Panto Prep

I had meant to post up the second part of my embroidered Ginger Jeans next but I haven't got round to any photos yet.

So one of the reasons I was not blogging over the winter is because I was busy beavering away with preparations for a panto which really eats away at your time *insert oh no it doesn't joke here*.
One of things I love most about being involved with a theatre company is the fact it throws you curve ball after curve ball and no request is ever too weird!
Do excuse the terrible photos, many of which were just taken off my instagram feed.

There was copious amounts of blinging to do, costumes to make significantly bigger, collars to make, and a million miles of ruffles to be made and added to a flat looking costume.

Mop caps and bonnets were two of the completely new to me tasks! Needless to say I had to work it out on the fly, but the results were fine.

Bloomers were made based off of a pj bottom pattern, I made them looser than intended and elasticated the leg holes.

One of the more unusual tasks was to take a comically large jacket (think Lurch from the Addams Family) and make it into a regular sized jacket and a matching tie. This is one of two ties I made for that character, the other was in a fetching blue sequin fabric.

This is a picture of it in action! I chose to keep the collar of the original jacket and work the smaller one around that. Guesstimating the sleeve cap was a bit nervewracking, I didn't have enough fabric to re do them if it went tits up, so I was relieved when it went according to plan!

Making two copies (copy shown above) of a dressy type of shirt was probably the second most nerve-wracking thing! I literally just had to spread out the fabric on the floor, draw round each piece of the existing shirt as best I could whilst it shifted everywhere, and hope for the best! Collars, facings, elasticated cuffs....not perfect results, but perfect enough for panto!

I sadly don't have pictures of everything I made, but other bits off the top of my head are:

* 28 tabard style knight costumes edged in handmade gold lame bias binding (not my idea of fun!)
* sashes and cummerbunds galore
* cropped trousers
* harem style trousers
* tutus
* sparkle tanks
* ballet costume style bodices
* ruffled poncho

I'm sure there was more, but I started with it in October so my memory isn't exactly fresh!

Stay tuned for the next part of my panto recap!