Another year, another season.

Well, friends, it's that time of year again: time for the school where I work to begin a new year. The students are back for rehearsals and classes start a week from today. That means it's time to get cracking on the big Fall musical. This year, we're doing a show called I Love a Piano, a tribute to the music of Irving Berlin. Now, it just so happens that I'm quite fond of Irving, so I'm pretty excited about the show. Although, I will miss doing a show with a plot and characters and all that business.

I won't be designing this production--I'll be running the costume shop. And if you're not sure about the distinction there, I'll explain. (And if you are, you can just zone out for this next paragraph.) A costume designer makes the decisions about what each person will be wearing. They do design drawings, pick out fabrics and accessories, and make the first and final call about the look of the costumes in a show. The costume shop manager is in charge of actualizing the costumes. In a bigger shop, that might mean overseeing a team of drapers (who make patterns), first-hands (who cut the fabric), and stitchers (this one should be obvious). But in my little shop, it means sewing, sewing, sewing. (The designer does quite a bit of sewing here as well.) And I also get to train a small force of students in the ways of the costume.

But all that lies ahead. Before we dive into all of that business, we need to take some publicity photos that will become the poster we use to advertise the show. You may be thinking, how can you take the photos if you don't have the costumes yet?! And the answer is: easily. We just use stock costumes that imply the atmosphere of the show. And that's what we'll be doing today. And it's the first of many things to come for this show...

Animal Hat Vogue

All my embroidery is done! And I'm putting the bias tape around the edges of my Quidditch pads. I don't have anything more interesting than that to report at the moment. But enjoy this:

Progress...

Well, I've finished the embroidery on the arm guards and have pinned the bias tape around the edges:

Which is great--they're progressing along nicely. Though there's still a lot of detailing that I have to do with snaps and straps. What I'd like to do is make elastic straps to hold them into place and then make pleather faux straps with non-functioning buckles to hide the elastic. It's that kind of detail work that isn't necessary but makes me happy nevertheless. Also I found some perfect (size and color and style) buckles at JoAnn, but they didn't have as many as I needed. So...yeah.

I've also finished making the vest--though it needs a few alterations. I started with this men's vest pattern (which I conveniently already owned), made a mock-up of half of it, did a couple of alterations on the pattern and then put the vest together. The outside fabric is the same fabric I'm using for my robes--which is black crepe-back satin, except I'm using the matte side instead of the shiny side--and the vest lining is a black satin brocade (on the front) and a white dupioni silk (on the back) both of which came from my fabric storage. Here's a progress shot:

Finished, the vest didn't fit quite as perfectly as I wanted it to--forcing a men's vest to fit an hourglass figure is tricky business. So I pinned some alterations into place that made it lay right. Just to be sure (because the vest needs to be have a really nice tailored look) I'm going to baste the alterations into place (i.e. I'm going to hand-sew them loosely and take the pins out before I make the final machine sewn alterations) and then finish the whole shebang. I also have to put a faux welt pocket on it. And buttons. But here's a shot of the vest thus far with pinned-in alterations as modeled by my dress form, Sugar:

I also really like the look and weight of the dupioni silk lining on the vest. I may use a white dupioni to line the robe as well. I thought it would be too shiny but I think I was mistaken. And I'm a sucker for silk. But, then, who isn't?

Sound advice.

Source.

Great, kid! Don't get cocky!

I'm not going to lie to you, blog. I'm pretty proud of myself right now. I'm about halfway through making the Quidditch pads for my Halloween costume and it's going so much smoother than I expected (I almost hate to say that, but I really hate to not update about them.) So bear with me for a moment whilst I brag about my successes before project completion (I'm sure I'll be back before you know it to tell you how things took a sudden turn for the worse.)

As usual, I started by looking at stills of the movie and figuring out the shapes. Then, truly, I just took a piece of printer-paper, held it up to my arm, and drew the approximate shape with a Sharpie. Then I cut it out, held it to my arm, and reshaped it until it was perfect. I did the same with the shin guards, though those were much easier shapes. Here be the finished patterns:

At this point, I used all the knowledge I've obtained over years of doing overhire stitcher work for a mascot costume company. I knew that to give the pads the 3D sculptural look they needed, I was going to have to sew foam into them. Easy enough in theory, but I'd never done it on my domestic sewing machine before (only on the mascot company's powerful industrial machines). Nevertheless, I was going to give it a shot. I cut the shapes (without seam allowance) from 1/2 inch filter foam, then cut a piece of leather-look pleather for the outside and white linen-y fabric for the inside. (These I cut with quite a bit of seam allowance--maybe 2"?) I pinned it all together using as few pins as possible (so there wouldn't be dimples in the pleather, which can be such an unforgiving fabric), swore a prayer to the sewing gods and used a zig-zag stitch to sew around the edges. AND IT WORKED!! (albeit, slowly). So now I had this:

