Belle's first dress

A couple of weeks ago, Auntie Em brought round this bit of fabric from her mum’s stash. 

I immediately paired it up with the fabric I had used for my younger daughters Victorian dress (that would be the lilac one) and it was a perfect combination.  So out came the Victorian skirt...already made so a bit of a time saver, and off we went to Belle’s house to get her measured. 

The first thing to do was shorten the skirt as the actress is a good 5” shorter than my daughter in the leg department (we have incredibly long legs in my family and my 5’6” daughter has an inside leg measurement of 34”).

I didn't want to do a permanent shortening as there is bound to be a time when daughter wants to wear the skirt again, so I thought of various ways I could take the length off yet make the process reversible.

The plan I came up with is similar to honeycomb smocking (there are many tutorials out there if you want to see how it’s done) but on a larger scale.

The fabric where the red pin is, is pinned to where the black pin is.  The green pin to the yellow pin and I did two lots of this for each section. 

I am lucky in the lilac skirt already had a square pattern in it so I didn't have to measure anything!  I then did a simple stitch to hold each fold in place.

The skirt is now 6” shorter but can be easily returned to its original length.

The bodice was the tried and tested one that I know I can put together in a couple of hours, but the whole effect was a bit bland for stage so out came the purple lace to form the detail at the front, neck edge and bottom of the bodice.

The next project is Belle’s second dress made with this combination of fabrics.

Playing with the good fairy dress

Me and Auntie Em had a play day! I had made a skirt (rectangle and elastic waist) from part of the coffee coloured sari for the good fairy dress which I showed in a previous post.  I then sat there with bits of lace and fabric, pinning them on and trying them out to see what looked good.  I really wasn’t satisfied and then had a moment of inspiration and sewed a layer of tulle over the top of the sari.

It was one of those grrrr moments when I realised the tulle was just a couple of inches short of going round the skirt waist.  I then set to pinning all those bits of lace and fabric on again and it still wasn’t working as I was now trying to cover up the gap.  Then Auntie Em turned up complete with two bags of lace and she did the same as me.  This went on for nearly two hours, pinning, tutting, unpinning.  Then Auntie Em had her own moment of inspiration and suggested turning the skirt and making a feature of the gap instead of trying to hide it.

A lovely bit of lace was soon sewn to the edges and we put some gold leaves and butterflies on.  We left it there as we were going to measure up our ‘Belle’ and didn’t sew any of the bits on, I don’t know if this is how the end product will be or not but it was a fun afternoon!  The top is just the sari end draped over the dummy to give the finished effect as we don’t have the measurements to make the top yet!

The Beast's costume

Apart from some buttons on the sleeves and front the jacket is now complete.  I tend to leave the hand sewing and do one big session of buttons and fastenings.

There are some minor faults in there and I didn't painstakingly sew on the braid by hand but whizzed through on the machine.  The 15 foot rule came into play there and I have too much to do to worry about minor details! I also made up a quick cravat for the ballroom scene so The Beast's costumes are pretty much finished. We just need to do the accessories for him now.

Unfortunately, I am not the world's best photographer and you can bet any decent pictures on this blog are not taken by me!

I have cut out the Prince's jacket and had a bit of a struggle getting all the bits out of the fabric but did manage in the end.  I have the feeling however, that I will move onto some other costume and make the other jacket at a later date as I do like a bit of variety!

The Beast continues

The pattern pieces for the tail coat all went together well but I needed to take off 2” at the side front to make it sit properly at the front.  I was admiring my sleeveless jacket when the obvious suddenly hit me...I hadn’t cut out the sleeves!

I measured the armscye...26”, and then the longest bit of fabric left...23”!  It took me a moment (luckily not long enough for me to have a complete breakdown) to realise that the jacket was being made from a PAIR of curtains.  So the sleeves for the Beast’s jacket will need to be cut from the other curtain and the fabric left from the first jacket is enough for the Prince’s jacket....phew, panic over!

As it was getting late I left the sleeves and instead sewed on the stand collar.  Then merrily sat and pinned the lace to the sleeveless jacket so I could spend the rest of the evening looking at it and seeing if there was anything I noticed that I didn't like.

I did spend the evening wisely and ordered a lovely curly wig and a cat mask.  The wig will have the horns sewn onto it and me and Auntie Em are hoping to have wire in them so we can put them in different positions.  The cat mask was ordered after a long debate on how to go about the Beast’s face.  I was adamant that we would not be doing face paint for the performance.  Not only is it likely to run, the same actress has to be the prince at the end so we don't want to be hurrying to wash off face paint when she has to do a quick change.

We contemplated making a mask ourselves, either with foam or paper mache, but in the end went for a pressed cardboard cat mask that we can add our own paper mache to and make it more beastly than kitty.  It will then be painted and hopefully this will work but for the grand sum of £3.99 I won’t be terribly upset if this plan doesn't work.

I’m hoping we will end up with something like this...or something approximately near to maybe like this will do!

Adjusting a bodice pattern to a tail coat

 After contemplation I decided that I would use a pattern for the Beast’s jacket rather than a cut and shut job.  I have two blue velvet curtains for this costume that do not allow for mistakes and I am sure it will look better fitted rather than not.

Although I have a drawer full of patterns I rarely use them as I have discovered over the years...if it ain’t broke don't fix it (I said that before recently didn't I?)

My go-to pattern for the jacket is the bodice pattern I used for the chorus costumes.  I used this same pattern for the Victorian dresses too!  With a bit of manipulation you can get the pattern you want from this, with the first step being a quick sketch to show the original and where it needs changing.

