My summer in Winona, MN

The summer of 2011, between my 2nd and 3rd year of grad school, I went to work for the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona Minnesota as a First Hand. I would recommend working for this company to anyone. Yes, it’s in a small town and its not as well known as some festivals, but I had a really pleasant and enjoyable summer working with some really wonderful people. I wish that I could have gone back again but it has never quite worked out for me.

That summer the company produced three shows: Henry IV Part 1, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Fantasticks. The costume shop had one draper and two first hands. The draper was only there for the first 2 shows and assigned each of us first hands to a show. The third show was mostly simple builds and alterations so a draper wasn’t really needed and responsibilities were divided up between the two first hands. I was assigned to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t work on Henry, I helped when that show needed help just as the other first hand helped me when my show needed the extra help.

Mostly what we made for the show were fairy costumes. Titania, Oberon, and all of the other fairies were made from scratch. Making these costumes was an interesting process. The draper and designer knew what the direction we were going was but how to get there was something to figure out. We ended up making base costumes and taking pieces into the fittings to pin in place and stitch down later. It was my task to guide the intern stitchers in assembling these creative costumes. They learned how to stitch stretch while simultaneously stitching inside of armhole and legholes. The rose to the occaision! Here are pictures of Corey Allen as Oberon, Kate Fonville as Titania, and Tarah Flanagan as Puck. Puck’s costume is very similar to the rest of the fairies, though the other fairies had some sprouting floral additions courtesy of the crafts artisan. The costumes were designed by Devon Painter

 

When it came to The Fantasticks, I made a few capes and a vest. Nothing fancy but after making the fairy costumes I didn’t really feel like I needed anything more. I was satisfied with what I had accomplished for the summer. But here is the vest that I made worn by Tarah Flanagan. Costumes for this show were designed by John Metzner.

I spent the remainder of the summer at home and working for the National Black Theatre Festival. My work there doesn’t get much mention in this blog because it isn’t costuming work. I worked NBTF in 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2011. It is a biannual festival in Winston Salem, NC that I got involved with through friends from home who also worked there. I word backstage there helping to get venues set up, shows loaded in and out, and various other backstage tasks none of them related to costumes. But it’s nice to change it up a bit sometimes. Doing something different every now and then feels restful and liberating in a way. And I love the people who I work with there. It’s a little bit of a reunion each time the festival comes around. When it was done, I headed back for my last year of grad school!

Big River

Big River might be the show I most enjoyed working on while at PlayMakers. I was assigned as a draper for the production and the shop manager came around early in the process (we were still working on Angels in America) and asked us which look we would like to make. We weren’t promised anything but he wanted to know our preferences and try to get it for us. I saw the following rendering by costume designer Bill Black and knew immediately that I wanted to make it.

I was so excited to make this dress. I loved the pleats that transitioned into rouching/smocking at the waist and couldn’t wait to figure out that puzzle. Little did I know what was coming!

I draped in muslin on a dress form to get the pleats just right and then ran multiple rows of gather stitches for the stomach area. I worked late nights trying to get the mock up done as well as all of my homework. Fitting day arrived and I was exhausted but excited to see what it would look like on the actresss. Thirty minutes before the fitting we found out there had been a casting change! and we had no idea who the new actress was whom would be wearing this dress. I wanted to cry. I managed not to cry but I was so frustrated that I did have to go for a walk. I needed out of the room and to get some fresh air so I could collect myself and try to keep from screaming. I managed to calm down but was still anxious to find out who the new actress was. A little later we found out and my urge to cry returned. The actress had a completely different shape! The first actress was very thin and not very curvy. The new actress was a much curvier girl which meant that not only would the dress not be able to be fit on this actress but it was going to have to be re-draped. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around adjusting those pleats on the pattern to fit someone whose shape was so different.

I needed to make the new mock up quickly. No matter what I did, I was going to have to fit it without the designer because he was leaving town before I could manage to make a whole new mock up. Fortunately the re-drape went well and the dress fit almost perfectly. I made a few minor adjustments and we took pictures. The designer loved it and I proceeded into real fabric feeling good after such a smooth fitting. Everything continued smoothly for the rest of the process and she looked great! I was back in my happy place and loving the dress I made. Here is Jessica Sorgi as Joanna Wilkes in Big River.

This wasn’t my only project for the show thought. I also was responsible for helping to make a tar and feather costume. Here is Bill Black’s rendering for that costume.

