Humpty Dumpty

It has been a long time since i posted on here about my goings on. With the holiday season following on the heels of my family health issues, and desiging a show for the Anoka Childrens Theatre's 20th Season, i have been a bit busy!
But here i am, back to tell you all about my adventures!
The first one is the one that gave me the most trouble: Humpty Dumpty

This costume soon became the bain of my existance.  The child had to be able to sit, so it cold not engulf him and make him a whole egg. He had other blocking, so we saw him in 3-D, thus he could not be a flad egg, that the child hid behind.  My original idea was to have a flat piece that the actor could hid behind (like in the photo)  and when he fell have him dressed as the egg yolk! I thought this was very cute and clever, they did not agree.                     

We decided to do a 3D egg, and decided to do it with the use of an egg crate - the kind you put on a bed.  Matt Lauer's costume from The Today Show a few years ago was the inpiration.

 

    I made the pattern, and fit the kid. But as i didnt have time to make the costume or the otpion of making it and sending it back from NYC.  So mom was hired to make the costume. With my fathers health issues, she didn't have time to do it and it was put off until 2 days before dress rehersal.   This left much to be done in not very much time.

While my fmaily gathered for Thanksgiving, I rushed to get the show ready. Sheila and Marlene got the egg ready.

Here are a few pics of Sheila and Marlene working on the egg:

                 After a few hours and a lot of glue, we got him together, and my sister, Erin, was kind enough to model it for me...

1950's Day Dress

I have been kicking around the fabric for awhile now. It is left over from a production of The Music Man i did many years ago and had bought to much of it. finally knew what I had to do with it when i cam across the patter for a beautiful 1954 day dress.

It is a rayon burnout of swirls, that I layed over white bridal satin. I played with other colors, but thought the white made it pop the most. The dress featured doleman sleeves, with a contrasting cuff. The skirt is the best part however, it has a slim fitting top with a circle bottom flounce. I just know my teacher would have been proud of this - i felled the seams and everything to keep the overlayer from fraying.

The satin collar and cuff i embroidered with a simple stitch on my new machine. . The back of the dress is a great detail: a series of matching buttons that run the length of the back. it really adds a nice period detail i think.

With enough materials left over, I will most likely be making more from this fabric. but we shall see! I am setting up a shop on Etsy.com where i am going to make dresses out of all these great patterns I have and sell them! This dress like the others has been donated to the TDF Costume Collection.

A Return!

So it has been awhile since i was here, personal things in my life going on. Among them I am in a new relationship and moving at the end of the month, plus work and things of that sort have kept me away.

But rest assured i am here and back at my game!

Right now i am designing a production of Babes in Toyland for the Anoka Childrens Theatre. They are a group i was a member of in my youth, and now in there 20th Anniversary Season they have asked alumni to return. So i am honored to be asked to design this season for them! I will be posting pics after thanksgiving of what i have done.

In the mean time the show so far is:

36 Kids (most playing more then one role)

around 70 costumes

15 being built from scratch

10-odds and ends

All being done by myself and an army of mothers!

WISH ME LUCK

Mermaid Parade

All my life i have had an affinity for mermaids. So it is no reason my bestie is also a HUGE mermaid fan, to the point she has a full back tattoo of one.
Well every year in at Coney Island NY, they kick off the summer beach season with the Mermaid Parade (http://www.coneyisland.com/mermaid.shtml for more information).
This year she decided we needed to go, and we both started working on our respective costumes from home - her in MN and I in Brooklyn.

I set out to find the perfect fabric = i wanted something kind of unusual but would convey scales. A few months ago i found a great snake skin printed cotton and thought that would be fun. along the way I came across a snake sin vinyl which was even better! it has a greenish grey hue to it and looked very masculine, which was perfect for the look I wanted.

The tail i made in a fitted trumpet style, with a HUGE train in the back, this I planned on dragging behind me so I would have a tail. I connected the skirt to a Y- back suspender of the same material, and then created a dorsal fin to ride up the back Y, and into the CB seam. I love how it turned out!


