ze Queen and ze firebird

How is the "no ballet in opera" scene from Amadeus not on Youtube? How am I supposed to make this post even vaguely related to ballet without a visual aid of the most ballet-related thing going on in my life right now? GEEZE, PEOPLE!
My husband has been gone to visit family for the past few days and I have spent my alone time eating entire pints of sherbet straight from the tub and watching movies set in the 18th century for fabulous rococo costuming inspiration (so depressing, all these movies! All of them! Why are there no happy movies with panniers and giant hair?) and because I am reading a biography about Marie Antoinette.
Did you know Marie Antoinette was a dancer? Ballet was different, naturally, than it is now, but she loved to dance. Here she is performing a ballet with her brother at a state wedding:

Last week my teacher gave me a copy of all the videos from last Summer's recital. All my costumes! Eeeee! The Firebird looked so cool! I wish I had stills to share with you guys, or that the videos weren't in such a shitty low resolution that I could take screen caps that weren't awful. It looked really nice moving around, with all the flamey bits swishing about. Sigh...

I would blur out faces but the resolution on these is so dreadful that I am pretty sure they count as anonymous.
PS: I am not responsible for the weird little poky-outy feathers at the edges.
Someone just did that. I had no control.

Blog Maintenance and Life Update

I've gone through and added some new related blogs, and removed a few that haven't been active within the last six months +. If you are one of the people I dropped, never fear! If you post again I'll pop you back in to the blogroll. I'm just trying to keep it tidy up in here, up in here.

The studio is closing in on it's recital (just a couple more weeks and then I get to take pointe class without running through Swan Lake like a million times. Hallelujah!) and I am down to the wire on a few remaining costume things that need finishing up. Just embellishing the Firebird's leotard and whipping up two more little peasant bodices for the kids (six total, I think). I will be extremely thankful when it's over and I can reclaim my sewing room. You can't even walk in there, it's ridiculous (tutus, man, they take up a lot of space).
To add a little extra to my plate (because I totally needed that) my summer work schedule has just kicked in. So, now my days off are rare and precious and the arthritis in my hands is going to need a lot of babying. Right now I am building a new show, so basically I work 8 hours a day making bodices and then I come home and... make bodices. I am going to be pretty tired of bodices by the end of this week, let me tell you.

Here is the Firebird's tutu embellishment, done and out of my life. sadly you will just have to believe me when I say it has lots of texture and looks interesting in motion:

Oh man, guys. I wanted to bedazzle this thing SO BAD. I had to stop myself with sequins in hand TWICE. It just... it just needs glitter. It does. Everything needs glitter, guys.

How is the Firebird Tutu Going?

Well, I don't know... but at least I'm ready for the Royal Ascot.

"Heart beats speed up

I have never been so keyed up!"

Firebird: Part the First

One of the more daunting projects I have been tasked to complete for the studio's recital is the transformation of a drastically normal black Sansha rehearsal tutu (with a serious case of the chicken butt) in to a Firebird soloist costume.
If I was doing it with no limitations I would probably dag the netting and taper it back from a shorter poofy front to a longer and more sleek "tail" at the back. But, these suckers are spendy and we need to be able to rip it down and refashion it next year.
So far I have just about figured out what I am doing with it. Here is a progress shot. Not that it is in anything like finished condition, here. For one thing there will not be any weird gaps in the flame-y fabric overlay, and the wonky bit at the back will hopefully evolve in to more of a tail-like thing as I go. The extra bunchy stuff at the waist will be tacked and folded over to create a short layer of points that "float" with the dancer's movement.

Right now my problems are: A) this is going to require a curved needle to implement and in all these damn packages of needles I seem to have there is not a single curved one to be found (they are STUPID hard to come by, I think I have owned two in the past fifteen years. There was a near-sacred one in my mom's sewing tool box when I was a kid. I used to be utterly fascinated by it, as well as the electric shears that she steadfastly refused to part with but never actually used), and B) in the perfect world I would be working on this while it was on a pants form, or dress form with legs. As I do not own one (so sad) I am going to have to put it on and attempt to sew it WHILE I am wearing it (I will have to put in on backwards to do the butt!). This is only an issue because the panty part of this sucker is stretchy, so you just pull it on over your hips rather than hooking it together down the back. I wouldn't even bother if I was certain exactly how big the girl wearing it will be, but as it is I have to allow some stretch and wiggle-room so it's gotta be done while the skirt is held taught. I think I am going to have to borrow a bar stool and sit on that while I work, because sitting on the floor is already getting pretty tiresome!
Okay. I am done rambling, now. In my own defense my two glorious hours of sleep last night are being buoyed entirely by sugar and caffeine right now. I think I will go lay down and hope for the best before I try to work on something and just screw it up royally.

On Your Bod, In Your Class

Spending a quiet evening (hubs is asleep because our neighbors were up past 3am playing UKELELE directly outside our bedroom window. Yes, words were exchanged.) turning second-hand salwar kameez in to approximations of sarafan for Firebird's dancing princesses (which will be portrayed in this year's recital by adorable four year olds) and wondering why on Earth you always see pictures of women en pointe with no tights on. Because these new shoes I am attempting to break in right now (and was too lazy to fetch socks for) feel like they are honest-to-god lined in sandpaper.
In other recital-I-am-not-in news: there are lot of really stupid silly strange unusual things that swans do. Like hopping backwards in arabesque. Hop hop hop. I do not want to hop after two hours of class. I want to take off my shoes and have a cocktail.

The Firebird

Twelfth in an occasional series of ballet paintings/artworks that are not Degas:

 

 Ballet L’Oiseau de Feu (1913). 

by René Bull , 1872-1942