Tech Week/ Opening of Show

I haven't blogged in forever.

Tech week consumed my life and my appetite.

I've been working 10-12 days lately, preparing/running the show.

The costumes are done, they've all been fitted, and all of the elements have come together. I'm about 2 weeks past the beginning of tech week, so we're already halfway done with the show.

No pictures for now, I'm going to have to take pictures of everything I've done for my portfolio, and all of those will end up here.

Thanks for reading :)

Day 21,22,23,24

I've been a negligent blogger lately.
Partially because the days are running together, partially because I'm too tired/lazy.

Here are some of the outfits worn from this previous week in which I didn't blog at all!

i'm not sure what I did to my camera this past week, but the fuzziness won't go away :/

We are in the last weeks before dress rehearsals and the show. Mainly, I'm putting dresses together that haven't been made yet, and adding zippers/hook&eyes, and doing alterations. None of it is fun enough for me to tell ya'll about.

I've had the opportunity to do a few cool things on the side, though. I'll tell you in bullet format!

• 4th of July weekend I spent partying at the costume designer's house (complete with giant poodles, cheetah print furniture, the smell of cigarettes and barbeque, drag queens, and much, much more. One of the best 4ths to date. The day before that we went to see fireworks in downtown Orlando at a big festival that was hot and sticky, but the fireworks were free and worth it. The hour and a half we spent in traffic, however, was not.
• Met with the Universal Studios Creative Manager as part of my internship and later gave him my resume through email and was asked to keep in touch. I will definitely be doing so, because he was not only awesome, but powerful. He had amazing stories about billionaire families with no budget that ask him to do things for their families that no other family at Universal could do. Sometimes it was recreating Hogwarts in a private castle for a Great Hall- style feast like in the movies, and sometimes it was a custom-built set for their children who were turned into unique superheroes and had personal books written for them. Amazing career

• Went to the Ca' d'Zan, the Ringling estate and museum. some pictures from the Ringling website below. What an absolutely beautiful place. The Ringling museum was fascinating with the biggest miniature circus. It took over 20 minutes to see it all. We had an extremely expensive lunch, looked through the rose garden, and viewed the rooms in the mansion. I'm sure it makes the most beautiful party/wedding venue.

That's all for the short week!

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Day 20,21

Day 20

dress from Nordstrom

Day 21

Thrifted shirt, slacks, and earrings, NY & Company wedges

excuse the polish  >.<

I've put days 20 and 21 together because they were pretty much spent doing the same.exact.thing. Alterations truly aren't my strong point.

Zippers are difficult for me because of all the fabric and straight lines and metal. It would seem easy to a non- sewer, but it's much more difficult to do than it appears. Here's a link to a website, if anyone's interested, on attaching zippers. 

http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/3728/sewing-in-a-zipper

There are many ways to put in zippers, and although I've made them in the past, I couldn't remember exactly how I had done it. The costume shop manager had begun showing me, but we had to go to a photoshoot for the actor and got distracted. I didn't want to take up any more time after we had finished, so I tried to finish it on my own. Mistake. My lines were crazy and nothing was adding up right. I had to give up for the rest of the day. I didn't feel very accomplished on Day 20.

Despite all of this, the photoshoot put me in a really good mood. It was the first time I got to see  The pictures were being taken for newspaper ads and media purposes. The inspiration for the photoshoot were Hairspray's actual promo pics. The shoot was so professional and the kids had such a good time dressed up in their costumes and wigs.Since we aren't done with alterations, all of the kids were put in dresses or suits that fit them well enough to be able to move around and pose in. We had to put wig caps and wigs on all of the actresses, along with lipstick and fake eyelashes. It's kind of eery to see such young kids all dolled up and concerned with makeup, but I hope that they want to wash it right off after the shoot and be kids again. wishful thinking

source

Day 21 didn't have any cool photoshoots, just more zippers. I spent the entire day working that green dress that I made weeks ago. I worked on alterations and gathering the skirt, but the zipper frustrated me and I quietly threw a fit and pushed through until 5:30. 

I was determined to get it right the next day.

Day 17, 18, 19

I've decided to put these together because the majority of my days were spent doing alterations. We've made all of the dresses that need to be made, so the dresses had to be put on the girls and fitted. I have to admit that this is not something I like to do. The first time I got to see my dress on an actress I was so excited and nervous, but after I see how much has to be done: detaching the bodice and skirt, taking in the bodice at the back seam, taking in the skirt at the back seam and hemline-- I'm not too excited. It's a great learning experience, but terribly frustrating to take apart your work and put it back together. Things don't line up the way that they once did, and the silkier fabrics don't like seam rippers :/

I have had the pleasure of going to the costume shop managers' (my boss) house with another one of the stitchers--who actually lives in her office for now--to watch The Voice. We all come in and talk about it every week, so it was great to watch it together.

 Old navy tank top, thrifted windbreakers, thrifted belt, Forever 21 elephant necklace and earrings

My apologies for the lack of photos over the past couple of days. I haven't had the time to blog being that I was at my boss' house all week.

This is definitely one of my favorite outfits. They're just windbreaker- type pants pulled up to my natural waist, but they're so comfortable and balloon out at the right places.

We'll have our last fittings over the next few days, and then I'm not exactly sure what our next moves will be. I've got to get better at this alteration stuff though....

