Reflection

I went to see App-etite again tonight, and thought it was just as funny. I took my parents and boyfriend to see the show too and was so proud of my costumes on stage. I always think it's interesting how much effort goes into putting on a show, and how many people don't really get the recognition they deserve. Sure, our names were listed in the program and I suppose I can't expect much more but how many people actually looked in the program and thought, "wow, these students actually made all of these costumes". Seeing the Angry Birds scene was probably my favorite, although the nightmare sequence was right up there too. Maybe it was just because I had a part in them, but I really did think that the costumes added to the show and when they were different than the street clothing it was noticeable. My parents were most impressed with the LED shirt that lit up, and I was so proud to say that I was responsible for that. So even though it was not a complicated sewing project, it was successful.

Overall, I feel that this class has gone nicely in combination with my Costume Crafts course. I was able to spend a sizable amount of time in the Costume Shop and improving my sewing, as well as be indirectly involved in the Main Stage. I really loved working with the people I was with and I'm glad I got to know them. The majority of the class was full of people that I would have never met if it wasn't for this, and I really think that the Lab classes like this are a good way to have the campus interact in ways they wouldn't otherwise. I think that I learned the most in this class from actually working on a sewing machine every day and am now confident in my sewing skills as well as knowing my way around the machine. I look forward to bringing home my newfound skills and hopefully someday using them to sew items for my children.

The Light Up Shirt

Today I worked on a very last minute project, in fact we didn't even have class. I took a white tank top, and sewed light up wire onto it. The idea was that the wire was neon green and could flash, turn on or turn off all by a small button hidden on the actor. This was for Zach's role of Mike the Robot and I really enjoyed configuring it. The sewing itself wasn't complicated, just a loop stitch over the top of the wire to hold it in place but the end product- when it was dark onstage and he was glowing through his shirt- that made it all worth it. It was exciting to see how different mediums could be incorporated into sewing and how useful it is to know how to sew.

African Dance Attire

After finishing all of our work for the show, our class volunteered to help the African Dance and Drumming class in making their costume pants for their performance. This was an interesting project because it was actually making functional clothing (previous to this I had only made the Angry Birds and the apron), and we had to really take into account sizing. Samantha and I did a lot on this project, from cutting the pattern out, labeling them into small medium and large, and putting in the drawstrings. We had to deviate from the pattern, as while the shorts were meant to be more like knee length they were measuring out to be full pants and so we made the executive decision to recut the bottom line. I would have liked to see the performance and see them in action to see how well they ended up fitting.

Aprons and Apples

Another short project that I worked on with Samantha was creating the aprons worn during the nightmare scene in App-etite. This was a simple project for we had to create six aprons, and six Apple logos. The Apple logo we printed out and traced onto sparkly paper that had a sticky back. They were placed onto the aprons in the front center. The aprons were blue thin cotton that only had to be hemmed along the sides, and surged at the bottom. After completing the Angry Birds, this felt too easy to me as we found we could mass produce them by cutting multiples out from the fabric. The apples were stickers so we could just peel off the backs and stick them on the front.



The only snag in this project was during the portion where we put on the ribbon that went around the neck and tied in the back. We had two full rolls of light blue ribbon, but after the fourth realized that there still wasn't enough to cover all of them. Perhaps we could have made the ties in the back shorter, but we did not know the width of the person who would be wearing them so we went with a longer length. The last two aprons had a much thinner, frilly, blue ribbon that was found in the costume shop and while it did not look the same up close, when it was far away it worked just fine.

Overall, this was a costume that was onstage for probably a total of three minutes, but was necessary to the scene. I felt a little underwhelmed because it was so simple, but the whole semester seemed a little slow and I know it was just because of the play that had be created.

Angry Birds

After the quilts we began our projects that would be worn as costumes in the spring Main Stage production of App-etite, a piece of devised theatre which comments on societies addiction to technology. The two boys were set to create vests that a couple would wear during a Boston Red Sox game, and the rest of us collaborated on the creation of the Angry Birds.

