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How to Reblock a Straw Hat
The world is full of straw hats. They are almost never the size and shape you’d like them to be. (That’s a known effect of the Law of Universal Irony, along with how the thread already in the needle is...
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You say “yard waste”, I say “free, eco-friendly corset boning”
So I was out trimming the privet hedge the other day, like you do (she says, sounding perfectly British about the whole thing) when I stopped to think, “Gee, I wonder if I could bone a corset with some...
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How to Find Colonial Waistcoats at Goodwill
I needed 25 Colonial-looking vests for 1776. Because I wasn’t sure that I’d get round to making a coat for everyone, I wanted vests that weren’t faked out in the back, and I needed them to have...
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How to Find Colonial Britches at Goodwill
Oddly enough, I needed 19 pair of Colonial britches to go with my 25 Colonial vests. (Because I had much better luck renting britches than vests, not because I let anyone go pantless.) This is very...
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How to Turn Out a Passable Rev War Uniform Jacket from Goodwill
Have I mentioned that my show has, by and large, come from Goodwill? Yes, indeed. One of the characters in 1776 is “a courier”. (No, really, that’s all they call him in the script.) He’s an army...
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Steampunk on a Shoestring: the Admirer
So I’m doing Picasso at the Lapin Agile at Wheaton Drama right now – big funny Steve Martin craziness, right? It’s our studio show. Now, I figured the studio show was where we do something artistically...
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Steampunk on a Shoestring: Germaine
So, for the next installment in the series, I’ll tackle the character of Germaine in Picasso at the Lapin Agile. (Wowza, did that sound pretensious…) The rough inspiration for the costume was, “How...
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Steampunk on a Shoestring: the Countess
I’m saving the best for last – I loved the way this costume turned out! It is, by far, the most wack-a-doodle set of design decisions I’ve ever made. I really wanted to do a rather prim dress for the...
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Hat Tricks: the Fastest Pillbox Base in the West!
File this under “Reasons missa is going to milliner’s hell” for 100, Alex.” This is the WRONG WAY to recover a hat. DO NOT DO THIS. It’s bad bad bad Wrongy McWrong. It’s really bloody fast. But it is...
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Faking a Tacky Western Jacket
One of the joys of live theater is that there is always the possibility that something might go catastrophically wrong. I costumed Dirty Rotten Scoundrels a few months ago. Monday of tech week, the day...
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