When Musicals Eat Your Life (and a Musical Monday!)

Seriously, there is no life but Guys and Dolls. I'm in rehearsals every night- last week it was three hours a night, now it's bumped to four. Gah.

Trunk or Treat was tons of fun. The Swiper costume was a hit!


P made a fabulous nerd. No one was surprised.

Kat and Emma and I also ventured forth to find their bridesmaids dresses, and yea and verily, we were victorious! My five lovely ladies shall be clad accordingly:

Kat:

Lindsay:

Rebecca:
Rose:

Emma:

So now no one will be naked! Huzzah!

And now I am at Guys and Dolls rehearsal. Where I shall be for the next three hours. Please, someone come to Alumni Auditorium and shoot. me. now.

But on the other hand, I've been listening to this song a lot while driving, and I thought I would share the joy. So here is my Musical Monday contribution!



And that concludes today's sporadic and spazzy blog entry. Carry on.

The story of a costume

Sunday, October 17: Find out I need to make a costume so I can be Swiper from Dora the Explorer for Trunk or Treat at church. I immediately run out and buy $15 worth of costume velvet and thread.

Over the next week: I deliberate over the design of the costume before deciding to dig out good ol' Simplicity 2942 from my stash. However, because of a STUPID REGENCY DRESS and nightly rehearsals, I don't get around to it.

Saturday, October 24: I finally get started.

4:21 pm: I dig out the pattern (no, literally, I have to dig) and sort the pieces while watching an umpteenth episode of Wizards of Waverly Place.

4:34 pm: After finding all the pieces, I lay out the fabric, pin, and cut. (This is my least favorite part of sewing...)

5:10 pm: Gah, I hate pinning and cutting. It took me this long!! But c'est la vie. The rest of this dress should go a lot faster. I'll check back in an hour... (Also, I switched to watching Hocus Pocus on ABC Family.)

6:10 pm: The bodice is complete, and I've started working on the pockets. I'm thinking about eliminating them, though, because I think it's going to make the skirt sag too much. I think I'll just skip ahead to the next step.

7:49 pm: The front skirt is doing just fine...but I took a break to eat dinner. Because food is awesome and stuff. Also, the Wizards of Waverly Place movie is on...

9:04 pm: A lot more progress. The back is faced, the ties are sewn, and both hem ruffles are pinned (but only one is sewn). The Wizards movie is over; now I'm watching the end of The Goonies.

10:01 pm: STUPID SEWING MACHINE. I have made little progress. But I went from the Goonies to King of the Hill to Project Runway.

11:02 pm: The dress is almost done- it's just a matter of attaching the sleeves. Looking for something else to watch. Snacking on a mini KitKat bar to stay awake. Also waiting for P to call.

11:37 pm: Both sleeves are attached and the dress is complete! On to the mask and gloves. (Also, P called.)

12:06 am: I realized that I have no pattern, nor any clue as to how to construct a mask. I dug around through some boxes and unearthed a pair of goggles.

12:32 am: The mask is okay. I'm not thrilled about it, but it'll work. However, I'm completely daunted by the idea of sewing a pair of gloves.

12:40 am: I gave up on the mask for the moment and went searching through the downstairs hall closet for a pair of purple gloves. I found one. As in one glove.

12:55 am: I said "screw it, I'm going to bed."

Thursday's Ten!

Before I get started, I guess I should say that the Regency dress is done, done, done! I finished it this morning, a few hours before class, and it fit perfectly and was incredibly comfortable. Success! The presentation also went very well, which pleases me. Now I just have to make a Swiper costume before Sunday and a zombie coat before Halloween...

I have also been named an honorary man in the theater department. When I have my official christening, I shall report the tale (as much as I am permitted).

Other than that...nothing has really been thrilling. Basically life=Guys and Dolls rehearsal.

