October's Performance

The other day I realized we're doing a performance per month for three months in a row.  That's really a bad idea, in case you wondered.  Especially if you're trying to do college applications at the same time.

Anyway, October was The Legend of Sleeping Beauty.  Thalia was Malicia, who is equivalent to Disney's Maleficent.  Annabeth was Theda the Turtle, part of the cohort of Forest Friends (because, you know, princesses living in woods always have forest friends who can speak human language).

The director had purchased a Maleficent costume, but it was made out of thin fabric and cut fairly skimpy. (The hat was also purchased, and is totally awesome.) I ended up making a new version of the costume using some black crepe suiting from JoAnn Fabrics.  It's essentially just a giant poncho:

That center stripe hides a long zipper.  The stripe fastens over the zipper with velcro.  You can see in this photo that there's a seam across the shoulders -- that helps provide some structural integrity to keep it from stretching out so much.  The purple is some cheap not-really-stretchy knit.

I sewed purple fabric to the inside of the outer edges.  Then I sewed up the "underarm" area by making a long vertical line of stitching starting several inches from the top, but leaving the purple exposed.

Then I chalked on the flame-y side pattern, offsetting the front and back to maximize the amount of purple showing.  I serged the cut edges with purple and black thread so it didn't become a mass of ravels by the end of all the shows.

Then the hot pin insets -- I just made giant slashes in the bottom fronts, and inserts hot pink knit.

I hemmed the outside of the front (the part past the inset towards the purple "sleeves")  shorter than the middle of the robe since the fabric hung lower when she lowered her arms. On the back I just slanted the hem towards the edges.  There's so much fabric involved that no one really notices WHAT you do to the hem, as long as you make the outside edges shorter.

The collar is pleated to fit onto the neckline.  I just made that freestyle based on a mental image of what collar pieces usually look like, and included a bunch of stiffening.  I used the heaviest Pellon I could find, cutting it into vertical strips.


The divine Theda the Turtle, ruler of the universe, is wearing a hoody from Ottobre 1/2011, #34 Sporty Goodies. I left off the pocket.  Ottobre has hoodies in every single kids' issue, so it's a great choice if you're looking for a hooded pattern.  I liked the invisible zippers on this one.

 It's made from some dark green interlock.  The leggings are also an Ottobre pattern -- I can't find the issue right now, but it's the one with all the long underwear, tshirts, and other practical things.  Annabeth loved these items, and started wearing them around as comfy clothes as soon as I finished sewing them.  (I've made another pair of the leggings for her in another color, and have requests for more.)  The turtle tummy is fleece which was quilted and then drawn on with oil pastels.  It velcros to the straps that are holding her shell on.  The shell is fiberglass, and was made by the dad of another performer.  It has an old backpack glued into it to provide the straps, with the green interlock sewn over some of the straps to help hide them.  Here's a shot that shows the actual shell:

Their makeup is mostly Ben Nye Lumiere powder mixed with Liquiset ... this was a HUGE deal to figure out since Annabeth reacts to most makeup.  We're happy to report that Liquiset plus powder does  not cause any problems, although the Ben Nye creams turn her skin red and itchy.  Annabeth's turtle makeup changed practically every performance and every rehearsal, mostly because they were messing around trying to decide what looked good -- they mostly went with a snake/reptile style that wasn't turtle-ish, but still looked "other", since the mostly-green-literal-turtle (seen above backstage during a rehearsal) didn't look that great from the audience.

A couple of more random pics of the goings-on.  It was a very colorful, fun show, in spite of the rather twee script.  Annabeth was an awesome turtle -- she played it with a southern drawl (think Pogo Possum, although her character was more Miz Beaver in personality than it was Churchy LaFemme).  And Thalia was an imposing Malicia/Malifecent, as you can see:

She was cast in the role based on her ability during the audition to do such a loud witch cackle that small children in the auditorium were covering their ears.  It helped that she had been the Wicked Witch of the West a couple of years ago.  Really, though, if you want someone to imperiously command people around, she's a great choice.

I've tried to select photos that don't show much of the other kids, but Malicia's minion is going to be famous some day, so I think we're okay with this one to give another closeup of makeup and costume: