The Donkey "Bottom" is all done

 

I finished the Donkey costume  for the play.  It is not a full costume as it is to be removed and put on, on stage.  So it needs to be easy to put on and take off.  I thought it needed hooves for added benefit and to show that the donkey could not do anything for himself. So it has hooves that I made from ice-cream buckets that I

• one cut apart
• Then duct taped back together
•  then paper mached over that
•  then spayed with black enamel spray paint
•  punched holes in the hooves
•  and hand sewed to some tubes I made for sleeves that have elastic at the wrists and at the biceps.

  I did not have  a pattern so I made it up as I went along. 
 

Two tails made from imitation yak fur also no pattern just figured it out as I went long Just as I did the hooves.

The hood part is made from a part of a pattern for a rabbit another part made from a pattern for a kangaroo and yet another section made from a costume for a jester.   Then of course there is my modifications to make them work together and my additions to the patterns.  So it is not a pattern you can buy any where.  So I have the character Puck left to do then I think I am done for  awhile with the costumes for the play.  As the rest are our old costumes that the school owns we will use.  I also have to make a Gibson Girl costume for this daughter for her play Our town that she is in.  I also am testing  pattern for someone on ravelry but can not tell you what it is as that part is a secret.  I also have to get a cross stitch done in the next four days for a customer.  The shirt and pants you see in these photos are not part of the costume that is just a pirate shirt my daughter put on too have a shirt similar to those the boys may wear and those are just scrub pants.  She was a good sport for taking these photos as my other daughter would have none of it.

Queen Titania

I made the queen to represent water both in winter and summer.  She is supposed to sparkle like ice and waves cracking yet have a cool color.  I think I achieved my goal.  If you notice her dress is different than the other fairies  a square hem line on the shirt tunic.   Yet she has the same type of corset and a similar type of peplum with a wavy edge.

I have made her to look like our old and new fairy costumes combined so that the two on stage make since.   Yet she is different  in that she has coins and beads dangling from her dress and long sleeves I also added her peplum to her corset instead of her tunic.
Her corset is supposed to sparkle a lot on stage when we have the disco ball going and spotlights.

Her skirt is made of lame as is the lining of the tunic.   The tunic overlay is sheer blue fabric with silver painted details on it.
We have three levels of fairies the queen then her consorts the costumes I just made then the servants or peasant fairies which are wearing our old costumes.
This corset caused me considerable grief I never like working with confetti fabric unless the fabric is several years old and the glue totally dried up and not gummy.  I also I made the mistake of using stretch fabric both on the front and back of the corset with interfacing the confetti fabric cannot take the stretch and rips when the corset is  tightened so we have to leave it loose.    When we do this play again in four years I will probably be reworking/remaking this corset.

The wings you see depicted in these photos are owned by the school we have used them in the past.

Oak leaf Stockings

I do not get to work on these too much.  They are my carry around with me project that I do while I am sitting in carpool waiting for my kids or at  doctors office and things like that.  They have made a little progress from the last time I posted about them they had not even come to the heel turn yet.  Now I have done that and am doing increases to go up the calves.  I am combining several patterns to get these socks but all are free on the Internet so it made it nice.  I have 7 balls of this yarn (red heart stardust) so I am hoping I will get either thigh high stockings or actual tights.  But we will see the balls of yarn do not seem to have much yardage on them usually I would think seven is  a lot not not so much with these.   They are fitting perfectly so far.  Yes your eyes are not deceiving you those are pull-tabs I am using as stitch markers I was working on some pull tab chainmaille and could not find my stitch markers when I switched to my knitting so since these were handy I used them they actually work kind of well for this project but i do not recommend them.  Sorry for the ugly back ground that is a carpet at the school I was sitting there during choir practice and decided I wanted to see how they were fitting.  So yep ugly carpet.

Moth's / Mote's fairy costume

I am glad I did not make the costumes as soon as I new the actresses measurements and waited a few months as one of the main fairies dropped out of the play and was replaced by a girl with a very different physical  appearance than the first one.  I am happy with the new choice she has brown hair which I think will fit the character of Moth better.  Wish cobweb had black hair but she is a blond oh well that is how it goes.  Moth was a blond now she is a brunette.  It is something you may not have noticed but the costumes keep getting smaller and smaller you can tell by the way they change the way they fit on my middle daughter. I started out with the tallest actresses so I could keep cutting the pattern down.  So as I went threw the girls in the play I  could just keep trimming the pattern. This way I would not have to buy more than two of this pattern.  One to cut up and one to keep.  We started out in size 14 then 12 then 8 then 6 the next one is also a size 6 but with all the seams removed it will make since when you see Puck why there are no seams just tons of grommets about 80 of them.