Wedding stuff has hit a minor plateau. Things have changed a little bit when it comes to vendors- we've decided to have a local bakery do the cake. It's getting a little stressful to balance school/rehearsal/wedding/graduating/life, so I've delegated the vendor search for the big three (cake, photography, and catering) to my dad. He loves that sort of contract stuff. And I...do not. But I'm trying to keep wedding stuff in my wedding blog, so I'll move on. (Although it's been a month since I applied to Weddingbee...and they still haven't answered me! Gah!).

And now on to the Thursday's Ten!

I love what Lora picked for this week. It's all stuff that we would absolutely have to take with us to the next house if we were moving. And since I'm going to be moving with P in five months (finally!), I suppose I should actually think about that.

So here's my list!
#1: My baby blanket. I know, stupid. But I've always had it, for every move, every dorm, every internship. And I'm holding onto it so I can sew it into a coat for my first child. So there.

#2: My Disney box. I have a box filled with all sorts of important things from my two Disney internships- a genuine Great Movie Ride newsie cap, an original Fantasmic! shirt, a handful of 3D glasses, photographs...even a piece of Great Movie Ride carpet. (Is that weird? Yep, that's weird.)

#3: My library. You know how the Beast gives Belle that massive library?

Yeah. I have this.

(This pictures was taken when I was in high school...there are fewer dolls now.)

I actually have shelves that wrap around my room, and they're sagging under the weight of my book collection. I also inherited a complete collection of Shakespeare's works from my grandfather, but I can't put them up because I ran out of room. But I'm already warning P that we have to get a lot of Ikea bookshelves for our apartment, because these babies are coming with me.

(And yes, my room is blue with a red stripe, a purple stripe, and orange shelves. My comforter is sage green, and I have curtains striped in all of those colors. Gotta love it.)

#4: My vintage Alice magazine ad. It's decorated my walls since I was five or six years old.

#5: My reminder box. For my twentieth birthday, P gave me a Willow Creek box filled with tiny pieces of paper. That tiny box is crammed full of reasons that he loves me, and he wrote it so that if I ever doubted that he loved me, I could read it and be assured.

#6: My Beatrice manuscript. When I wrote my novel, I wrote it by hand. Those three hundred sacred pages are coming with me EVERYWHERE, fo' sho'.

#7: My Alice in Wonderland costume. It's the first thing I ever sewed, and I love it. Plus, it's always nice to have a default costume lying around in case, you know, you have to dress up.

#8: A little glass Ariel figure. P bought her for me as a surprise from the Arribas Brothers kiosk in Magic Kingdom, right outside Pirates of the Caribbean. I had been drooling over her for months! She's a nice little mascot.

#9:My sewing machine. I have to downsize my sewing stuff when I move, but Zac Efron has to come with me.

#10: My little television. Because a girl has got to get her CSI fix while the guy plays his video games.

Rush into Regency Part III: Mm, muslin!

Who knew muslin was this amazing? I'm really happy with it. I've sewed with some crappy cheap fabrics before, but this muslin has such a delicious weight to it. It's going to be just the right fabric for this project. Very happy about that.

I'm not so happy about the fact that I forgot to compensate for the fabric I would need for the lining. I didn't get nearly enough muslin for the dress and the lining. So I'm compensating by making the lining about six inches shorter than the gown. I'll probably trim it with eyelet, just to make it longer (and make it secretly prettier).

I need to cut the skirt lining panels (two back and two side back), one more bodice, and the sleeves. But I am just way too tired to deal with it right now. So I shan't.

Rush into Regency Part II: Why so many pieces?

I have finally cut out all of the pattern pieces. I think I'm going to die.

It took about an hour and a half just to cut the paper pieces. Now I have to align them properly on my (very narrow) cut of muslin and pray I have enough. I have to cut:

-2 bodice fronts
-4 bodice backs
-4 bodice side backs
-2 sleeves
-1 skirt front
-2 skirt backs
-2 skirt side backs

And that doesn't even include the underskirt. I seriously doubt I have enough muslin to do the job, and I have no desire to purchase more. I do have a vast quantity of a dusky lavender sheer, which might do the trick, especially if I lace the back of the dress with lavender ribbon.

