Fraggles Never Fool Around, Fraggles Never Shirk...

Workin' workin' workin' workin'...
As I plow in to the final few weeks of recital sewing for the year I face down the largest challenge of the season. Because apparently making ten firebirds and ten gnomes and ten rabbits wasn't enough...
Dragons. I'm suppose to be making dragons. Mostly what I am supposed to be making is miracles. "Here, take this 30 year old leotard that looks like someone ran over it with a car and make it in to something fabulous. But not TOO fabulous, because we have to be fair to all the kids. Have fun with that!" Sigh...
My task is to make dragon costumes from around the world. Dragons for many cultures and countries. Which is commendable enough, but for cryin' out loud.
My "Egyptian" dragon was given to me as one extremely ugly nude unitard and a picture printed out from Google image search. It is a nice enough drawing, very pretty, but I am pretty sure that it has very little to do with actual mythology. Egyptian history is divided in to the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom, right? I think of this dragon as coming from the DeviantArt Kingdom.
Anyhow. The dragon has no feathers, no scales, no demonstrably "dragon" characteristics. It has wings but I didn't really want all of the dragons to have wings because so many of the dancers are also going to be firebirds. But the only other really distinct features of this drawing are it's collar and cuffs (which I did) and it's long pointed tail.
Now, let me tell you something about tails on stage. I learned this while working on a professional production of CATS! several years back: from stage there is a REALLY fine line between what looks like a tail and what looks like a great big novelty wang. On a nude bodysuit it was just... not a good look. I do not want the little boy wearing this costume to be mercilessly taunted about it for the rest of his life. I mean, it's bad enough he has to be the only little boy on a stage full of girly girls anyway, right? So, the tail was vetoed. Wings it is. Of course, Egyptian wings are awesome and amazing, but also super annoyingly intricate. This whole costume has been a lesson for me about not biting off more than I can chew and simplifying everything because no one but me will notice the difference anyway.
I will present this costume to the gal in charge today, here's hoping it is met with a round of hearty "oh you are just so creative"s rather than shocked and slack-jawed disapproval.

PS: I have reached the point in the recital season where my sewing studio looks like this and all I want in the whole world is to be able to vacuum the bloody floor:

not that I can FIND the floor...

Dear Danskin,

Why U put such big ugly tags on the OUTSIDE of your dance skirts? ARGH.

PS: I do love this, though: When you tear open a garment and find a little memento of it's construction frozen in time, like this chalk mark at the CB waistline. Makes me feel a little closer to the other hands that have worked on it:

Pointy Business

We got word today that we finally found a new place to live. SO... we'll be farther away from the ballet studio, but at least we'll also be ten blissful miles and 15 beauteous minutes away from our current asshole neighbors (pro tip: spoiled college students who have rich daddies to pay their rent make terrible neighbors)
ANYWAY!

I have solved my worst issues with my new pointe shoes, just about in time for the shanks to get all flubbily. Woot. I think the problem was slightly different sized feet (solved with decapitated socks) and a heel that slipped off perpetually (solved with silicone seam sealant on the insides of the heels).
I went ahead last week and sewed the leather patches the shoes came with on to the platforms. They squeaked dreadfully for an hour or so, but it's worn off (thank god). Dancing with the patches is a very different experience, actually. It's noticeably more difficult to turn/etc with them, but also easier to stick piques instead of hitting the wrong angle once in a while and falling on your ass (I don't think I ever have, but I've been close and I've seen it happen).
I sewed on the patches. It impressed my teacher, but I can't seriously recommend it. Glue that shit on if you know you aren't going to want to take them off again. For one thing the stitches are going to break eventually and I'll be back to square one.
Sigh...

I Call This One "Somebody Else can Press the Damn Skirt"

More Peau D'ane. Maybe? For her moon or stars dress? Who knows. This is another "here, take this tutu and this thrift store salwar kameez and make it a Cinderella dress"
I refrained from making another lace-up Swiss waist, but only because I don't want another teenager to hate me. ONE IS ENOUGH.

Tattercoats

The theme for this year's recital is Cinderella. All the Cinderellas. So many.
This is a goose hat for the little girls portraying geese/footmen in Tattercoats, an English variant of the story. I wish I could find a picture to show you, but the internet has failed me. Regardless, the hats are based on an illustration for a 1976 picture book version. You are just going to have to trust me that they are a pretty good facsimile.

Now, here's the thing. Each story was supposed to have five dancers doing their thing. You know, five geese. Or five lily pads. Or birds, or whatever. But it keeps changing. There are currently TEN geese. This is why I see no particular end in sight for this recital sewing. It's like little girls keep coming out of the woodwork. If you haven't been to class in six months do you really need to be in the recital? Holy cow, people.
Anyway.
Many goose hats:

Can't Stop

The work. The work. It's endless! It just goes on and on! I am actually missing classes because I need the time and energy to make recital costumes! Aye carumba. And? I haven't even started on the adults, yet!
I will post some photos soon, so you know I am still alive.

