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!

A word of warning

I know I said it was ok to use upholstery fabric, and I know I said that as long as it looks right……..

Big BUT!

A friend of mine is going to a wedding in Finland next month and they have been asked to dress in traditional Nordic clothes so she asked me if I would make her an outfit.  Now as she is a very good friend that helps out whenever she is asked, she is a person I would never refuse. So we discussed, at length, what kind of fabric she needed for a Viking apron dress.   You know, natural fabrics like wool, linen or cotton were what I suggested. 

She turned up at my house very pleased with herself a few weeks ago with some fabric given to her by an old lady she knows.  It was upholstery fabric, it was very thick upholstery fabric and one of the upholstery fabrics was a thick cord!  Now I am all for using what you have, but this is for a wedding and it is to be worn all day not for a two hour performance!

I grunted a bit and suggested it was not quite the fabrics I had said but she was pleased with her bargain basement gift and was not going to be put off.  So I then went into ‘well you asked for it’ mode and said nothing more.  Stage one of apron dress was a very thick woven fabric to be made into an undertunic.  I spent the morning measuring and cutting out and sewed it all together.  After turning it in the right way I noticed a bit of seam was undone.  Not exactly sure how I could have done this I sewed it again, turned it in the right way and noticed a bit of seam was undone.  Getting a bit tense at this stage, I sewed it again, turned it the right way and noticed a bit of seam was undone.  In fact pretty much every seam was undone.  In fact, the fabric was such a loose weave that even the overlocker wasn’t stopping the seams unravelling!

I text my friend and told her it was just not happening with this stuff and we are going out on Tuesday to get what I suggested in the first place. 

I then moved onto stage two, the apron itself and I am now struggling with the ultra-thick cord which is going to have the movement of a lump of wood.  She will be hot, she will be uncomfortable, but she will have saved herself £10 so who am I to argue?

The reason I am telling you about this is simple.  If you are going to use upholstery fabric make sure that it is suitable for the purpose given it!  My upholstery silk looks lovely and moves right; it just feels a bit plasticky.  The fabric for the blue Belle skirt is thick, but not too thick for her to move in.  Please make sure that the fabric you use is not going to cause problems for the wearer, even if it is only for the duration of the performance.

As for my friend, she will still be wearing something extremely hot and uncomfortable and maybe next time she will understand that you need the appropriate fabrics for the job!  Of course, having wasted so much of my time making something I knew was not suitable, there may not be a next time.

A bit of motherly advice

Before I allowed mother in the room, I told her she had to walk in and tell me her first impressions.

She stood in the doorway, did a quick intake of breath and said 'that's beautiful'!

Then I made her tell me what it needed.  Very quickly she that it needed lightening (not the weather type I hasten to add).

The result was a peplum with a row of gold ribbon and braid to match the bertha and bows to give that well known 'Belle' look without the ruffles all the way up the skirt.

She also decided I needed the beads on the bodice front.  So being the dutiful daughter that I am, I added the peplum and have started on more beads which are, so far, at the top of the bodice front if you look carefully.

The peplum was made using the fabric cut from the edge of the fabric to make the underskirt the right length and pleated to the match the size of the waistband.  I haven't yet sewed it to the waistband and if you look carefully you can see where it is pinned on at the side.  The braid and ribbon was put round and I beaded the braid to match the top.  As the skirt is still on a still too small dummy, I havent attached the bows yet, I need to measure it all out properly so they are in the right place when the dress is worn, but you get the idea!

Step two was to send a pic of this to younger daughter who is the Belle obsessive.  Her reaction?  

"Is this for the panto :( "

Note the unhappy not smiley face!  This means she likes it and is disappointed it is not for her.

I put her mind at rest by telling her I had left out many of the 'real' Belle features and of course the fabric is horrible and her wedding dress would be pure silk.  This placated her and left me happy that the biggest critic of a Belle dress had approved it!

I now have many more hours of beading before the dress is finished but I am on the home straight.  

This has truly been a labour of love and has taken far longer than any other costume I have made...but it had to be done!

The little girl in my mind

The gold dress has caused me problems!  I always have an issue with the ‘ooh ahh’ dress anyway but this time round it has become the most important thing in the world (I should probably not take these things so seriously!).

In my mind I picture the scene, families sitting in the village hall watching a pantomime that they do not expect to meet the grandeur of the Palladium, but a bit of gentle entertainment they can all enjoy.  Then amongst those in the audience is a little girl (I think it’s because I had four of those little girls that it seems so important).  This little girl loves dressing up in her princess clothes and watching her princess DVD’s and has been excitedly looking forward to this panto.  It’s Beauty and the Beast…it’s got Belle in it, and Belle does wear that lovely gold dress doesn’t she (Belle was the favourite Princess of two of my little girls, I can’t let them down)?

So it’s the ball scene and Belle comes on stage to one of two reactions;

Oh it’s a fairly pretty dress, or;

Oooooh ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Then, when they go home that little girl is either thinking of that beautiful Belle dress, or just enjoyed the evening.

This is MY moment, the moment that the costume department rises to the fore (can you see me on my soapbox), the moment when we can make a little girl ecstatic or just let her carry on watching the local village panto.

I want to make that little girl ecstatic!

So I made up the bodice as the pattern instructed and put a panel of gold in the front.

Then I looked at it.

This dress is NOT a copy of the Disney one but does need to be an interpretation of it to keep that little girl happy (wherever she is I hope she appreciates the effort I put into this).  I have shown you the design I am basing it on and I merrily cut out the bertha and pinned it on.  I then attached some gold ribbon and lace and took a step back (15 foot rule, remember).

Very pretty for normal wear, but not enough for stage, the creamy colours would disappear in the spotlights.

Attempt number two involved adding some black and gold sparkly braid;

As bit better but it now makes the whole thing look brown, not gold.

 I pulled off the bertha and remade it with the gold fabric I had put on the front panel, put the ribbon back on and added some cream, lacy braid.  And stood back…still not enough!

Then I virtuously sat there for a whole day hand sewing gold beads and pearls onto the bodice.  Here it is with the top row of beads sewn on;

A couple of hundred beads to the top of the bodice have given it some glitter but I still need to add more to the front panel.  But one day of bead sewing was enough so I ventured forth and finished the basic sewing.

Here is the dress as it is today;

The dummy has padding added to the correct measurements for the bodice but the skirt is pinned back smaller, hence the gap between the two.

The skirt was cartridge pleated onto a waistband  (I will do a tutorial for the cartridge pleating in the future as it does add fullness to the skirt without the need of a petticoat).

And I step back…it needs more.  Something on the skirt?  Or does it need more sparkle in the shape of some descrete sequins?  I dont want it looking tacky but it does need to stand out from the crowd.  I just don’t know what it needs and Auntie Em wont be round for a few days to help out. 

I do have my mother round today, she is always good as a practise audience member and I do have my daughter round later, but she is  coming after a scan so will be, no doubt, talking babies.

So if anyone reads this today and has any thoughts…do let me know…it’s for that little girl!