Five skirts so far.
Two of them are out of this lightweight perma press cotton. It has a satin finish, and is 45 inches wide. I have enough to make one more skirt out of it, which I'll start cutting out after I post this. I'm making the waistbands on these very generous since this fabric is light enough to wrap around a smaller girl's waist, thus making it quite adjustable -- from about a 23 inch waist to a 38 inch waist. (Cast list still hasn't been posted - final audition today - so I still have no idea who I'm making costumes for. )
Two of the skirts are from this heavy fabric that tends to remind me of a shower curtain due to its shiny, plastic-y look. This fabric is about 60 inches wide. I have enough for another half-skirt; I'm thinking about taking these two apart, taking a half-panel from each of them, and then using those 2 halves to make the other half-skirt into a wearable skirt. Each skirt is made of 3 panels, which means each has 6 half-panels; I have enough fabric to make a total of 7.5 panels, therefor I'm going to make each skirt of this fabric to be 2.5 panels. They're so full - about 90 inches around the hem when all 3 panels are used - it isn't going to be terribly noticeable. (Much of the time spent on this project has been taken up mulling over how to get the most costumes from the fabric supply.)
And the fifth skirt is the one from last week.
All of these are from Simplicity 3623. I've got my process down pretty well by now. I'm just serging the lower edge - no hem until we see the height of the cast members. They may be left unhemmed for taller people. I'm trying to convince myself that that's okay -- this is outdoor theater put on by students during a camp, so we don't have to be picky, right? Also, I'm doing all of this yards and yards of gathering by zigzagging over crochet cord. I just do one line. If this were regular clothing, or if we had more time to make these, I'd use 2 or 3 parallel lines for nicer gathers.
Additionally, last Wednesday my sewing machine, a Viking from the 1970s (actually my mom's) started making a terrible racket while Thalia was sewing the seam for the center drape-y thing for the spring recital (I think there's a word for "large drapey pieces of cloth hung from the ceiling above the stage" but I can't think of it right now).
I have no idea who this person standing there is, but it was impossible to get a stage shot without people milling around.
I eventually figured out that it was only happening when the bobbin case was in the machine, and wasn't dependent on whether or not a bobbin was in the case. I managed to take much of that part of the machine apart, cleaned out an amazing amount of lint, put it all back together, and it worked fine for a week. But now it's making that noise again. So I've dragged up the other sewing machine, the Vigorelli from the 1980s. Years ago Rick asked why we had to have 2 sewing machines -- couldn't we get rid of one? If you sew much you know that it's really nice to have a backup.
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