Also, I think I know what I'm going to be for Halloween, since now I can't dye my hair back to red and be Ariel until after Guys and Dolls is over.

Um, yes. Hilarity.

Rush Into Regency Part I: AUGH.

While I have several projects going on right now that are nearly done (red corduroy coat, navy Kate Nash dress, plaid open-back dress), everything is going on hold. Why? Because I have ONE WEEK to make a Regency dress.

I've been planning this dress for a while, because this is going to be my prototype for my Giselle dress.

I 've done a lot of dresses with sweetheart necklines (I have been, um, well-blessed), so I was going to do the bodice on my own by building it around a bra. The skirts were confusing me, though. It requires four layers- one pink, two cream, one aqua- but when she stands still, there's very little volume. Yet when she spins, it flares like a mofo. It also, inexplicably, has a train.

I theorized that the skirts were gored (in a pie shape, if you will) and most likely cut on the bias. In order to find the right pattern piece, I purchased Butterick 6630 off of good ol' Ebay.

The skirt is just right, so I'm just going to modify it. But I wanted to do a dry run by sticking exactly to the pattern, because I've never done a skirt quite like this before.

Last week I purchased five or six yards of a nice white muslin (yay for sales!), and the other night I started leisurely cutting out pattern pieces. I figured I have plenty of time. I wanted to wear it for an English novel project (since we're doing it on Emma), but I thought there would be time.

Oh, no. That's due in a week. And since I'm dressing up as Jane Austen, and naked is not an option, I have to start and complete this project by Thursday.

Oy.

When I get home from rehearsal, I'm breaking out the scissors. I expect it'll take about two to three hours just to cut the pattern and the fabric for this son of a biscuit eater.

Double oy.

Just an everyday bride

If all had gone as planned, I would be rocking out at a Relient K concert with Kat. But I have a mild but nevertheless obnoxious case of the flu. So instead of shouting the lyrics of "Sadie Hawkins Dance" at the top of my lungs (do they even still play that one? I feel so old...), I am curled up in my bed with a Sprite-and-cranberry juice cocktail, watching Fox's Animation Domination block and cruising Weddingbee.

Despite my blah-ness, P came over after church so we could work on wedding-related stuff. I wasn't terribly up for it, but P was willing to drive and carry all the stuff I pointed out.

We went on a field trip. Not a very exciting one, but first we traveled to Michaels to pick up two more boxes of invitations. Not only were the invitations marked down to $29.99 from $39.99, but I got one of the boxes for 50% off with a coupon! Fifteen dollars for thirty invitations? Yes, please.

I also picked up ribbon to wrap around the stems of my bouquet. Originally I wanted to get velvet ribbon, just because I am totally in love with texture, but it's just not practical. Light blue velvet ribbon with a 2" width is just not malleable enough to wrap around stems, and it's hard to find it in a wide width, anyways. The ribbon I picked up is a satin stripe- so there's still texture, just different.

After Michaels in 100 Oaks, we headed over to JoAnn's. I had picked out the lace fabric that I wanted to use for my going-away dress the last time I was there, but I wanted to wait until it was A) on sale, or B) I could use my 50% off coupon. Turns out the fabric was on sale, so I picked up four yards for $9.09 instead of $12.99 per yard. It's an absolutely beautiful diamond white organza striped in a floral lace pattern. It also fulfills one of my big critera- instead of selvage edges, it's finished in a lace pattern. Sold!

I still need to buy everything else to create the dress, but I have plenty of time, since I'm not planning to actually sew it until February. I'm still losing weight, and I don't want to start now, lose a lot of weight, and then drag around an ill-fitting dress during the reception. Besides, I have to make a muslin mockup of the bodice. So yeah. Plenty of time to buy the rest of the supplies.

Then I splurged.

P told me I was fine, that I've been planning for this for a super long time and he was fine with me spending the money. And as much as I dislike spending money, I'm super excited about this, my newest large-scale costuming project.

