A Sketchy Mouse

The initial design for when little mouse ventures out in the snow.

Tick tock...

Where has the time gone? I swear it was July last week. I've been such a busy bee these past few months, and have been utterly hopeless at snapping it all. But yesterday I finally remembered.
I'm currently working for Blunderbus theatre company as their solo costumer for three upcoming shows. It's exciting and challenging and I'm loving it - even when the heater won't turn on!
Mostly I'm making the costumes for their show "A Very Snowy Christmas" about a little mouse and a big mouse. The actresses are lovely but they are decidedly un-mouse-shaped so it's been padding galore the past few days. I was worrying that there wasn't enough wadding in there but after seeing the shape with the britches mock up on I think they're round enough.

You can hear all about the Blunderbus goings on on their Twitter feed @blunderbusbugle

A link....

I just found this blog and its very interesting so I thought I'd share. The posts are definitely worth a read so if your a bit if a skimmer it's worth the extra effort, they are really informative.

In need of an ironing ham

I've started on a dress for my sister to wear to a wedding in the summer, its a very simple sleeveless bodice, 3/4 circle skirt combination. I had this amazing blue silk in my cupboard which was perfect for it but its so thin, so it all has to be mounted on cotton first.

The pattern was from a slightly adjusted basic block, I'm always amazed when they fit, it just looks too simple! But it did fit, and so far so good with the silk, though it feels so fragile I'm almost scared to hold it. Hopefully it will feel more sturdy when the lining is in.

All cloaked up

A half finished Penular cloak made of heavy wool, its certainly warm. Just doing its embroidery stitch to finish it off, all 14.25 metres of it!

Happy Organising

We've an unusually large amount of items to make at once at the moment:

13 celtic style tunics,

4 viking style tunics,

1 pair of trousers,

1 hooded cloak,

And finally 1 pair of leg bindings.

Thats lots to co-ordinate, especially with all the tunics involving two different fabrics and various embroideries. So I set up a system with labels and charts, which so far appears to be working. Everything is cut and we're ready to start the next stage.

The Floral Fifties

I just finished this little commission. Its a copy of an 1953 vintage shirtwaist, the original was a plain dark grey and the fabric had worn a bit too thin to be wearable.

I found the fabric in a lovely little shop called the cloth shop just off Portobello Road in London, the people inside were unbelievably friendly, i've never had my fabric cut with such a genuine smile before.

[link http://www.theclothshop.net/]

Leather Leaves

These are some leaves made out of veggitan leather we made at The Custom Costume Company. We traced the shape, cut it out with a craft knife, dampened the leather then added the details with scouring and stamping. I've never worked with leather before and I really enjoyed it, though it doesman have kill your hands, I had little in the way of fingers left after doing it and poor Denise got SRI. After doing the details we shaped them with our hands to make them more realistic and painted with leather dye.

Beaded Flowers

Just testing out this new fangled (well, to me anyway) blog from your phone app, lets see if it works...

The Creation of 6 Giants, Part 2

Obviously we couldn’t just leave the giants as bright blue body suits, so we covered the bodies in large vests of flesh tone lyrca. I can’t say it is one of my favourite fabrics to work with, but however awkward it makes the sewing, we definitely needed the stretch to cover the bodies properly.

And with a little pinning and tucking, it is vastly improved. Everything was covered in labels right from the beginning, with 6 giants that were similar but not identical, it was important we could easily see what went with what.

Then we added arms (sewing the arms in was my main job for about a week), which took ages because I had to do it after the lycra was on the foam body, which made it pretty tricky to get under the sewing machine.

These are the prototypes for the arms and head, made of plastazote.

After all the sewing we added loin cloths and they were all airbrushed. I am always surprised by the amazing difference that airbrushing makes, everything suddenly becomes more 3D than it was before.

The Creation of 6 Giants, Part 1

  
In December I worked as an assistant at Promotional Props and Costumes. We worked on the job of creating 6 giant costumes for a production of the BFG at Derby Theatre.
To start with we made a foam body shell, then we padded it out on the shoulders, moobs and bum with more layers. The pictures below shows shoulder blades before and after carving with a scalpel.
  
Of course when your surrounded by blue foam body suits, the obvious activity is to wear them with silly wigs.

Connected to the World Again

Well it took 3 months, but my internet connection is finally back up. I can’t believe how long it took to get everything sorted, far longer than it should have anyway.

But back to the sewing, I made these for a ladies husband a few months ago for costume ball. I took the pattern from his Morris-Dancing breeches, but these had to be in white satin. I lined them in cotton though, the satin was a bit see through.

The originals I took the pattern from had an adjustable waistband, so I added that in. It was less effort than expected, and works really well. I might start using it more.

Breeches involve a lot more buttons than the average pair of trousers, I got to make full use of the button hole function on my machine. There is something I find daunting about button holes, the number of items I’ve made for myself which are perfectly finished apart from the safety pin holding them together. But they really aren’t that hard at all when I get round to them.