Sewing With Nancy

Are you looking for a new way to express your sewing creativity? How about the theater? Community, children's and high school theater productions are frequently looking for creative spirits with talent. With me today is Steffani Lincecum, a designer pattern maker and sewing instructor with more than 20 years of experience in Hollywood with film, TV and theater. Steffani, you're going to share your ideas when sewing how to create it differently than when we're sewing for ourselves. Right, there's a big difference between sewing a regular, standard street garment, things you would wear every day and costumes. The first thing you notice is at first glance the pattern seems to be very exaggerated. You have to realize that when you're under the lights everything kind of washes out. Also, you're at a great distance. So one thing we have to do is make sure that we're choosing fabrics that don't wash out under the lighting and at the distance. You're going to find things that have a lot of texture in them so that translates once you get it on stage. You have a great hint at how you choose fabric. Right, when I'm in a fabric store and I'm looking for something I actually have to kind of blur my eyes a little bit to make sure that when it's at a distance. Step back. Sometimes I actually drape it on a rack go to the other side of the store and squint to make sure because sometimes you fall in love with a print. Then you get it on stage and it completely washes out. It could become a solid. And the texture that you have chosen for this great outfit, this is in a production. This was in a University of Wisconsin production of "Imaginary Invalid" last year. It was designed by a wonderful graduate student here Rachel Barnett. She did a wonderful job at choosing the fabrics and creating a really dramatic effect. When you look inside of these garments-- I wish you could feel them, they're heavy. Right, the big difference in garment construction for theater is that you have to think about this being durable enough to wear for seven or eight shows a week and to be laundered a few times a week. Also, these things go into stock for the various companies. They're going to use them for decades. You want it to be very durable. A lot of things have a very big interlining. Then, they have ample seam allowances so that you can alter it again for another person later. This interlining is the heavy part. I'm sure your stitch length is not long. No, and everything is very, very durable. In fact, some of the examples I saw when I was looking for these, they actually look like a historical garment on the outside but they have zippers on the inside for quick changes. So it looks very different. We have another period costume that you're seeing displayed now. It has many layers. It must weigh 15 pounds. Yes, absolutely. The dry cleaning can get very expensive on these things. It takes a lot of specialty care when you use a lot of things like dress shields inside to protect from perspiration. The inside of this dress, in the bodice area it's wired and firm. Absolutely, they use boning. All the layers are overlocked together then opened up. You have ample seam allowances and not a whole lot of clipping on the inside like you would in a normal garment. You want to make sure that you can alter it for another person later on. And that it will last for decades in storage. The fabric that is in this garment is almost like you'd use for home decorating. Absolutely. That's one of the really cool tricks that we learn. Because you're able to use a bigger pattern in this sort of production sometimes you go to the home decorating section especially for period garments. You can get this type of thing at your JoAnne's or-- At a variety of stores. Sure. Steffani, this is encouraging, to find out ways that we can use sewing in other parts of our lives and share with our community. Thank you for being with us. Thank you so much. If you would like to have more information on Steffani and if you'd like to know more about how you can become involved in sewing for community theater

you can go to

NancyZieman.com and on this site, you'll find all the information you'll need on Sewing with Nancy, Nancy's Corner. You can also watch episodes of past Sewing with Nancy programs. Next time, we'll be back with our second program of "Art Quilts- Fusible Collage" techniques with Laura and Frieda. Until then, thank you for joining me. Bye for now.