*drool*

I have been in LOVE with that dress since Enchanted first premiered, and it took me almost two years to find just the right fabric. It's still not perfect, but I definitely won't find anything better. I snatched up five yards of the stuff back in the spring. Today I splurged and bought the rest of the supplies (except for the four yards of cream organza I need for the two underskirts).

I felt as guilty as sin as I slunk away from JoAnn's with my bags of loot. (Did I also mention I bought five yards of white muslin? It was only $1.49 a yard...). P kept telling me it was all right, but I still wasn't confident.

Oh, well. The purchase was made and P took me home. (And he picked up a peanut butter fudge milkshake from Sonic for me too...I love that man.) We were going to hash out a whole bunch of wedding stuff, but I just wasn't up to it. Instead, we had a laptop party. Basically, we sat on my bed and watched Nickelodeon and worked on our laptops. He worked on some Microsoft 7 training stuff, I worked on wedding stuff.

I know, right? We're so boring. But hey, that's what happens.

Before he left, we went over our rough guest list. It's changed a bit over the past few years of our engagement (beginning with the fact that he couldn't remember the last names of several of his relatives!) and I wanted to make sure everything was still good on his end. He studied it for a bit, and declared that it looked good to him.

So now I've been recalibrating the guest list. Not terribly exciting, but it needs to be done. And when it's done, we can work on actually printing those pretty invitations!

But now it's bedtime. Just another end to another day in the life of an everyday bride.

Do I have a life yet?

Lighting of the Green is thankfully, mercifully over. I wrangled 20 people into last-minute costumes and sent them out to freeze...I mean, talk to people.

I think my hands are still frozen.

Also, I have pretty much NO pictures. I'm sad about that. There were some truly fabulous costumes, and I wrangled it together from pretty much nothing.

On the downside, I have to clean up the costume department. That's going to be fun. Maybe I'll take a picture of that.

Is it over yet?

Lighting of the Green is tonight. I still have some more pieces to sew before 3:00, when people come to get dressed. Plus I have to take a shower and look...you know, presentable. Everything starts at 4:30, and then we go till seven.

And then dress rehearsal starts at 7:30.

Seriously, going to die.

But if I make it through this, expect a LOT of pictures. ^_^

Working like a maniac...but it's so much fun!

Sewing sewing sewing sewing...my Thanksgiving break will be spent in quality time with my sister's sewing machine. (His name is Corbin Blue...and while I love my little Zac Efron Singer machine, Corbin is sooo much nicer!)

I have to make:
Alterations to the four costume pieces for the scene I'm directing for Shorts!

Meg's outfit from Hercules

A pinafore for my Alice in Wonderland costume

Ariel's blue dress from The Little Mermaid

A petticoat for a Cinderella costume

A blue knit dress for the December 5th show

A floral corduroy jumper for the December 6th show

And I might also make an Aladdin costume. And a Hercules costume. But at least I get to sew, which I haven't gotten to do much of lately, so this should tide me over till I'm home for Christmas. But yeah. I will probably blog more on my sewing blog than here, but I'll try to post some here too.

And in other news...

I didn't get the Barefoot role. Hence the hiatus. I had to sulk and get it out of my system. I still don't really want to talk about it, because I got majorly screwed over (and that's not just me being sulky), but hopefully I'll be completely over it soon.

P is working 23 hours this week. I will see him...well, much less than 23 hours. But hey, he'll get money, and we can save money for the whole "we're-getting-married" thing.

Speaking of which, our registry is up and booming! We're still adding stuff, but we're off to a good start. So far we're registered at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Target, but we're also registered here. The site lets you register for items anywhere on the internet...which means my Corelle dishes are up there. And if Santa doesn't bring me my dream bicycle for Christmas...it's so going on the registry. I can dream, can't I?

But in any case...I have sewing to do and Arrested Development to watch.

Also...Lora, I'm so glad someone reads this. It makes me feel my life is not completely futile. ^_^