Crazy Daisy: Costumes finished......... I hope!

stitched birds

Play Week starts next week. This evening will be the dress rehearsal, with setting up the hall this afternoon. This morning saw me stitching the last few birds onto the jacket I made for the last rehearsal on Thursday evening. You can see the birds I made above this text. They are made from three layers of different sheer fabrics backed with stitch'n'tear.

stitching the birds

I stitched on the back of each bird following lines drawn onto the stitch'n'tear. The needle had a backing thread while the bobbin held the embroidery thread - a rayon variegated thread called Mirage by Wonderfil. A lovely thread to work with. I shall definitely be using it again.

the bird jacket

This is the finished jacket, a tulle base with cream satin bias binding at the hems. A very simple box shape since the main impact on the jacket are the birds. The dress beneath belongs to the actress.

the back of the bird jacket

It has been a rather hectic few weeks since my last visit to this blog. I have been mostly busy with the costumes for "Glorious". This is a play which will be performed by Moulton Drama Group for whom I am currently doing the costumes. Despite my pessimism in the last post here, I did manage to get most things done. I still haven't done anything for the Sky's the limit challenges, or either of the textile books I am committed to finishing. They will just have to wait. Since the end of March the following things have happened:
Prague - 4 - 6th April - I took quilts to the 8th Prague Patchwork Meeting. There were 98 quilts in total. The main collection was the Horizons collection from the Contemporary Quilt Group, with 30 quilts from the Traditional Group (these were their Suffragette quilts) and 21 miniature quilts from the Miniature Group. A further collection of five quilts was bought along by Nava, my colleague who, with her husband and my own husband helped carry all the quilts and hang them. All the groups are members of The Quilters' Guild of the British Isles, and we were their representatives at the Meeting. A really interesting, and exhausting experience.
Portsmouth - 11 - 13th April -This was The Quilters Guild annual Conference and AGM. A very busy weekend, but so enjoyable to meet quilting friends again.
After this I got home and was able to finally concentrate on the costumes, stitching furiously. The palazzo pants and their waistband all got completed, but I forgot to take any photos. I also made two cravats which I also forgot to take photos of. These will probably be returned to me a some stage and I shall take photos then. I also altered an apron I made several years ago based on a 1940's nurses apron which had belonged to my aunt.

apron altered

I removed the original waistband since it no longer fitted me and did not fit the actress who would be wearing it. This has been replaced by a white waistband and some ties with the straps now attached to the ties at the back.

back of the altered apron

The spanish dress also got finished. There are 15metres of fabric in each of the lower flounces. Two sewing machines decided they had had enough during the making. One of these is now up and running again, but the second will have to go in for repairs!

The almost finished spanish dress shown in the last blog post. The pins have now gone and the dress is hanging waiting for use in the play.

The biggest project for this production was the white dress. This is for the final scene and is worn with a pair of wings made from cardboard, gold paint and gold tinsel. I forgot to take any photos of the finished dress, but this is the muslin. I made up half the dress to check the fit before starting on the whole dress. This has now been completed and is currently in the collection of costumes awaiting the dress rehearsal later today. Yes, it does now fit. The actress asked for the long princess style sleeves.

muslin of the white dress

I did manage to get my two journal quilts completed for the Contemporary Quilt JQ challenge. It was important to get these finished since otherwise I would not be able to continue with the challenge this year. I am not convinced these are completely finished, but will continue to work on them and also get started on the next JQs in the sequence. The theme I am using this year is "Journeys". My first two showed a walking boot and a map. This time I have continued with the map. The March quilt is intended to be seen alongside the February quilt so that this map is a continuation of the earlier one.The April quilt shows my car, another in my sequence of modes of transport used this year in my journeys.

March Journal quilt

April Journal Quilt

Apart from everything else, I have been spending some time in the garden during some really lovely weather we have had here. As you can see, Ella got into the spirit of everything, digging rather a large hole.