The fabric

So, you have the ideas in your head, you have your designs all drawn out, which leaves one thing; buying the fabric!

This can either be exasperating or the greatest fun ever.  It gets exasperating when you can’t find what you want, the best fun is when it all comes together with hardly any effort.

I have just returned from my great fabric hunt of 2014.

I have learned to combine the fabric hunt with visiting my husbands’ relatives in the northern lands where the choice of fabric in one town far exceeds anything available in the whole of Norfolk!  This does mean I get two shots a year at this and the first buy up usually involves getting over 50 metres of fabric in one day!

This year I managed to get pretty much everything I wanted and came away on a high (this was rapidly depleted as we hit traffic jam after traffic jam and it took us over 6 hours to get home instead of the normal 4).

Here is the haul piled up on my table;

Now in the sensible world of the seamstress this lot would be washed before sewing but I have a life to lead and I never wash the costume fabrics before a performance!  This way I make the costume to fit and then if it shrinks, or some of the pattern or bling comes off in the wash, it is revamped for the following year without me having a hissy fit!

The one exception I will make to that this year is the Beast’s costume as I may need to use the padded shirt for another panto and I don't want a shrunken lining ruining it all.

I didn’t get an elaborate gold for Belle, but I did get some old gold taffeta and a piece of patterned gold that I will use for the bodice and decoration, I expect some bling will appear on that before it is finished. 

I could have bought a yellow colour but if the person I think will play Belle gets the role, she really doesn't suit yellow and it makes her look jaundice.  There is always the possibility she won’t be Belle but it really won’t make a difference in that case.

The big job is to now fold all this fabric up and put it away.  It will probably take all day lol

I am itching to get sewing and trying to work out which costumes I can make that are adjustable so they fit whoever gets the role.

What a beauty!

Well the meal was a total success in my eyes! Yes, it is Beauty and the Beast and I am so excited about it you wouldn't believe! I also got that money up front so I can relax and plan without worrying about how I am going to pay for everything (I am feeling slightly smug about that and intend to show them what they can get with a bit of extra money).

As I had already spent time thinking about how to make a beast costume, when I was asked offhand how I would do it, my plans were met with a nod and smile of approval.  The directors main concern that a mic would have to be fitted is not a problem with my idea.

So, I don't necessarily hear you ask, what is the plan?

It's based on this...

Please don't laugh!  My daughter had this doll along with pretty much every other Beauty and the Beast saleable item when she was a kid (she still has them all in a display cabinet!).

My plan is to start with a lining fitted to the person playing the beast (don't know who yet, auditions are in May).  Then add a layer of wadding to bulk up the shoulder and chest area just like the doll has.  I will then make a dark blue, velvet frock coat to fit over the top to create a Beast sized torso.

A pair of fur fabric trousers will make the beast look beastly in the body department, I mustn't forget to add a tail!

The head will be made of a half mask sewn to a long wig which will also have horns sewn on.

I am hoping this plan will work and give a good, easy to wear, Beast.  At this point I hope you are muttering to yourself about how I had said some of my costumes do get more complicated lol

Belle will start off with a dirndl style like she does in the film, but I want to make it more of a romantic ballet style skirt with layers of tulle.  I will start with a lilac one (I have the fabric for these) and change to a gold and pink one when she is at the Beast's castle.

This example come from thecostumelady.net/

I am pondering whether to make one petticoat type skirt with layers of white tulle that can go under all Belle's costumes and add a top layer to the dirndl's of the lilac and pink.  This would then also give volume to the most exciting part of this year...

THE GOLD BALLGOWN!!!!!!

Yesssssssssssssssssss, there is a ball room scene!!!!!

Yesssssssssssssssssss, I get to make the gown!!!!!!!

This is not any gown, this is the gown that started me off!  When my daughter was young the Belle doll she had didn't have a gold dress, so mummy made her one!  I then made a few other things then made costumes for the kids, then the kids got bigger and I was making full size costumes lol  It was the first copy of anything I made and it was this dress for this doll and now I get to recreate that on a real life adult woman!  So the hunt is on for the fabric and my mind is working overtime to figure out how close to the original it becomes.  

The other thing is, my daughter is determined that she wants Belle's gold ball gown for her wedding dress.  The wedding is not on the cards but it will be nice to know I have had a practise run when it comes to making that!

As I go through the script I will let you know what goes through my mind and then see what the result are.  Next week I am off fabric shopping....I really hope I find some beautiful gold!

Should a witch always wear black?

There is that moment when you seem to automatically know what a costume needs to look like.  I did it twice in Robin Hood, one was the Sheriff (I was stuck with Alan Rickman in my head and nothing else would do) and the other was Will Scarlett which turned out just as I imagined it with pleather shoulder armour instead of the real thing!

But there are some characters that you just can’t do that with year after year or it gets stale.  Take, for instance, a witch.  We all know that a witch wears a black robe and, of course, what a witch’s hat looks like!  But for pantomime we need to move on from the traditional look and use our imaginations or we will be accused of being downright boring.