Heather is responsible for the beautiful crown, and i made the gauntlets of the same material. We had a lot of people taking pics of us, and got many compliments on both our tails! To see hers go to www.heathereve.blogspot.com

Tommy III

So the last dress I have to share today is the final dancer. Now this girl posed a challenge for me. She was a LOT taller, and bigger then the other girls. While not a BIG girl, she was the sort that obviously played sports. She was BUILT, almost 6 feet tall and very muscular. Not the typical dancer body I am used to dealing with.

I solved this body problem by creating a two piece ensemble that she could move it. Using the same fabric as the other dresses, i created the garment here. The blouse features a basque, and a top gathered over the breasts. The CF buttons are functioning, as well as a side zipper. I thought that would give her enough room to get it over her head, without messing up her hair/makeup

With this I made an A-Line skirt that moved very beautifully on stage. While being tall, I think it served her and the show well.

Sadly I could not get my hands on an appropriate sized dress form, so it looks a little odd here on a size 4...forgive me!

The Who's Tommy - II

Here is the second dress in the set. As told in my previous post, these dresses were constructed for a local HS in the spring of '09. I chose to make them of a matching Poly satin in different colors. Only 3 of the four survived the run, one barely made it to closing night....stupid girl...

This second dress is the orange one. It featured a "wrap around" bodice and skirt that features a cascade down one side. While the dress was made for a dancer, it and the others were all made from vintage patterns of the period. I have collected patterns for years, and love the chance to use a real source material when doing a period show.

The Who's Tommy

This past spring I designed a local HS production of The Who's Tommy.
If you know the show, there is a section during the Overture that involves women swing dancing with soldiers before they are shipped off to WWII. These are three of the four dresses I made for these ladies.

The director wanted them to look cohesive as a unit, while still have individual flare. I was fortunate to find this floral fabric in 4 colors so it was perfect. It is a polyester satin, which i was not all that jazzed about, gut then remembering that it was a HS and they did not have a wardrobe person on staff, I thought this would be better since it would not wrinkle, and at the end of the run it could be washed and not shrink or do weird things.






This is the first dress and a detail of the bodice.
It features 3/4 sleeves and a 4 gore flared skirt. The neckline is cut low, with an insert. I chose to accent it with cream covered buttons and a tiny bit of lace around the front neck edge. (You cant see it very well because the dress form is the same color, but trust me it is there!)

Teens Dress

This is based on a dress that was given me by the TDF Costume Collection here in NYC. It was too bad of repair for them to rent anymore, so I took it. knowing that it was once beautiful and I really liked the silhouette.

Here is a pic of the before dress. It WAS once a very lovely orange patterned silk, with an overlay of organza. The blouse was an overlay of organza on pale peach poly taffeta. To me the coat is the most impressive part of the dress - it has a very Funny Girl feeling to me.

The fabric I chose for my remake of it is left over from a wedding I did a few months ago. I have collected so much fabric over the years that I am trying to use it up and not spend any money - except for zippers and things like that.

The body of the remake is Tiffany Blue double-sided Duchess Satin (say that three times fast) and the blouse is pale blue taffeta. I decided for dramatic flare to accent it with black jet trim. (i have been collecting trim bits for years - and I dont want to move them any more!)

Here is where it stands so far - just about done! Ill post a pic of what it looks like with a body inside soon....

Lets start at the very beginning....

So inspired by my friend Heather Eve, i have decided to start telling the world about my craft!


I hold a MFA in costume design and have been sewing since I was in the second grade. For me it is like therapy: calming and something to occupy my hands! In my parents basement i have taken over two rooms and filled them with costumes (organized by period) hats, wigs, shoes, fabric, jewelry, patterns, and all sorts of inspiration!

So here we are - living and working in NYC - and i decided to post some of the stuff i am and have worked on. I hope others find this as an inspiration for ideas!