It Begins

Recital season. It isn't really approaching all that quickly, you know? It's a couple of solid months until the performance. Regardless, I am already working on costumes. It's good, really, to get started ages in advance because the Summer brings with it an early theater season and a wedding I have to sew for/do anything else I am asked to for. Also, apparently I am supposed to make all sorts of stuff from scratch for this recital? Which was news to me, but whatever. I've been dragging home piles and wads of tutus, dresses, fabrics, and even a couple of thrift-store wedding gowns that I am going to be chopping to bits. My sewing studio is already a sight to confound and distress.
See?

It's not supposed to look like this.
 Would you believe I have a proper cutting table? You wouldn't know it from that stupid cutting board on the floor that I perpetually use to the detriment of every joint in my body...

Anyway, that is the state of the very small sewing-related union. I'm currently mid-way (or less, there might be more girls added to the dance) through turning five really ugly little tutus in to water lily costumes for a group of teeny tiny girls (maybe 5-6 years old? So small.) Here is an awful blown-out flash-in-a-dark-room-at-10pm glimpse of the progress:

Well, you can see what I'm getting at, anyway.

They would be much cuter worn with little froggy head dresses, IMO.

"A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever" - John Keats

People give you stuff when you sew. Like... "Hey. My granny just died and I was cleaning out her closet and I found this garbage bag full of polyester double knit and plastic beaded fringe from 1974 and I thought of you immediately!" And of course you accept it, because that's really nice (and besides their granny just died so you feel bad for them). And... well... because you can't pass up a sack of fabric! It might come in handy some day. You never know what treasures could be in that sack! I've got lovely silk brocade hanging in my closet that was buried at the bottom of a garbage bag full of broken trim and powder blue metallic netting.
Apparently, if you run a ballet studio people do something similar. But with costumes. "You teach ballet! Wow! You won't believe it but my second cousin's great aunt's neighbor's niece used to do jazz and tap and somehow I ended up with an entire storage unit full of AMAZING costumes!" Your gratitude is assumed.

In preparation for the studio's big Summer recital I am going through tupperware bin upon tupperware bin full of random tutus, leotards, and other costume bits and bobs that somehow ended up in the studio's possession, weeding out the ones that are beyond hope and fixing the most egregious flaws in the remainder. I have spent a couple of weeks, now, going through these, and it's totally awesome, to be quite honest. Especially because I get to remove/trash the ones I would rather burn than work on (a rare and empowering experience in the world of costuming!). Below I present some of the most heinous incredible creations that ever graced the form of a 7 year old in tap shoes and pigtails...

Now. Some of them aren't so bad. This one, for instance, could use to be soaked in Oxiclean for a month and gone over with a steamer to remove wrinkles, but you can see what they were getting at, anyway:

I'm thinking Tinkerbell.

And there are things that... well. They aren't really SO bad. Not when you consider that they must have come from 1987:

I mean, yes, it's ugly. But check out that sky-high French-cut leg opening we've got going on, here. You

just can't be mad at a leotard inspired by Jane Fonda AND Gunne Sax, can you?

No. You can't.

Of course, then there are things for which words seem inadequate:

It inspires one to poetry, does it not?

The neon pink fringe

it lay-th below

acid green sequins,

all aglow...

And then this happened:

I want to point out that this neon yellow and pink

leopard print unitard, here, is an ADULT size small.

Adult. I am just going to leave you with that.

Pleats Fo'EVA

So, my best friend is getting married. Whateva, whateva, whateva makes ya happy, girl*. She's set the date for late August (outdoors, in central California. HAHAHAHA! So droll) and things are kicking in to high gear. She is making her gown. She has designed a skirt adorned with graduating tiers of pleated organza. Now, this would normally not be a problem. We work together. She's a pro. She's made ball gowns of gold tissue lamé. She's beaded. She's boned. Girlfriend knows what she's doing. But.
But, six months ago, at the very height of theater season, she had a stroke. A damn-near fatal one, at that. She has spent the past six months in the hospital/rehab facility/working like a dog to try and get her body functional and her life back together. She's winning, and I am so proud of her. But let's be honest. This dress needs 36 yards of pleated organza. 36 yards AFTER pleating. That's... that's a hella** lot of fine motor control. So I offered to do the pleating.
At first I thought, ha ha ha... oh no problem, I will buy a pleater foot for my industrial sewing machine and somehow magical sewing angels will arrive on the crest of a rainbow and deliver unto me 36 yards of pleated organza whilst the choir sings and butterflies flutter about my studio. But, alas, it was not meant to be. In other words: AW HELL NAW that ain't workin' out for me. This son of a bitch is going to need a pleating board, several pots of tea, and the patience of a frikkin' saint.
This is all just a very long-winded way of saying that I have a pleater foot, now, which might be kind of handy for making tutus in the future, perhaps. I really need to learn to get to the point...

