Lighting up the Glow Worm

Of all the characters in “James & the Giant Peach”… well my son had to go and get assigned Glow Worm.
His first lines in the play explain that he’s not a worm, but a lady firefly (you know, they don’t have wings…)
His basic costume was simple: I found a nice (women’s) suit for $1 at Goodwill on Thursday. (THAT was not a simple task a couple weeks before Halloween!) I did have to take in the waist of the trousers quite a bit.My most important task, according to the director, was to light up Glow Worm’s butt! She purchased a variety of light strands that I brought home & played with until I found the one I thought would work for this costume.The tone of our production’s set & costuming was a throw-back to 1940’s England. I was inspired with the brilliant idea that Glow Worm would wear an apron that “she” could turn around to the tail area when it came time to light it up.
I found a wonderful pattern from Wild Ginger for a “Petal Apron” that I sized for my actor.I backed the iridescent fabric on two of the petals with some light yellow cotton from my stash.
With the center backing panel I used invisible thread to stitch on the lights!I was so impressed I took it into the darkened laundry room to try to get a visual.

Very carefully, then, I attached the iridescent front to the petal. (Uhhhh… using a serger around fragile wires was quite frightening to me!) Next, all three petals were stitched to the band/tie. Apron complete!
I took video of the entire mannequin in the dark to make sure it had the effect I wanted.

I fashioned a hat with the remaining fabric.
My boy was a hit!

(Please excuse the “ocean” waves down front…)

A Peach of a Show

Well, it’s finished… stage has been painted back to black, props have been dismantled, and all the costumes put away.Here I gave you a couple sneak peeks of the costumes I worked on. (The glow worm project is a separate post, here.)My absolute favorite image was Aunt Sponge.
Totally ridiculous! Here’s Old Green Grasshopper with his dyed hat & corduroy trousers I fashioned to look like jodhpurs.Inchworm was such a truly adorable character!
Centipede carried the show with her singing!Ladybug’s poses (& incredible accent!) kept me giggling all night.All I did for Spider was to sew her legs.Oh, and I did hem James’ shortsand consult on the sharks’ fins…
Here are the pictures taken by the school; and if you wish to see some highlights video-recorded by the school, you can look here.
(If you think you might have seen the narrators’ butterfly outfits before, you have! They are part of the fairy outfits I stitched last year for the “Midsummer Night’s Dream” production.)

James & the Giant Peach

...otherwise known as "COSTUMING 5.0"

Saturday we bought 40 - 50 yards of orange nylon fabric. (We have to "dress" a rather large peach, ya know...) We've got this favorite lady behind the bridal counter at the discount fabric store. She measures and measures and weighs and counts all the goodies we've found for the production. Sometimes she'll ask what is this for? We tell her and she's properly amazed at our collective creativity.  Svetlana misses us if we don't show up every 3 months, or so...

(forgot to add Centipede's fabric to the stack...)

After the fabric store we hit Goodwill (along with half of Phoenix...) to find some outfits and particular pieces to alter for costumes. We grabbed a fabulous pair of corduroy trousers for Old Mr. Grasshopper. Unfortunately, we needed green. Fortunately, I have a 10 year-old box of dark green Rit dye.

(yup -- '03!)

Yesterday I cut, serged, sewed, and pressed.

(Aunt Sponge's wardrobe basic)

Today was spent cutting, serging, sewing, pressing and dyeing.

(of course, I don't have a "before" shot...)

Tomorrow I believe I will change it up a little and sew, serge, press and then cut out fabric for the following day...