Lauren Hadley, Lab

For this week’s lab hours, I had the opportunity to help at the first dress rehearsal for Mary Poppins. When I first arrived, it was complete chaos. Half-dressed actors and actresses were running around asking questions about their costumes because they were unclear what went with what. I mainly focused and helped with the female actresses, zipping up, safety pinning, and bobby pinning. Since it was the first night of dress rehearsals, the actors only had to put on their costumes and did not have to worry about hair or make-up. Aliya, the girl who played Miss. Corry, and I did not know how to put her costume on. We were confused with all the petticoats and bustles she had. Finally, we asked for help and figured it out and she looked great. Taylor did a wonderful job on her costume. One of the biggest challenges of the first dress rehearsal was that a lot of costumes still needed mending or altering. I did not think there would be that many but there were a ton. When and if we came across a costume which needed fixing or altering, there was a system. You wrote the name of the actor or their character, and exactly what needed to be done. When I got there, only 3 alterations were on the chalk board, by the time I felt, the entire board was covered and an additional five pages of notes that Dan had taken. Side note: Dan is a super star! From my observations, he helped so much backstage and there would have been a lot more chaos without him.

** Below is a picture of the finished product of Bert's patchwork vest.

Lauren Hadley, Lab

Oops! I was only able to complete one hour of lab work last week because I left my last hour to do on Friday, and then my car was towed (stupid security!) and I had to find a way to town to pick it up.

However, for the hour I did do lab work, I was able to sew all the individual patch work squares together. I was so amazed at how 100 squares sewn together creates a new, unique, piece of fabric. I felt so accomplished and proud of myself. After that, I found the vest pattern I wanted and cut out the pattern from my new piece of fabric. That was a long, tedious job. I also poked myself with pins multiple times. Ouch! Before my hour was up, I was able to put together a couple pieces of the cut out pattern and it finally began to look like an actual vest. Thankfully, someone was able to complete the entire vest and when I saw Bert wearing it, I was so impressed with how it turned out.

After the first dress rehearsal, a few suggestions were made regarding the patchwork vest in order to make it look more realistic and easy for Bert to quick change in. I hand-stitched three green buttons to the left side of the vest and used Velcro on both sides for a quick and easy change. Unfortunately, I did not know that you aren’t supposed to use sticky Velcro on fabric and went to stitch the Velcro into the fabric to secure it and almost broke the machine. SORRY!

Lauren Hadley, Lab

            This week, I was finally able to use the sewing machine! I was so excited. I was asked to being creating a patchwork vest for Bert to wear during Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious scene of Mary Poppins. My first step was to choose fabric for the different patches. Sis. Dooley suggested to choose some colors which matched the other actors in the scene. I choose brown to match the customers, blue and pink to match Miss. Corry and her daughters, and random patterns to add dimension the vest. I then worked with Sis. Dooley to determine how many single patches would be sufficient to create the entire vest. We decided on 10x10 with each patch, or square, being 5 inches all around. Next, I cut each individual square or fabric using a pizza cutter like device (I am not sure the proper name). It did take me a couple of hours to cut out all the patches because I wanted to make sure all the edges were as straight as possible and that each side of the square was 5 inches long. Also, because some of the fabric I chose had been sitting for so long, they had many folds and creases which needed to be ironed out before cutting. After all 100 squares were cut out, the real magic begun. I now needed to assemble all the patches together to create one big quilt. Initially, sewing the patches together was difficult and tricky because you couldn’t stop. After you sew a straight line along the side of one patch, you quickly but carefully, add another patch without ending the stitch. Confusing? Yes it was. I was only able to finish one row of 10 patches before I had to leave. Hopefully I can finish the entire project by next class period.