We shopped out the clothing portion of the costume. And the tar was the craftsperson’s responsibility. But a base was needed to put the tar onto because there wasn’t time to apply the tar to the actor between scenes. We decided to make a powernet leotard for the actor. I had several discussions with Rachel E. Pollock, our resident craftsperson about this leotard as it was a collaborative project. We discussed how much tar could be applied and still get the leotard on, we discussed where the leotard would open and how to cover those openings, and we even at one point discussed the possibility of adding a steaming effect though that ended up not happening. I made the leotard with a opening at the crotch so he could put it on like a shirt and a placket at the neck so that he could get his head through. There had to be a collar so that the tar could come up onto his neck. The placket was covered with tar so it wasn’t visible.

Here is Scott Ripley as the Duke in Big River.

Pretty good huh?

Making Mormon Underwear

One of the most unusual things that I’ve been asked to make in my career was Mormon Temple garments. This was my assignment for Angels in America. Apparently you have to actually be Mormon to order the official undergarments. But we needed them because some of the characters who are Mormon get undressed or partially undressed onstage and the undergarments needed to be accurate. So, as usual, I started with an image. This is the picture that costume designer, Jan Chambers provided me.

You’ve probably seen this image on the internet. Not the most flattering things in existence and since I’m not Mormon, I don’t know if this is accurate at all but this is what was asked of me and what I made. The male t-shirt was purchased and I simply scooped out the neckline. Everything else was made from scratch from a stretch linen-like fabric. Everything went pretty smoothly on this but i will say the fittings were some of the most awkward that I’ve ever been in. Fitting underwear means getting up close and personal. But here’s how it turned out! Here are actors Christian Conn and Marianne Miller in their undergarments.

They were troopers! Both agreed to pose for me in the fitting room because none of the production photos showed the undergarments. The photographer was asked to stop taking pictures when the actors began removing their clothes. Great for their modesty since they did get down much further than this but not so great for my portfolio. I was really grateful that they agreed to let me take my own pictures.

Learning How to Dye

Dye class was a fun and interesting class but I definitely learned that I am not a dye person. In the first part of the class we focused on making swatches of each of the colors for reference with different dyes (RIT, acid, fiber reactive). That part I did fine with. It’s kinda like basic cooking, just follow the directions. My struggles came with color matching. I excelled at getting the swatch in the small pot to the right color, there’s nothing wrong with my color theory. But somehow every time I moved to the large pot with the larger amount of fabric I just could not get the color to turn out the same as the swatch. I couldn’t understand the ratios to get the amount of dye right for the larger pot and kept getting in trouble with my reds taking much faster than the other colors. Fortunately this is a class graded more on learning and understanding than succeeding. I could talk about what went wrong and why, I just couldn’t actually get the right color. Again, it’s like cooking. When there’s no recipe or when you’re significantly increasing the amounts, it’s an art form. I have a deep respect for a talented dye person.

Then we moved into other techniques that I was better with. We did shibori and were allowed to choose the type of shibori project that we wanted to work on. I found these images.

These are a set of kimonos done by Nancy Marchant. I decided to replicate the top two, though as wall hangings, not kimonos. With this stitched shibori technique I used double rows of hand stitching with hymark thread and then pulled up all of my stitching lines as tight as I could. Then I used fiber reactive dye in the areas I wanted to turn blue. These are my results. There’s no way to get an exact replica and I have a little more bleed into the white areas but I’m happy with it!

Then we did a resist project. We were given the opportunity to do either batik or silk painting. I did some silk painting in undergrad so I elected to try batik while most of my classmates chose silk painting. I started off liking this project and then had a few mishaps that turned the project sour for me. Batik involves using a wax resist and dyeing in layers applying wax each time to the area you want to keep that color. I chose this image.

First of all, I had a little more trouble applying the wax than I anticipated. I wasn’t moving across the fabric smoothly enough. But that got better as a kept going and learned how to do it. The big mistake that I made was setting my piece upright to set. The dye that I used requires being wrapped up and allowed to sort of steep in the fabric for a while. I had a rather large piece and needed to get it out of the way of my classmates and sat it upright in it’s frame to do this. Thus when I unwrapped it, my colors had jumped the resist lines and bled into the areas below. I did a couple of layers to see how well this could be hidden before I simply gave up on the project. Here’s what it looked like when I tossed in the towel.

