Bad-Ass Pants, While You Wait

What's that you say? Your leather pants are dated, with the slightly too-wide cut below the knee? Well, let me just take care of that for you.

Sha - BOOM! Leather skinny jeans, here we come!
I pulled out the lining, took in a bit from the inseam, and tapered from the knee down by adding these fun grommets, before putting the lining back. When you're doing a show in a fire arts studio where everything is meant to burn, leather pants are a safety requirement. These are for the director, my friend Mark. The leather pants were a leftover costume piece from an earlier production of Don Giovanni that he inherited, and they just needed some taking in and bringing up to date.

Goodbye leather trenchcoat...

...and hello new handbag! I've been wanting to do this for ages, since I never wear this coat anymore and the leather was too good to just give away.

You can still see the trenchcoaty double-breastedness, which is now the closure. I used the belt as the shoulder strap, and incorporated the existing front pockets which run on the seam (you can kind of see them below the buttoned flap). I topstitched some nice folds to give it structure, and lined it in a cute paisley coated cotton I had lying around from a failed attempt at lunchboxes.

Machine Time

More photos to come soon, but we had some great reviews for Machine: A Fire Opera at The Crucible:

 And who could resist these zombie workers of the apocalypse?!

Best yet was our imprisoned Celtic goddess, Brigid, with her soldered EL wire wig, silk corset and custom made crown:

More fun and crazy hi-jinks backstage:

 

It was such a pleasure to costume this show and to work with such amazing people! I'm glad it had such a long run so that many folks could experience Jean-Francois's amazing set and hear the top-notch orchestra and these phenomenal singers.

Great Dickens!

Yeah, we are total geeks. I make my family dress up for the Great Dickens Christmas Fair every year. My older daughter refused to be photographed with us ( did I mention that I force them?) but here's the rest of us in our period finery.

We have such a good time, especially when we remember to sneak our period-appropriate flask in with us!

Here we are with friends Marie Plette, Mark Streshinsky, and various children who attached themselves to us in hopes of a free lunch.

Backstage at Ariadne auf Naxos

So I actually got to be IN this opera, and not just lurk backstage with a needle and thread. Here's the amazing Amanda Moody

You may know her as the world-famous Marie Plette, but she'll always be my quilting buddy:

And here's the phenomenal Buffy Baggot, who appears as The Composer. We had absolutely no fun together at all, ever.

 Last, but not least, is Sacha the luminous makeup artist. Funny how she never seems to need any makeup with that gorgeous glowing skin she's got:

The San Francisco Chronicle loved us, by the way. Did I mention that part?

more inspiration for Caliban...

i actually just want to give these kids a bath. it's more difficult to make a costume filthy and ragged (yet actually durable and hygenic!) than one might think.

Caliban

Just going to be posting some inspiration shots for the new show I'm working on. It's a world premiere, so I am starting from scratch, somewhat. Oy. Here's what I ended up with

 (edited later) and thankfully, the reviews were pretty decent!