The first, and most obvious, change is the sizing.  The bodice pattern will have to be made larger to get it up to the required 52” chest necessary to cover the bulky muscles and shirt.  As I have this pattern up to a 48” chest I just need to add on 4” which I will put on around the edges of the pattern pieces.  Eight pieces, with two sides each, mean I only need to put on about ¼” to each side and wont affect the shaping too much.

The second point is that the bodice is made for a womanly figure (if you get my drift) and there isn't much call for that.  So I will ‘flatten’ out the front side piece to take away any boob allowance.  If I was to do this at the chest area by taking it away, this would change the sizing.  But by adding to the waist area I will be keeping the measurement I require!

The neckline needs to be raised to make it sit closer to the collar line and this is to be done both front and back.  Then the centre front needs to have the bottom changed so that it forms a ‘V’ upwards and not down as the original pattern is (ignore where I drew the line wrong on the right hand side lol).

The front facing can be incorporated into the front pattern piece just to make life easier and quicker when constructing the jacket.

Finally, the ‘tails’ need to be added to the back pattern pieces.

The final pattern pieces should end up looking something like this...

I made up the pattern pieces to plan, cut them out and pinned them to the Beast muscle and shirt to check for fitting.

I just needed to make some adjustment to the side front pieces by cutting some off the width and the bottom needed a trim to get the downward 'V' right. Here the front view also has some of the trim I intend to use pinned to it and a stand collar also pinned on.

Here is the back view, I am still undecided on whether the tails need thinning out a bit.

Next step is to sew it all together!

The Beast's shirt

The ‘muscle’ means that our Beast now has a chest measurement of 50” (now that’s a huge weight gain for our actress) so the shirt was made to go over this.

We need 2 shirts the same, one for Beast and one for the Prince but in different sizes so of course they need to be more or less identical.  There was obviously only one way to go....tunic from rectangle pattern.  This time round I added a collar and the sleeves were made from another rectangle (or two, the Beast does have two arms after all).

So following the ‘tunic from a rectangle’ directions I made one shirt body for the Beast.  The fabric is 60” wide so I was able to fold and cut a length of 30” to give me plenty of fabric for the shirt’s width.

I then folded the centre fronts to form where the fastening will be, before cutting the shoulder, neck and arm shaping.  I sewed straight down to form an easy placket, then cut the shaping and sewed the shoulders together.

Here is a pic of the shirt body before sleeves or the collar are added;

By measuring around the neck edge you get the length of the collar, in this case it is 24”, I folded the fabric double before cutting out the collar shape and used the fold as the collar edge.  The ends were sewn together and pressed.

Then one side of the collar was pinned to the outside edge of the shirt right sides together. 

I then sewed that side in place, turned to the inside and folded over the other edge of the collar, pinned and sewed it together on the inside of the shirt.  

The collar is then sitting nicely on the neck edge ready to be pressed.

Onto the sleeves, which are just a rectangle stitched into a tube and stitched onto the armscye (which you need to get the measurement of to ensure your sleeve is wide enough to fit into it!).  Of course it doesn't matter if your sleeve is wider than the armscye (the hole your sleeve fits into) as you can always make some gathers in it to make it fit...its not so easy to make it bigger so err on the side of no caution.  I have an arm length measurement for my Beastly lady of 25”, so yet again I am going to add some extra length for the seam allowance and even more as I want a nice bit of frilly flounce at the end.

I had a wonderful moment of realising that my sleeves were going to be 30” by 30” on my 60” width material, don't you love it when things work out like that?

I overlocked the edges of the sleeve and sewed a hem on one edge which is now officially the end of the sleeve.  Then sewed a channel 4” from the end to slip elastic through and form the frill.  The sleeve was also sewn to form it into the tube shape.

I would like to point out that my costumes are NOT for close inspection and the 15 foot rule applies...if you can’t see it from 15 foot away it doesn't matter.  However, there is no reason you couldn’t use these directions for a shirt for everyday wear, it is just a case of taking more time ensuring every measurement is correct and everything is sewn together neatly.  For the purposes of three days at the end of January, it is really not worth my while spending a long time on something like a shirt and I call these costumes my ‘cut and shut’ jobs!

So, back to the shirt.  The sleeves were put into the armscye and sewn up, a bit of elastic pulled through the channels and a bit of lace round the ends of the cuffs and it was nearly finished.  The only decision to be made was Velcro or poppers and I went with poppers as Velcro and wadding are in love with each other and over attracted, not a good thing for a quick change!

Shirt done....next step is the Beasts jacket.

Building the Beast

Yesterday I finally got around to trundling off and getting the measurements for our Beast.  She is a lovely lady, but I get the feeling she is going to spend the rest of the year putting up with little gags about her being a bit of an animal!

This year I have a little partner in crime on the costuming front (otherwise known as Auntie Em), this has been a godsend to me as I finally have somebody to talk to about which way to go.  The other bonus is that her mum is another keen sewer who is moving house...guess who is getting all her unwanted bits :D

After a bit of discussion we decided to make an undertunic to provide the beastly muscles.  I used my tried and trusted method of making  the tunic and cut it off just under the bust with a front fastening of velcro for quick removal, I also kept it sleeveless.  This was then used as a pattern for some 2" thick wadding which was placed over the fabric.  The arm muscles were attached with paper fasteners to give our Beast arm movement. Then the wadding was stitched to the fabric by hand.

Here is the muscle undervest:

We may cut the wadding into a more muscular shape, but at the moment we are leaving it until we can test this all out on our Beastly Lady.  Next step is a shirt to go over this.