St. Petersburg

Here are a few pics of my weekend in St. Petersburg. We attended the Pride Parade and had a ton of fun. We stayed at the Ponce de Leon, a swanky hotel on the main street didn't provide much, but was so cute and stylish. If we stayed there again, I'm sure we would pay a little more to have a bigger room because ours was the bare minimum: a bed, tv, closet, bathroom. I was pleased nonetheless.

The Pride Parade was calmer than it could have been, but I loved seeing all of the bright costumes and happy people. My favorite pictures are the ones where gay couples are kissing next to the guy standing outside of the gates blocking off the parade, with a huge HATERS sign and a microphone spewing hate at all of the happy people. Who has time to stand around and hate? ugh.

I loved the weekend, although St. Petersburg is full of old farts and nothing was open on Sunday. We went to an awesome intern party for the St. Pete Times that I was also invited to because I coincidentally went to high school with an intern that works at the same place as Melvin. I can't believe how small the world is.

We all woke up after crashing at the intern's place and went to Denny's before the Pride Parade. I have to say, Florida has some of the best food selections. We've yet to have crappy food here.

All around good time despite the rain!

 saw a Soror!

If you're terribly offended by these pictures, maybe this blog isn't for you :)

Day 16

thrifted shirt, Forever 21 jorts

the bodice of my second dress

Day 16-- dress number 2.

I won't go into all of the details that made up dress 2 because they're pretty much the same as the first. The only real differences are the colors, my approach to the chiffon, and the strap across the collar bones. This dress was completed in about a day, and once I had finished it I had the chance to actually put it on the actress and learn how to do real alterations. I was so excited but very nervous. I was worried that my dress wouldn't fit my actress, and that my seam allowance may have been to large and then I would have to scrap the whole dress. In reality, it fit rather well. The bodice is a bit long because she has a short torso, and all of the skirts will have to be hemmed to right below the knee. I'll also have to take about 2 inches out of the back seam because a zipper will have to fit in. I'm not finished with the alterations, but they shouldn't be too difficult....

day 15

forever 21 knit shirt, thrifted linen pants, glass bead necklace that my mom got somewhere

This has to be one of my favorite outfits. It was so comfortable and easy to move in. I got a lot of compliments, which I don't normally get at this theatre. This may sound vain i'm being very self- centered right now,  but these chicks can be hard to please! Having only a portion of my wardrobe has forced me to not only thrift shop more regularly, but get more creative with my outfits. But i get nothin'! I'm used to compliments at UNC, but I seem to only get them here on my most basic outfits that I feel dumpy in :shirt/jean combos. I'm perplexed.

This one, however, seemed to work. </conceded rant>

sidenote: these are the embroidery hoops I'm eventually going to hang up on my wall. I got a package of 5 fabric squares from JoAnns that match my pillow exactly so I'm excited to get those hung up. I never seem to get energy until about 10 or 11, and by that time it's too late to hammer into the wall, so I may have to wait until the weekend to get these up.

...anyway

 Day 15 was great!

Dress one was completed. I attached the bodice to the skirt fairly easily. I placed the sheer blue fabric against the green fabric, and from the wrong sides of the fabric attached the two at the waist. The back of the dress is still open because there will eventually be elastic and a zipper placed in the back.

I matched up the lines and seams with the bodice, and with wrong sides together i sewed the two together. It was fairly simple, but it was a bit difficult to move around all of the fabric while keeping my tiny needle moving in a straight line.

I started dress #2 shortly after. It's a green and blue dress, and I kind of want it for myself. The neon green is one of my favorite colors, and looks nice with my skintone #imjustsayin

Day 14

hmph.

key earrings from London flee market, thrifted belt, Old Navy jean jacket (shown below), Nordstrom dress

my hair was frizzy, but very S- curly and incredibly soft

I worked with the skirt of the dress today. Normally, this would be the easiest part. A simple cotton dress would be made of a few panels, or even a circle, and just sewn with right sides together to the bodice. When you turn it inside out, the dress would have a nice waist seam. 

not this time.

This dress not only had a chiffon overlay, but had a zipper in the back that would be put on later, and a thicker, heavier fabric underneath. The chiffon was so incredibly hard to work with, because when you sew two pieces together, it has the tendency to pucker. That makes the seam crooked and it doesn't lay down properly. In other words, chiffon threads slip like hell and bunch up like ocean waves. I must have tried 4 or 5 times to sew the chiffon together. The chiffon dress had to be put together first, and then the heavier fabric underneath, then the two pieces would be put together and attached to the bodice last. I couldn't get the dumb chiffon to stay in place. I tried sewing without holding the fabric down, hoping that the machine would work its magic. That wasn't the case. I didn't learn until about the 4th time that I would have to pull on the fabric tightly, something that seems dangerous with such fragile fabric, to get it to lay straight. I also had to change the tension of the machine and widen the stitch length. 

After spending hours working on the chiffon I was tired. My eyes hurt from staring at the same fabric, hunched over and highly concentrated. Putting the thread through the fabric was no easy task either. I did feel really accomplished, however, when I ironed my chiffon and it stayed flat on the ironing board. That was the only thing I got done for that day, but to me it felt like a lot. I've never had to work with such a difficult fabric, or with different thread tensions and stitch lengths. Although it took forever, I definitely learned some new things!