Had I continued on the the black color, some of this would have been fixed, but there was no fixing areas like the face so I just called it quits. Not every project can be a success and I did learn many things in this process and could probably do much better if I were to attempt it again. Who knows, maybe once day I will!

The next project was printing. Once of my classmates had used a screen printing technique in her silk painting project by screen printing with resist instead of paint. Then she painting the remainder of the silk. I decided to try this for my printing project, as it met the requirement. However, we were also supposed to use a second printing technique so I made a stencil and used textile paint to subtly add to my screen printed silk painting. There is no research image for this because I made it up as I went. Here are the results!

Our last dye projects for the semester were distressing projects. We were given some garments and a scenario and told to distress them accordingly. This project was a lot of fun because I got zombies and spent time ripping apart clothes, beating up shoes, and applying dirt and blood stains. The pictures exist somewhere, though I cannot find them at the moment. Rest assured that if I do find them, I will post them.

Fences

I forgot that Fences was also done in the fall semester that year. I was a draper for that show and responsible for two of Rose’s looks. I was also my own first hand and stitcher. Here are the designs by costume designer Helen Q. Huang that I was given to work from.

Now the challenge for this show was that the actress cast was nowhere near the size and shape of the character rendered. The actress had a rather substantial bust that did not lend itself well to the kimono sleeve that the designer wanted for one of the dresses. After futzing with it for a while I got frustrated and walked away for a bit. When I came back, I threw every rule I knew about kimonos out the window and just let the fabric do what it wanted to do going over the shape of that bust. Other than that, this was a pretty easy show. Also, the apron with the bib became a half apron as that wasn’t terribly flattering on the actress. Here are the finished results on actress Kathryn Hunter-Williams.

Millinery Part 2

After brimmed buckram hats, we moved onto blocked felt hats. I found these images to work from:

To do this, I needed to both block and drape the hat. Lots of steam and lots of futzing got me to a place I was happy with. Not exactly the research image, but something I liked a little better. And then I decided to add some chains. Here’s the hat that I ended up with:

   

I really liked the way this hat turned out. My only problem with it is that when I put it on I feel a little like Robin Hood. Not exactly what I was going for. It also makes it hard for me to find occaision to wear it. Oh well.

Then we moved on to wire frame hats. This is a broad category that encompasses any hat that is built with a wire framework. For instance, the hat I chose is a top hat shape made of wire with sheer fabric draped over so that the structure still shows through. One of my classmates made a collapsible hood like the ones women were wearing when they wore panniers and had tall intricate hairstyles. Completely different hats but they fall under the same category for our class. Here is the image that I was inspired by:

In the image the entire hat is wire including the meshwork and the feather. I didn’t have enough time, being a full time grad student, to do all of that. What I liked though was the underlying idea with the squiggle wire supports on the crown and brim. So that’s what I started with. To wrap the joins, I used black jewelry wire. Since my hat was going to show the structure underneath and I was using black millinery wire, I needed a tie wire that was also black. But tie wire doesn’t come in black, or at least our shop didn’t have any. But black jewelry wire was locally available and worked really nicely. When it came to figuring out what I would do instead of the mesh, I had to think. I went to the really nice fabric store to find inspiration and found a beautiful cross woven silk chiffon. I didn’t want to see seams so I didn’t make a fitted cover. I decided to just use the whole yard of fabric and drape it nicely. So I finished the edges with a satin stitch and played with the draping until I had something I liked. What I got was something that looked like a modern version of a riding hat.

I really love this hat and have managed to wear it out a few times. I wish I had more functions to attend that were fancy enough for this!

Then we moved on to wig hats. Since the program I attended is a theatrical costuming program, this is a good thing to learn. Sometimes you need crazy wigs that fall more into crafts and millinery than into wigmaking. I came across these images in my research:

These paper wigs were not only really cool, they got me to thinking. How would one make something like this for theatre? Paper wouldn’t hold up. As I was walking around the crafts store mulling it over I found the craft foam and thought that would be perfect. So I bought a bunch and set out to make my wig. I started with a buckram base and built up a little shape with some quilt batting. I used some millinery wire stitched to the base to support the bun piles. For each bun I used a styrofoam ball as the base and used popsicle sticks and glue to attach them together. All of that was covered in strips of craft foam and glued in place. My final result was this:

It is an absolute shame that I don’t have anywhere to wear this hat. I did keep it in the costume shop for a while to put on when someone needed a pick me up! It makes people smile.