Angry Birds! (taken from the Drama Blog)

Based on the popular game, these costumes were a combination of felt and padding with artistic representations of the birds and pig glued to the front. The first part that I worked on creating was the red angry bird face. When others traced them on paper, I worked to cut them out with the correct colored felt and sort them into piles so that each face had the correct parts. From there, we cut out red circles big enough to hold the birds faces and constructed the face like a puzzle. Once looking angry, the faces were sewn onto the red circle and outlined with a black Sharpie to make them look sharp. Warning: the black markers used in this creation are very potent smelling and should be used in small doses. Once created, the faces were put aside and the poncho's were made. Circles folded in half, sewn up the sides (leaving room for legs at the bottom and arms at the top) made up these bird bodies. On the inside of the front abdomen we attached a foam diamond to give the birds more shape. This was the hardest part, for the foam and the felt are not friends with the sewing machine. The foam made the needle get stuck and the felt snagged the thread, so it was the worst job. Somehow managing to complete this task, the ponchos were turned right side out to hide the seams and the angry bird face was glued on to the front. 

For the headband, all that was done for creation was cutting out a long strip of red felt and tying it behind the head. We also made extras of these just in case one got lost.

For the pig, the same process was used to create the poncho, as well as the face. This pig was created after the birds and was decidedly more difficult, if only because the face is not all touching. The angry bird face has all of the components touching one another, and the pig does not. So it was a matter of seeing how they looked in proportion to each other when deciding where on the felt to place them. I am really proud of how the pig turned out. This was my biggest project for this class, and I really enjoyed working with the girls who helped to create these birds.

Quilting

Our second project was a class made quilt. There were seven of us in class and we each chose a fabric color. From this point, we were asked to cut out eight pieces from each fabric as the quilt we were making was an 8x8. The colors ended up being blue, yellow, pink, grey, green, purple and another shade of blue. In theory, beautiful together. In reality, full of different textures and shades- some shiny, some embellished, some textured. In a way representative of the class, our quilt came out awkward but confident, with many mistakes. Through this project we learned to work together and how to hide our mistakes in a way that still looks pleasing to the eye. Once we had all cut out our eight squares, we then lined them all up on the table in a pattern that we all agreed upon. The squares moved one row over every line down, creating a diagonal pattern.

At this point we had eight long strips of material, with each square pinned to the next. We all broke off and sewed our strip together. The next part was what I think was the hardest. We had to figure out what order the strips went in to recreate our diagonal pattern. Peter had labelled them with numbers, but in the sewing process some numbers had come off and so we had to put it together based on looks. This was hard. We took a long time doing this, and it was a little frustrating.
Finally we got them all lined up, and then we had to pin it all together and take turns sewing the strips together. We had made the top of our quilt. 

not our quilt but an example of diagonal quilting

For the bottom we picked four of the eight colors and cut four large squares to equal the same area as the top of the quilt. These too got sewn together, and then came the frustrating part. Peter had got batting(which is what is usually inside quilts) and we laid the full quilt down like a sandwich. The bottom went down with the right side facing the table, then the batting, and then the top with the right side facing up. For this part we didn't need to do right sides together because we would be edging it all later. After the hard task of safety pinning the quilt sandwich in strategic places, we began the even harder task of hand sewing small dots in those places. They were pinned at the junction of the squares so that the dots would disappear into the material. This was done so that the batting and material was always connected and couldn't bunch up. Our final step of the time consuming quilt was to cover the edges with a separate material so that you didn't see the rough edges. We did this by cutting a strip of purple material and then pinning one edge right side down on the top of the quilt, then flipping the strip so it went over the edge and pinning it again on the bottom side of the quilt. If we were professional quilters we would have done this flawlessly, but ours turned out a little uneven and lumpy. After sewing it on, and finagling the corners into something that looked okay, we were done with our quilt.
This project took a good chunk of time to make, and brought us all together as a class to collaborate.

Puppets

For our first official sewing project, we created our own puppets. They were simple projects that involved sewing seams and understanding how to hide seams, but fun. The pattern we used to make these puppets was provided to us, and came on printer paper. We cut out the shapes from the printer paper and used these to trace and cut our fabric. The puppet consisted of two parts- a top and a bottom, and we could choose to alter it in any way we wished. I chose to make a female doll wearing a pink shirt and floral skirt. I also altered the pattern so that she had a waist line to look more feminine. The hardest part of this project was pushing the arms right-side out, as you sew everything inside out. This is done so that all of the seams are hidden when you have your final project. My arms were a tad skinny because I left a large seam allowance by accident and so I struggled to push them right-side out.