To get the rugby-pad shaping that the Quidditch pads require, I had to do several rows of stitching. I drew the lines on the backside of the pads with a Sharpie and a ruler and set about doing a small-ish zig-zag stitch along them. In retrospect, I would have made the back sides prettier, but those will be very hard to see, so I'm not going to worry too hard about it. Once that was complete, I had this:

They look pretty good (if I may say so), and would be very nearly done if I was making the standard Quidditch pads. But Madam Hooch's pads have rows of decorative grey stitching in each of those little trenches. So that's what I'm working on now. I have to hand-stitch each row with embroidery floss. It's slow-going, partly because I'm slow at embroidery (it's not a skill I break out often, and so I'm not great at it) and partly because it's very hard on the hands to sew through the foam and pleather. But I've been re-watching old episodes of Futurama while I work on it, so at least I'm entertained. When that step is done, I'll post pics.

But in the mean time, let's all just revel in that fact that my humble little sewing machine can chew through 1/2" foam like a pro! I know I'm celebrating...

My favorite time of year....

Well, kids, San Diego Comic-Con has come and gone. And even though I wasn't there, I can still enjoy my favorite part of the con-sphere via the magic of the internet. No, it's not the panels or the previews. It's the costumes! (Obviously!)

Now, I could wax poetic about why I love convention cosplay. I could compare it to ball culture as an expression of defiance against the generally-accepted socio-normative standards of dress. I could discuss how it empowers social outcasts. Or I could just show you a few of my favorites.

Some good "sexy [thing-that-isn't-usually-sexy]" costumes:

(I also saw a group of ladies doing a Sexy South Park group cosplay and what I think was a Sexy Wampa (although, admittedly, it was hard to tell. It was basically just a furry bikini). But, while they were certainly creative, they weren't as well done as those.)

These are my two favorite more-or-less plain clothes with a little costume-y something costumes:

Here, I had to pause and give props to these, not just for good costumes, but for great makeup:

And finally, a costume that I've already seen getting some buzz around the blogosphere, but with good reason. I mean, wow:

Of course, there were so many more good and great (and awful) ones. Some good-looking Cylons, many impressive X-men, and a tenth Doctor that I wouldn't mind having the phone number of... Far too many to list! You can check out the 1100+ photo gallery here.

Fabric 101

One of the lessons I learned early on in my costuming career was that the right (or wrong) fabric can make (or break) a costume. It seems like a simple idea--one that should be obvious, but for some reason, it's one of those lessons you have to see in action before it truly sets in. Sure, that $1 fabric bin at Wal-Mart is cheap (that is to say, when Wal-Mart still sold fabric), but that's because it's usually terrible fabric that looks, well, terrible.

Now, obviously, when you're buying fabric, you should know right from the get-go what color or pattern you want--if you don't, your project may be in more trouble than we have time for. But what else do you need to look for in a fabric? The big deciding factors that I look at are these: weight, drape, sheen, opacity, and, of course, price.

But what does that mean?! Let's talk about it.

Weight: This is a concept that relates easily to every day life. Going out? What's the temperature? Should you take a light-weight jacket or a heavy coat? That's basically what fabric weight is: how heavy or light fabrics are. Heavy fabrics keep you warmer. They also hang more...well...heavily. Think, velvet theatre curtains vs., say, window sheers. In making this choice, think about how much you want to the fabric to move and how warm or cool you want to be while you're wearing it. It's also worth noting that heavy fabrics can add drama while light fabrics give an ethereal feel.

Drape: This refers to the stiffness of the fabric and how it hangs. If you're making a flowing skirt, you want a softer drape (i.e. a less stiff fabric.) This is an easy one to forget about when you're choosing fabric, but it's very important. To check it out, unwrap a bit of fabric from the bolt and see how it hangs down. Does it fall into soft curves or does it stay rather square?

Sheen: What do I mean 'sheen'? Well, sheen refers to how shiny a fabric is. Satin has a lot of sheen, wool usually has none. And everything in between. Pro tip: if you find a fabric you like but it's too shiny, take a look at the backside of the fabric, which is often less shiny and may be just what you want.

Opacity: This is how see-through a fabric is. Sometimes, see-through is what you're going for. (Like if you're making the aforementioned window sheers.) Sometimes, it's not. It's always good to check how see-through (or sheer) your fabric is. I usually check this by putting my hand on the underside of the fabric and noting whether I can see the color of my skin through the fabric. Often, cheaper or light-colored fabric will be unintentionally see-through.

Price: This one is pretty obvious. When you're working within a budget, price matters. If you're shopping somewhere like JoAnn and you have plenty of time, go scout out the fabric you want and then check back for sales or coupons (I was waiting to buy my Hogwarts robe fabric when I got a 50% off coupon in my email! Hurray!). You know what you have to spend and you know what you need, so I won't lecture on price. But it felt wrong to leave it off the list.

When I walk around a fabric store, I touch everything, checking those attributes and considering my options. Now you can join in the fun!