Our last project for millinery was a wild card. Anything that you wanted to do and hadn’t yet. I had not worked with straw yet and decided to do that. I also had this image that I liked a lot.

While the interesting fold could just be draped on the block while the straw was wet, that wasn’t a problem but the half pinch was. Hat blocks mostly have both sides of the pinch. So I made a hat block. I am not a wood worker so I used blue foam found at Home Depot. I had to glue several layers together to get a thickness that I could work with but after that, carving was fairly simple, just time consuming. Once I had the shape I thought I needed, I covered the foam in aluminum foil to protect it and the straw from each other. The foam hat block worked great. I draped the fold in because I didn’t want to attempt carving it and that worked well too. Here is my hat:

I also really like this hat but can never find anything that it goes with. One day though…one day!

The road to grad school.

Back to my time in Auburn…

In the middle of all that I was doing during my internship at Auburn University, I was also applying to grad school. The idea of going had never left my mind despite the negative experience that I had on my visit to the-school-that-I-will-not-name. And working with Tracy Oleinick I was realizing something important: There is very little time for teaching and learning in the professional workplace. This isn’t to say that you can’t learn in a professional environment. Of course you learn things. But it’s smaller things here and there. When there are big things that you want to learn like tailoring or pattern making or other such things, there just isn’t enough time in the work day. Getting the work done is more important. Show deadlines have to be met. And there was so much that I wanted to learn still. I needed to go back to school.

I began looking in the fall of 2008 shortly after I arrived in Auburn. The first thing that I discovered is that there aren’t a lot of programs teaching what I wanted to learn. I wanted to sew, pattern, drape, and just generally make things. Most of the programs were training designers. Even programs that advertised their construction courses seemed to be focusing on design first and foremost. I only found a handful of schools that seemed serious about training costume technicians.

Of that handful, only three were of any interest to me. Those schools were Boston University, University of Texas at Austin, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As I looked into the programs more closely, I ruled out UT. It just wasn’t resonating with me. There isn’t really a more concrete reason than that for me. It just didn’t feel right. So, I contacted the other two programs to get more information. As I delved deeper, Boston wasn’t resonating with me either but UNC was.

I liked that the program at UNC was strongly oriented to training costume technicians. In fact, they don’t even have a design track. For me this was a MAJOR PLUS! They also had a wide range of courses covering all of the things that I wanted to learn: flat pattern, draping, costume history, crafts classes, etc. And they have a professional company associated with them, PlayMakers Repertory Company, for which the graduate students make the costumes beginning the first year that they are there. This meant continuing professional experience while in school.

I arranged a visit. Apparently I was far ahead of the game. I had no idea at the time that I was so early. I guess most prospective students visit schools in February and March. I visited in November. Later I learned that many students haven’t even applied at this point. Technically neither had I. Part of what I wanted to find out during my visit was whether or not they thought I was ready to apply. Since the school was only an hour and a half from my parents’ home, I visited while I was home for Thanksgiving break.

I thought that I was prepared for this visit…I was wrong. I knew that I was going to be sitting in on classes. I had no idea that I would be participating. This was nearing the end of the semester and participating in these classes was like diving into the deep end, you just try to keep your head above the water! The first class of the day was the Couture Methods class. I was okay when we were learning the hand stitches, after all the students were learning them too. But when it came to the machine stitches and sitting down at a machine I ran into my first obstacle. The grad students use industrial sewing machines and I had never used one before. One of the students kindly pointed me toward an available machine to use and I froze. What was I supposed to do? Would this count against me? I felt like I was getting a pop quiz and hadn’t studied.

So what does one do in this situation? I fessed up. I admitted that I had never used an industrial sewing machine before and waited to see what happened. They offered me the use of one of the home sewing machines that they have in the shop for undergraduate students to use. But I didn’t want to miss an opportunity so I said thank you but if someone was willing to show me what the differences were I would really like to learn to use an industrial. One of the students very kindly gave me an overview of the machine and the differences between industrial and home machines and I began to work on my sewing sample and I figured that if nothing else came out of this whole experience at least I had learned how to finally use an industrial!

Next obstacle…second year flat patterning. If I thought that the earlier class with the first year students was being thrown into the deep end, this was like being left in the middle of the ocean. I was lost throughout the entire class. We were working on patterning a unitard and I didn’t have one single bit of the foundation required. I just struggled along, followed instructions as best as I could, and sighed a BIG sigh of relief when the class was over. These were the only two classes of the day so I was safe right? Wrong.

