Mamma Mia! Costumes

Donna and the Dynamos

                                                                       McCalls 8534

Volunteer Sewing, or Stitching Meets History

I am in a long, dry spell of unemployment.  Having decided late in life to start a new career path, I went back to school to get a degree in History (yes, I know, not exactly a blazing path to success) and now find myself virtually unemployable.  The diploma looks nice hanging on the wall, but I have found out the hard way that youth pretty much trumps experience in the job market.  All my 20-something classmates have found jobs while I languish in the ranks of the unemployed.

In the meantime, I am doing volunteer work in my field. I sit on a local Historic Preservation Commission and I work part-time at a history museum. (This is exactly what I wanted to do when I went for the degree, only I hoped to be PAID for it!)

One of my jobs at the museum is deciphering 19th century letters like this and transcribing them:

(If this doesn't look like fun, then I can't explain it.  Either you love this kind of thing or you don't.)  ;)


When they found out I could sew, I was quickly given a project.  This, of course, is a costume, not an authentic reproduction dress.  (It has a zipper up the back and everything.)  But this was the pattern they asked me to make.

Here is this is the dress on the girl I made it for - not yet hemmed.  She wasn't available for fittings, so the waist turned out a tad too big, even though the size matched her measurements.  She said not to worry, since she will be wearing an apron with it (which I will undoubtedly make as well!)

I thought the dress looked awfully plain (they didn't want any of the trims included with the pattern) so I picked up my crochet hook and made a collar.  It looks great with the dress, I think, and the museum staff was duly impressed.

Then they asked me to make some vintage-style aprons.  JoAnn actually has a line of print fabrics reminiscent of the 1930s and 1940s.

I loved this print, especially!

Anyway, this sort of thing keeps me busy until I can find paying gigs... 

The Little Princess (indulge me on this!)

Okay, insufferably cute pictures...I don't do this often but after all the sewing on the costume, I think I'm entitled just this once!  Two year old Princess models her gown while her three year old cousin "measures up the hem".   (a budding tailor?)

After I hemmed the skirt, she wanted the dress back on and wore it the rest of the day.  "I'm Snow White, I'm Snow White!"  

And my little man got his own costume, a generic "Power Ranger" from a fifty cent pattern I picked up at the thrift store.  (He will have a store bought mask with it.)

Whew!  Did I mention I still have a size 1/2 Cinderella costume to make???