*and thus ends my one and only attempt at writing a Beyoncé song.
**slang courtesy of 1995. You're welcome. 

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.

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.

the Purple Tutu

Still working on recital costume repair/alteration/etc.
You see this tutu?

This tutu makes me sad. It's not constructed badly. It's made from a pretty standard pattern. There is a full underlining/flat lining. The basque and bodice are separate pieces. It's all as it should be. But the materials they chose to make it out of? They are awful. The acetate satin is bad but forgivable. But that skirt, regardless of the fact that it is constructed exactly the way a classical tutu should be constructed, is made with such limp and lifeless tulle (that has then been washed a hundred times, probably) that it just sort of... droops. It makes me sad because someone must have put so much time and effort in to it, and the result is so... just... sigh...
Oh, and it was closed all the way down the back with velcro. I don't know if you have ever accidentally caught tulle (or lace, or your pantyhose, or that beautiful silk chiffon blouse you just made...) on the scratchy side of a piece of velcro, but it's insanity. I couldn't even wear my wrist braces while working on this thing because the tiny edges of velcro that hold them closed kept catching on the tulle and shredding it. As you can imagine, the velcro closure has done horrible things down the back of this little guy.
My seamstress's heart. It aches for you.

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.

Craftin' All Up in Here

I am completely in love with leotards that have mesh or lace components. At first I thought they would be cooler than sleeved leos ( I get SO sweaty), but I know better now and I still like the look. But DAMN they are expensive. Like, $40-60. In leotard land that is pretty darn spendy. So I said "to heck with that" and bought a cheap $17 camisole leotard on Amazon.com and a yard of stretch lace for $6 from my local fabric store and BAM:

 

It is stupidly difficult to photograph your own back, guys.

how are the tutus going, RPrin?

it's tutu much

SO MANY TUTUS

The first batch of OH SO MANY unfortunate burgundy tutus that I have to alter in to wearability before the next recital:

I regret everything.

As I was carrying the giant trash bag full of these things out to my car last week my teacher said I looked "just like Santa Claus! But with the ugliest tutus EVER."

Snip snip

(possibly) eleventh in an (very) occasional series of ballet paintings that are not Degas:

  

Ballet Girl and Dressmaker (1930)

Laura Knight

So, what did you do at work today?

I did this:

I have the best job.

That is what a classical tutu looks like from underneath, in case you didn't recognize it. It's also EXACTLY as much of a pain in the ass to wrangle through a sewing machine as you would think. I also made little white leotards with sparkly business to go along with it. I am going to rehearsal tonight specifically to see what the heck is going on with these things.

I also shared a nice conversation with one of my coworkers about starting ballet as an adult. She started pointe at 38! That is my goal: pointe before I'm 40. At first my goal was "pointe before Jenny" Jenny being my young niece-in-law who was taking ballet lessons (name changed to protect the innocent), but I'm not sure she's stuck with it.

Recital Ramblings

My last post (which dealt largely with the topic of cartoon characters from our misspent youth appearing in modern pornography) is now officially my most popular post EVER. Way to go, guys. You people have issues.
I love you anyway, though.
Maybe I should label all my posts "porn" and "gross out" and watch my numbers skyrocket?

But, no. We are here, my friends, to discuss the worlds of ballet and rheumatism and the exciting, sometimes dreadful manner in which they collide.
Out of a horrible pang of guilt at the thought of always refusing to participate in the studio's annual recital (let's face it, honey, even if I wasn't working on weekends this Summer I still wouldn't be signing up) I volunteered to alter and mend (and generally "clean up" and "make pretty", which are the nice terms we use in the professional world when something really heinous crosses our path) the rather elderly and decrepit costumes the ladies (and... possibly a gent. At this point they are considering an en travesti Romeo, because we don't appear to have any dudes available) will be wearing. There is a lot of shattered chiffon and several oddly not-quite-complete bodices going on here. There may well be a few atrocious sequined powder-puff tutus at some point, as well.
We shall see how badly I regret this offer a month from now.

In preparation for said recital tonight we practiced a lot of ballet running. I did well at it, as I generally do with ballet walking. My teacher declared that I must have been practicing but I will let you in on a secret: I haven't been. There is a story behind this, though.
When I was about 14 or 15 my pet cat was hit by a car. She was in terrible condition for a long time afterward. One of her hind legs was dislocated at the hip. The other was mangled so badly that it had pins in it for a while, but in the end it had to be amputated. She needed a lot of serious care while she was recovering, and so I would pick her up and carry her very carefully. I realized that the impact from stepping while holding her was hurting her and so I started to mindfully mimic the way a ballet dancer walks whenever I carried her. Toe first, gentle knee bend, toe first, gentle knee bend. For the rest of her life I was the only person she would allow to carry her.
So, my mad ballet walkin' skillz are entirely thanks to a little grey cat with three legs.
Thank you, baby girl. I miss you.