Lunch was good. I’ll say this…if you can choose any day to visit a grad school, go on the day when Thanksgiving meal is being served. The department had a huge spread and everyone was invited, including lucky me! I sat and talked with Judy Adamson, the head of the costume department, while I ate. I also met a few of the faculty and staff members as they came in and out for food.

Then into the afternoon. I was given time to go around to each of the students and talk with them as they worked, ask them questions, and take a look at some of the things they had done. This was really helpful and informative and looking at the things they were making made me want to go to this grad school really badly.

Then came the portfolio review. I had assumed that this part would be just between me and the faculty but you know what they say about when you assume. My portfolio presentation was *surprise* for the entire costume department faculty AND students. Talk about nerves. Then once you’ve gotten through the presentation they all get their turn to ask you questions. Holy moly. Apparently (and I didn’t find this out until much later) the students get to have a say in who is accepted into the program. The reasoning being that they have to spend the most time with the new recruits and should get some input. This is why the students get to sit in on the portfolio presentation and ask questions. I approve but it does make for a really stressful situation for the applicant.

After that the day began to wind down and I received a lovely surprise. The two first year students invited me to go to dinner with them so that I could ask them whatever else I wanted to know about the program, the coursework, financial aid, or the town and life in general. This was great and made me feel a lot better about the whole day.

The next evening I came back to see the show that was currently running at PlayMakers. I had been offered the opportunity to see it the night before but had decided since home was so close, I would rest after the long stressful day and come back more relaxed the next day. The show was The Little Prince and it was amazing. I loved everything about it.

My research into programs and my visit had all made one thing very clear. This was the program I wanted to be in. If I had to apply every year until I got in, that’s what I was going to do. Fortunately, that wasn’t necessary. In late March I received my acceptance into the program. I was literally jumping up and down in my excitement. I couldn’t believe it. But it was true, I was in. And the next three years would be some of the most difficult and exhausting times in my life but also some of the most rewarding. I never could have imagined how much grad school would improve my abilities and though I had times where I wondered if it was all worth it, I’m really glad that I did it. I couldn’t have gotten where I am without it.

Knitting, draping, and distressing Oh My!

Even though the dance concert was my big project for senior year, I wasn’t finished yet. I don’t really remember what was going on at the time but, for whatever reason, I was really busy after the dance concert and didn’t really have time to work on the next show. However, my departmental scholarship required me to work on every show in some capacity. To meet the requirement, I made a scarf for the next show, Flora the Red Menace. This allowed me to do something for the show without having to put my hours in at the actual costume shop. I could knit wherever. Mostly I knit the scarf while at work. Here it is.

After Flora my schedule opened up again, relatively speaking. The last show of the school year and my last show in undergrad was Iphigenia in Aulis. I got to make 2 costumes for this show, a chorus girl and Clytemnestra.

Clytemnestra’s dress has a tunic that is made from a commercial pattern and a sort of apron-like overdress that I draped. The tunic was dyed with RIT dye. Jeffery helped me because I had done very little dyeing previously. The overdress was fairly simple and easy to drape. The only concern was the placement of the embroidery.

The chorus girl’s dress started with a sports bra pattern for the base of the top. The charmeuse was then draped on top. The skirt was three layers of ruffles. The draping was fun but the most interesting part of this costume was distressing it. This was my first foray into distressing and I learned a lot. We used bleach and water in a spray bottle to create a sun bleached effect. The chorus was supposed to have been traveling through the desert or something for a long time. Then we used vinegar to stop the bleaching process. Water alone isn’t enough, but vinegar does the trick. Then we mixed up some dye in spray bottles and focused on areas they would have sweat in. Here’s me distressing.

And now for the finished products. Here are Courtney Christison as Clytemnestra and Lauren Pearce as a chorus girl. Renderings and costume design are by Jeffery Phipps.

 

And that gets us all the way through my undergraduate years. I graduated in May 2008 from East Carolina University with a BFA in Theatre Arts with a double concentration in Stage Management and Costume Construction. I received the award that year for Design and Production which goes to a D&P student who has distinguished themselves during their time at ECU. My mother was very proud. I even had a job all lined up which is a big deal for anyone graduating in the arts. I was going to be headed out to Lees-McRae Summer Theatre as a stitcher for a few weeks and then on to Auburn University as the Costume Shop Supervisor Intern for the 2008/09 academic year. Yay graduation!

My first dance costume.

