It's SMASH Costume Time Again

I'm sewing again.  Or, I have been.  I've spent bits of time for the last three weeks working out the details of Anna's costume for Phoebe, the Shepherdess, in As You Like It.  This is the result.  Please excuse the weak photos.  Adam will be doing official cast photos on set this week.

 My challenge for myself, was learning how to do hand stitched grommets.  I didn't have to do this, mind you.  I could have done square button holes on my machine.  I did that last year and it worked out very well, and on stage, no one can tell.  This project, however, was a personal goal and it was fun, albeit tedious, to do.  Truth be told, when I was just over halfway done with all 18 of them, I was wishing I was done!  The cord is from my grandmother's sewing tin.  It has this curl on the end from a knot that was in it.  It's too short for me to cut it off, and I was hoping it would just uncurl...I don't think it will!

 The white underdress was made from the exact same pattern, but is sleeveless.  I added a strip of gathered fabric to the neckline for a ruffled casing to simulate a gathered blouse underneath.  She needed a slip anyway, so this was an easy way to do it since I needed to make a practice dress out of "scrap" fabric to be sure of the size of the pattern.

 In costuming, snaps or velcro are just fine, but I decided to use zippers because while dressing for the stage, it seams quicker and more precise to zip in and out than trying to match velcro and hoping it doesn't gape.  We saw that a bit last year with the men's vests that were velcroed.

Lastly, in costuming, it is perfectly acceptable to use black thread for dark fabrics and white thread for light fabrics.  No fussing with matching thread colors.  Well, when I finally thought out the cutting process and had everything set up to start sewing, I grabbed my thread drawer and found two full spools of green and only one half spool of black.  So, my thread it matchy, matchy!