers.  The actor for this role is known for his Dame performances so we felt the need to camp him up a bit.  He will also be getting a nifty pair of cream crushed velvet breeches to complete the ensemble.  Yet again this is not quite finished as we won’t be adding most of the fastenings on any costumes until near the date of performance.

We completed a number of skirts following the easy skirt tutorial which I won’t bore you with pictures of and some more tunics/waistcoats.  As I said earlier, we will be having the first rehearsal on Wednesday which means we will be getting measurements for those we have missed.  The big jobs left are dresses for Belles two sisters and the fairy dresses.  We are ahead of schedule on all costumes so I am feeling particularly relaxed about it all.

On the other hand, today I learned that eldest stepdaughter is planning to get married in September next year…………don’t panic!!!!!

Oops, must take those pictures!

I must apologise for the delay in the picture taking (I will try really hard to get it done today!) and updates on the panto costumes.  There is a really good reason for this though....my daughter has decided to set a date for her wedding and we have been totally girlie talking about everything she wants for the big day.

As we have decided on just about everything, and it will pretty much be a 'just us doing it all' affair, I thought it only fair to warn you that the term costumes now includes everything wedding!

Be prepared for overlap in the posts, a bit of an aside on the pre-wedding practise of my other daughters 18th birthday party, the panto preparations and the wedding preparations.  As such I may have to do a little title change on the blog (which has now happened)!

I am now going to hustle off and hopefully get some pictures sorted out and be back later today to do a proper update as the first rehearsal and costume fitting is on Wednesday!