Now on to describe Moth which is the fairy you see in these photos.  I wanted moon light and star light represented by this costume.  As Moths always fly at night and to lights and so on.  So this costume has way more glitter, sequins and gold on it than the other costumes have.  I wish I had a photo at night that had worked.  When this costume spins at night with a spot  light on it wow lots of sparkles.  She is actually wear two sets of wings at once  in these photos.  One is right on top of the other.  I wanted some fuzzy moth like wings and some sparkly like the stars.  So I mixed two to get a sort of look I was OK with.

The costume fits my youngest daughter the best but the photos of her did not come out as well as I would have liked.. So my middle daughter also was kind and put it on to take some photos for me  but it is not truly a good size for her unless she does not like to breath much.  But she said she felt pretty in it and would not mind wearing it in the future even if it was a little tight.  I use to donate the costumes to the school that I made but these days I make them but I keep them for my kids to have and use.  They get used more this way but they do not get as wrecked as easily as we can control their use.

Cobweb's fairy costume

This is the costume for cobweb that I made.  Can I just say I have a love hate relationship with the pattern I am using and modifying.  Every corset I have had to split up the back as they have all been about 2 to 4 inches to big.  Yes I  double checked the patterns and the measurements more like quintuple checked.  The pattern is just made all wrong in the corset area.  So I split them up the back which means 8 more grommets per corset and 2 more sets of boning per corset and more seams.  All that so I can make the corset 2 inches smaller and still then it is even too big on some.


 Absolutely ridiculous I would think a Simplicity Pattern (number 1550 for those that are curious) would have been tested better than this.  It is  a good thing I have no fear of modifications to patterns.

• When I did Peasblossom I used an entirely different skirt, and split the back and made multiple layers on shirt and corset where there wasn't to get the desired effect. 
• On Mustardseed I split the back of the corset and gathered the skirt and also did  multi layers where there wasn't any on the skirt. 
• Cobweb split the back, made multi layers on corset and multi layers on the skirt and added another set of extra grommet holes to the back of the corset different than the lacing ones to accommodate the cape/wings I made out of cobweb like fabric.  I also shredded the blazes out of the hem to give it a sort of tattered look that i want to this character. Then I sewed purple ribbons to the hips of the dress so that the black over lay of lace could be tied up on the skirt.  Which would then show the bright purple fabric under neath the black cobweb lace.

This costume does not have as much glitter as the others have but it does have a real sparkly shirt and I will spray all the costumes with glitter before the first show to add more.  This costume is actually one of my favorite so far for the play.  I really love the wings I found for this character it looks like a spider is sitting on her back its legs form the wings.

I am debating on going back to each character and adding a single grommet to each hip to make a hole in the corset as I would like each fairy to carry a little pouch and that is where it could tie onto the costume.  Costumes never have pockets and they are useful as usually any character in any play usually  have to carry props at some point in time.  I'd like to accommodate that need before it is discovered that there is a need for it.  Two of my daughters wanted to try this one one.  The girl playing the part is more the size of my youngest daughter the day time photos.   But it does fit the red headed one too, the night time photos, who is taller and more grown up in figure so it will work for multiple people over multiple school years.

Now off to make Moth's costume it is going to be very very sparkly because even though Moth's are active at night they like light so her costume reflects lots of light... Wish me luck!

Red Pride and Prejudice Gown

 

I made this gown for me to wear to the Pride and Prejudice celebration.  I was one of the chaperons.  But by the time I got done with the others it only left me half a day to make mine.  That was just not enough time.  I almost pulled it off I had it all done except for the zipper in the back of the dress.  Yes less than two hours more and it would have been done oh well that is life.  I have at least two more Pride and Prejudice celebrations and one  more David Copperfield one before my kids graduate high school.