The dance concert that year was my next project. Usually seniors in the costume shop would be given a project that was sort of “their baby”. Since the dance concert would have several dances with different choreographers, seniors could be given a dance to design or construct themselves. I was given a ballet piece to make costumes for. This was my very first step into costumes for dance.

The choreographer for the piece had a costume that belonged to her which she wanted us to base the costumes on. In fact she wanted it exactly, though we made some changes. Here it is:

So, I needed a pattern.  I didn’t have to worry about size or anything. All three girls fit into the original dress so I just had to figure out how to get the pattern from the original. I decided to simply lay the garment onto some brown paper and use a spiky tracing wheel along the seams to copy the pattern.

I copied the bodice this way. For the sleeves I just copied them folded in half. As for the skirt, the designer wanted to do something different than the pleated skirt on the original. He wanted a triple layer circle skirt with each layer a different color. I figured out the circumference and radius for the waist and made a pattern. Each dress was constructed from different fabrics. One of them had beads (sort of, more like small balls of plastic adhered to the fabric) that were a challenge to make sure that I didn’t break too many needles. All of the skirt layers were chiffon and to get a really beautiful edge we used a “lettuce leaf” method. Basically it’s a satin stitch over the edge while pulling the fabric taut so that it gets stretched out a bit. This creates a lettuce like ripple along the edge. I don’t get to use it often but this is a favorite technique of mine!

Here are Renee Martini, Jesse Springer, and Leslie Biggs onstage in the dresses designed by Jeffery Phipps.

  

 

To grad school or not to grad school? That is the question.

Around that time (Fall 2007 and my second senior year if you’ve lost track) I began to have my first thoughts about grad school. Being so new to costume construction I was sure that after graduating I would want need to learn more. I figured that grad school would be a good place to continue my costuming education. I had a connection through a friend of mine at a school with a costume technology program so I set up an unofficial visit to see if I wanted to apply.

I’m not going to mention the name of the school because my visit was not a pleasant one. During my visit, I toured the shop and other costume related areas, sat in a class or two, and met with the head of the department. I was told by the department head (in very nice tones that didn’t make the message come across any nicer) that my portfolio looked like what most high school students have coming into their undergrad program and that I was no where near where they like their incoming grad students to be. I smiled and thanked them for their opinion and letting me come visit and taking the time and so on and son on. And in reality I was quite angry.

Now, I knew that my portfolio wasn’t great yet. I had only been doing this for less than a year at the time. And I wasn’t necessarily going to go straight into grad school from undergrad. Part of what I wanted to learn from my visit was whether I needed to go out into the world and work before starting a graduate program. It was mentioned in my request for a visit that I was trying to figure these things out. She could have simply said that I needed to build up my portfolio and get some more experience. However, I did get the answers to my questions. No, I wasn’t going to go straight into grad school. Yes, I would work for a while first. And No, I wasn’t going to even consider that program again ever. At whatever time I did decide to go to grad school, it was going to be somewhere else! She also told me that I didn’t know how to flat pattern and needed to learn that before applying to their program. This was somewhat helpful but patterning was one of the things that I wanted to learn from a grad program. If you already know how to pattern and sew why would you even go to grad school? Just to be able to teach? I don’t think so. But this did give me a goal and a new determination. I hate being told that I’m not good enough or can’t do something. This tends to make me take on an f*** you attitude and set out to prove them wrong.

I went back to school and spoke with the head of the costume department, Jeffery Phipps, about my visit and the things that I had been told. His response was some of the indignation that I felt and to tell me that we could certainly work on some flat patterning. I loved Jeffery as a teacher. He was always positive and supportive. Any time I ever came to him wanting to learn something, he was always happy to help. So, he gave me an assignment for the next show that would let me begin to learn flat patterning. My task? A lampshade dress, circa early 1900s, for The Underpants. The bodice and the innermost skirt were from a commercial pattern. The other two tiers of the skirt were left for me to flat pattern. I dusted off my math skills and began to figure out the pattern to make tiers that would be x length and stand away from the body y inches. I’ve always sort of liked math so this was fun for me. I ran all of my figures and my resulting pattern by Jeffery and when he okayed it, put the dress together. And the end product was even more fun. Looking at the rendering I knew the dress was going to get a reaction when it came onstage but none of us really realized how much it was going to bounce around. The audience found this hilarious! Good thing this play is a comedy! Here is Chelsea Witiak as Gertrude in the lampshade dress that I made designed by Jeffery Phipps.