We can go down the simple route of adding some trim in a different colour, red works brilliantly as it stands out so well alongside the black.  I remember being told many years ago that photographers will often put a piece of red into a frame as it brings all the other colours out.  Look at this well known scene from Schindler’s List and you will see what I mean.

Other colours that work well with a witch are purple and green (Professor McGonagall is a brilliant case in point); there is also that great bling element of a bit of sparkle with gold or silver.  I have also noticed that although plain black may seem boring on stage, different black fabrics, such as embossed velvets or jacquard prints, add a different dimension so don't be afraid to mix them up a bit.

You can also add interest with shapes in your costume.  Big collars, flowing sleeves, sharp shoulders or  contrasting layers will all add to the look.

Talking of witches, I have finished the robe element of Minerva’s gown and hope to set to those sleeves tomorrow.  I will have to go with the seam method so will attempt to show you how I go about it tomorrow and whether or not it works!

Dames dress refashion

At the end of last year I found myself really behind on my panto sewing, I won't go into details but it was an unavoidable money problem that inevitably happens when a personal issue hits someone within a group.

Anyway, it did mean that around half the costumes didn't have the time given to them that I would want them to have and it was often a case of 'that will have to do!'

One of those costumes was this Dames dress:

which in my mind was only half finished.

I decided to get all the 'refashions' out of the way as soon as possible as you can probably tell from my previous posts!  This was the last one and needed the most work.

To start with I cut the over skirt into an asymetrical shape and then I sewed on a full circle underskirt of blue.  Then I added a piece of curtain net to the bottom and an apron type device over the top and to the sides (It's really difficult to explain but easy to look at the picture)

Finally I ruched the sleeves and added some net to the ends and elastic to the cuffs.

The end result has more shape and poofiness all round which is more how I imagined it in the first place.

So now thats finished it can go out to the caravan, providing I have a caravan tomorrow as the wind has already blown away one of the stables in the field next to my house so who knows if it will last the night!

I also made a nifty mop cap for which I have made a tutorial, It's useful having a camera around when you're making something I have decided!

A little planning goes a long way

I spent a little while last week studying the pictures of pantomimes that I thought looked good and those that didn't.  I was trying to figure out exactly what made some people look good on stage and what it was that made others look thrown together in an amateur kind of way.  I did come to a conclusion you may be pleased to know.

Of course there is the obvious answer...money!  But us amateurs can do nothing about that so we have to look at alternative ways.

It took a while to realise that a good set of costumes is just that, a set.  They all fit together, either colour or style, and flow from scene to scene the same way the spoken word does.

I am a big fan of colour, so one of the first things I do when starting out on a pantomimes costumes, is to pick a colour.  Snow White was silver and Robin Hood was green (obviously).  Then I pick a contrast colour, SW was pink and RH was gold.  The plan is to try and incorporate one of these colours in as many costumes as possible so it all blends together.  With SW I also had the time to appliqué silver butterflies on the princess and Prince Charming costumes, which all flowed together in the pink and silver walk down dress worn by Snow White (I was impressed with myself over that one and must remember it looked good and do it again, although to be honest it was my husbands idea).

Of course the limitations of fabric mean this isn't always possible and inevitably there will be some costumes that just don't get either of those colours in there but if you can get enough of them it will add a colour flow throughout the pantomime that will make a difference to the whole performance.

This did work with SW and I was pleased with the result, unfortunately the same can’t be said for RH so I will be trying harder with this years costumes to keep those colours in the right direction.

I did a Google for Disney colour palettes and you can find a few things there that give you an idea of what I am talking about.  Some colours go together and some don't. Just try and get those blends right and half the work is done.

Can I point out here that I am not a professional in any sense of the word?  I am a complete amateur just like everybody else in our performances and hope that anything I say here can be used to help fellow amateurs get a look they are pleased with after all those hours chained to the sewing machine.  I would love to be able to say I know exactly what I am doing and that I have A, B and C certificates to prove it, but I don't and I am telling you what I have learned by doing it wrong in the hope you don't have to!

Back to the plot.  Style is something I can keep to even if there is a limit on fabrics.  With SW the style came through the men.  Frock coats and waistcoats based on 18^th century designs I found by that well known Google images.  The women had all kinds of styles that I thought looked nice and pretty and didn't really bother too much about it.  It worked in my humble and correct opinion!  With RH I managed really well to keep to a medieval style.  Marion had Italian Renaissance style dresses, Robin and his merry men all had waistcoats and tunics and Prince John and the Sheriff had medieval robes.  Unfortunately, the medieval style is totally based on tunics which I got really bored with.  I will be doing a tutorial on how to make a tunic, which is the same style for a robe, and really easy to do with a tape measure and a few metres of fabric it just leaves little room for playing and I like playing.

Just one of many Disney colour palettes you can find on Google images