Malotke Sews

Before Buttons Sorry for the delayed posting, it has been a crazy busy couple of weeks. The weekend before the Costume Parade I was finishing up a green men's short sleeve, button down collared shirt. I am in love with this avocado green and it looked really great on the actor.  I followed the directions for the pattern but I thought it was a very odd way of sewing a men's shirt, especially how they had you sew the collar. It turned out okay, it was actually about 4" too big for my actor. The sleeves are kind of weird but once I took it in and hand stitched the sleeve hem it didn't look as odd. Stay tuned for actual show images to see the shirt in action!

Wednesday was our Costume Parade and it went really well! A lot of the notes were hem related, which is great since I had switched out a few items. It was wonderful to finally see everyone in costume and see the colors come together!  The Do Wops are so bright & I think their looks turned out really well. The 3 girls shirts, bottoms, and scarves were made, along with the guy's shirt. I also bought them colorful headbands, saddle shoes, & ankle socks to pull their looks together. The sweater and textured pants tone down the guy's bright green top, but for a few scenes he takes the sweater off and the shirt really pops. I loved seeing them in their looks. We also added petticoats under the 2 skirt looks for a more full skirt appearance.  The cast will be doing full dress rehearsals starting Monday evening. We'll actually be getting pictures taken Tuesday night, it'll be nice to have some professional shots instead of my meh looking ones. The idea is to g...

The three Do Wop girls for Servant of Two Masters have very basic looks that consist of a white collared short sleeve blouse, colored bottoms (2 in skirts & 1 in capris), a multi colored mesh scarf, saddle shoes, white lace ankle socks, and a solid colored headband that doesn't match their bottoms. For example the girl in the orange skirt gets an aqua headband & the girl in the yellow skirt has a green headband. The Costume Parade was set for Wednesday night but come Tuesday the 3 shirt weren't finished yet. So my Tuesday evening was spent sewing this lovely top for one of the girls. My serger was not cooperating, so the inside of it looks like a hot mess, but ti turned out pretty well. It's actually a bit too big for the actress. I will be adding 2 back darts so it has more of a fitted look for the actress. She tucks it in to her skirt so the length is fine. Sometimes I do wish I had a better female mannequin because I use my menswear mannequin for ev...

Servant of Two Masters Update: For my Do-Wop girls I have 2 in bright skirts, orange & yellow, and then the 3rd in vibrant blue capri pants. There is one Do-Wop guy and he'll be in a green short sleeve button down and trousers. For the four of them to look more like a group I found a lovely blue and green mesh fabric to make neck scarves for the girls. Since the guy's shirt matches the green I thought adding the blue/green combo to the 2 girls without it and the stand alone girl in pants, would be the perfect solution. At first I wasn't set on how to make my scarves. I originally wanted to use the colors from each of the girls as backings for the scarves and then swap them so they were wearing another girl's color. I made one with a green backing as a tester after cutting out the shirt for the Do-Wop guy. It didn't look too bad but the mesh and the cotton didn't lay well together. I thought about adding interfacing but I thought it might mess the mesh...

Besides work in classes, I haven't actually made pants for a woman before, only for menswear. There's not a ton of difference, just some stuff switched like fly placement. It all depends on the style. For one of the Do-Wop girls I was in charge of making a pair of aqua blue capri pants. I snagged a decent pattern (size wise) from Joann's and edited the pattern, without removing the larger sizes, so it would be closer to the actress's measurements. I cut my fabric, my interfacing, and went to work. Instead of just sewing the pants how I thought they should go together- I followed the pattern's instructions. Everything was going well until the waistband...I went to start pinning it and realized it was too short. I looked at the pattern piece I had pinned to the right size and found out I had pinned it wrong and had folded the edges over to the smaller size accidentally. Luckily it wasn't too bad of a mistake. I cut a small rectangle, the size I was missin...

My Sunday Afternoon: Making Capri Pants I'm not a huge fan of using commercial patterns. I enjoy making patterns with the specific measurements to get the best fit. However, I do not have the time to make patterns, cut the fabric, and sew everything together in time for fittings. The Costume Parade is scheduled for September 19th, which means I need to stay on top of finishing tasks.  I've gotten a few extra options from Goodwill and I'm still within my budget. I have $800 for the show and so far have spent less than $400 on fabric, sewing items, patterns, goodwill pieces, bow ties, and other miscellaneous items for the show that needed to be certain colors. I'm not sure how much I will end up spending but it's nice to have the flexibility to buy last minute items if necessary. 

Making Everything Bright! After finally having access to the set colors I armed myself with paint swatches and headed to the fabric store. There are four actors that play multiple minor roles. They do the commercial bits, play the role of the waiters, and others. I wasn't 100% in love with the items I pulled from Parkland's stock so I was thrilled when the costume shop manager suggested just making parts of their looks. I can only handle so many costume builds since I work full time, so having the help means a lot.  I went to Joann's and picked out 4 bright colored cotton fabrics: grass green, aqua, orange, and buttercup yellow. I also managed to find a mesh fabric that was almost exactly the same blue/green combo that I plan on making into scarves for the ladies. I found matching thread, zippers for the skirts, and other small items like hook and eyes.  The costume shop manager and I will be making 2 skirts, 1 pair of capris, 1 men's short sleeve button down, 3 ...

Small portion of potential costumes It might not look like a lot, but I have pulled a good chunk to start with for fittings. The image to the left is only about 1/3 of what I pulled last week and doesn't show off what I've pulled this week. But it does give you a glimpse into a few characters' colors... I will be posting more by Thursday on what I've actually pulled and hopefully fittings will be happening this week and next. Initially I had made a schedule for myself, but as usual things change. The 3 standard people (they would be waiters, porters, commercial people) turned into 4 people. Then their initial plain look of a waiter's look turned into 1950s teenager street looks. Which in one way is pretty cool because it'll help set the scene with a more 1950s vibe. But on the other hand it means another challenge since I'm also costuming the crew in 1950s looks. Basically, depending on size and what the costume shop has to offer I may be making a few...

This past week I finally got to start pulling costume pieces! On Wednesday I sat down with the shop manager and the director to go over each character now that the show has its cast. Unfortunately the show doesn't have a hair/makeup person, but the director has hopes that one of the wardrobe crew can be trained to do wigs for this show in the short amount of time we have.  After finalizing some of the ideas for the characters I was able to start pulling pieces. Almost everyone has been measured so I was able to get a decent amount pulled. After talking with the shop manager there are already a hand few of items that will need to be built because of the actors' size & the shop's stock. On one hand this is nerve wrecking because of the short turn around for the show, but one the other hand it's pretty exciting because I can actually build something for the show and show off what I know and that I'm more than just a designer. So I cleared off a rack, pulled up...