So it will get worn just not at this time.  The dress is made from an upholstery fabric again with an upholstery zipper.  This is fabric that I originally purchased to make a Bingly sister dress for the play with the same name.  So it is funny how things go around and don't get used then sort of do but will in the end. I hope that made since did to me referring to original purpose of fabric for the play, then  making it for the celebration and not worn but will be in the future. I plan on wearing these with black satin elbow length gloves.  Yes this dress fits me but because I made it with a draw string at the neck and under bust it can also fit most of my daughters but it is a little long in the sleeves for them.  The youngest is still a little small but not by much.  Grrr tried taking photos at night did not work well had to wait a few days to take some during the day not sure they came out well either but there they are anyway.

Yellow/Green Colonial Costume with pink flowers

This is a costume that I made for my middle daughter to wear last year to a Colonial tea party celebration.  I never got it posted so I thought I would do that now.  My computer was crashed at the time.  I started this outfit around 2 am in the morning making it and got it to my daughter by 10 am.  Yes eight hours to make the dress.


It was an easy sew because I had made a similar dress for my youngest daughter already so I did not really read the pattern as it was almost the same I just started sewing the dress and yes the fabrics are different just the general idea is similar.  When I had  a question or my mind was foggy I would glance at the pattern.

The yellow fabric with flowers is some I found at a thrift store for a bolt of it for 6 dollars.  I could probably make this dress a few times over with what I still have left over from the original bolt.  The pink cording you see on the dress is also some I found thrift shopping about 1 year after when I found the fabric. But it made nice details to add it to this dress.  The pale green fabric was on close out.  When she wore this too school she wore it with the snow queen shawl just as you see here.  The Mop top hat I did not get done in time for her to wear it then  but I did finish it after the celebration so it can be worn by the next daughter if she can fit into the costume that is.

The roses you see all over the dress I bought a long time ago when a child's clothing store was going out of business.  When I made this dress I did not go to the store for any supplies I already had all of them at home including all the trims , lace, zipper and so on.

When my daughter originally wore this last school year she had on a full petticoat that fluffed the dress up and filled it out and made it easy for her walk.  As you can see in these photos it drags but it does not with the proper under pinnings.

Update January 24 2015,

When I made this for my daughter it did not fit me.  I tried it on for fun then just to see if it would fit.  Was too tight in the sleeves and back area.  I have lost weight now this dress is now a little too big for me but I could wear it if I wanted too.  So happy dance I always make costumes for my kids but they are never for me now I can make them for the kids and I can wear them too.

Mustard seed costume

This is the costume that my middle daughter will wear in the play.  She was sick for some of the photos thus the reason some are on a dress form instead of her.  She of course is playing Mustard seed one of Queen Titania's main fairies.  Since mustered is read hot to some people we put in red and orange to symbolizes the hotness of the spice the yellow and shimmery red/brown/yellow is fabric is to represent the colors mustard comes in when made into a sauce.



The corset on this one also laces up the front and back we used red lacing cord.    I also wanted a little detail in the corset so we added white pieing just a little hardly noticeable from a distance which is what I wanted.  The corset is two fabrics a yellow silk like fabric covered with an organza fabric that has glitter on it to make it sparkle on stage.  This costume is more about shimmering than sparkling as Peas Blossom was more about sparkle.  My mannequin is bigger than my daughter is so if you happen to notice it is laced different when it is on her that is to make it smaller and yet still have growing room for her so she and her sisters can wear it for a few years.

I am not sure on these wings yet as I bought them and the elastic that came with them is not strong enough so I will have to replace it.  I am also not sure if  the wings are not too big may need smaller.    I also do not know if I like the fact that the glitter is on the back side of the wings not the front  In a play the back of a person is almost never supposed to face the audience so kind of annoying.  Wish I had know it was on the back when I bought them hard to tell in a package.

This dress we put a yellow crinoline under it to make the bottom have look more like a seed at least that was the goal not sure I achieved my goal or not.  But I think I did.  That was what the gathering was for too to make look like a curved seed or a flower bud facing down not opened yet.

My daughter said it would make a real good fall fairy too.  I think it might make a good witch if I change a few accessories.

update:
I tried it on my daughter later and took more photos decided the orange wings are just too big and the elastic in them is not strong enough so yes for now she gets black wings unless I can find a light weight set that is either red yellow or orange.  The black set bounce nicely when she walks looks like the wings are fluttering when she walks.  the orange did not do that and they dropped.  If any one knows of a place to get a set like the black one but red orange or yellow I would like to hear about it thank you.

My daughter was being a good sport in these photos as she was sick.