Cast List
MOTHER SUPERIOR KELLY PALMER
SISTER MARY HUBERT SAVANNAH MOORE
SISTER ROBERT ANNE SOFIA IZAGUIRRE
SISTER MARY AMNESIA MEG MORRISON
SISTER MARY LEO HANNAH WHITE
SISTER JULIA CHILD OF GOD FINN LONG
SISTER MARY WILHELM CONAN JOHNSON
SISTER MARY REBECCA BECKY PARKER
SISTER MARY SARAH SARAH LAUNDY
FATHER VIRGIL HAYDEN STEPHENS
BROTHER BRENDAN COLTON CLARIDY
BROTHER LUKE NATE COLLINS
BROTHER SAMUEL SAM ARIAS
BROTHER CHARLES CHUCKIE CASTILLO
BROTHER ALEX ALEX DELGADO
BROTHER CORMAC CORMAC SPIARES
BROTHER CALEB CALEB LEWIS
BROTHER HAYDEN HAYDEN SCOTT
SISTER MARY HUBERT SAVANNAH MOORE
SISTER ROBERT ANNE SOFIA IZAGUIRRE
SISTER MARY AMNESIA MEG MORRISON
SISTER MARY LEO HANNAH WHITE
SISTER JULIA CHILD OF GOD FINN LONG
SISTER MARY WILHELM CONAN JOHNSON
SISTER MARY REBECCA BECKY PARKER
SISTER MARY SARAH SARAH LAUNDY
FATHER VIRGIL HAYDEN STEPHENS
BROTHER BRENDAN COLTON CLARIDY
BROTHER LUKE NATE COLLINS
BROTHER SAMUEL SAM ARIAS
BROTHER CHARLES CHUCKIE CASTILLO
BROTHER ALEX ALEX DELGADO
BROTHER CORMAC CORMAC SPIARES
BROTHER CALEB CALEB LEWIS
BROTHER HAYDEN HAYDEN SCOTT
Production Meeting Notes
The nuns are Benedictine; the Friars are Fransican. THere are 5 lead nuns, one is the Reverend Mother and one is a novice. Joe wants to cast 8 Brother Friars and 4 Nuns to be the chorus. THere is also a puppet nun called Sister Mary Anette. He wants 4 of the Friars to double as the nuns that are still in the freezer and do a zombie tap dance a la Michael Jackson's "Thriller", so their costumes need to look like they've been frozen. He also wants all 8 of the Brothers to also be nuns. THat's a total of 21 nun costumes we have to make plus, four of which we'll make look frozen, and one tiny nun costume for a puppet that Randy is going to make.
The rosaries are going to be hard to source. The most common type of rosary is a 5 decade rosary which has a total of 59 beads making it somewhere around 24" in circumference with no closure in the back as they are not meant to be worn as necklaces. Amazon has plenty of cheap options in bulk but these are not the type of rosaries that nuns wear on their belts. The rosaries that nuns wear on their belts are 15 decade rosaries with a total of 169 beads, 150 identical "Hail Mary" beads strung in 15 groups of ten called decades. Each decade is seperated by one larger "Our Father bead" in between each decade for a total of 15 beads. This part of the rosary is joined to a saints medal and from that hangs 1 Our Father bead and three Hail Mary beads and then finally a crucifix. They are typically 36" long and made from wooden beads with knots or chain in between each bead and either wooden or metal crucifixes. So we can either have accurately beaded 5 decade rosaries that are too short or we can have 36" long necklaces that aren't accurately beaded that we could attach crucifixes to. Either way we're going to need 8 for the Friars and 21 for the nuns, plus a tiny one for the puppet and I can't afford to blow the whole budget on rosaries. After consultation with the director, we went with shorter but correctly beaded rosaries. I still need to be a crucifix necklace for Mother Superior.
First Production Meeting Dec. 9: I got Joe to agree to cut the idea of making 9 more nun habits for the boys, so now we're down to making 9 monks and 9 nuns plus 4 frozen nuns and that's it. I still need to find a Flying Nun habit for one bit.
The rosaries are going to be hard to source. The most common type of rosary is a 5 decade rosary which has a total of 59 beads making it somewhere around 24" in circumference with no closure in the back as they are not meant to be worn as necklaces. Amazon has plenty of cheap options in bulk but these are not the type of rosaries that nuns wear on their belts. The rosaries that nuns wear on their belts are 15 decade rosaries with a total of 169 beads, 150 identical "Hail Mary" beads strung in 15 groups of ten called decades. Each decade is seperated by one larger "Our Father bead" in between each decade for a total of 15 beads. This part of the rosary is joined to a saints medal and from that hangs 1 Our Father bead and three Hail Mary beads and then finally a crucifix. They are typically 36" long and made from wooden beads with knots or chain in between each bead and either wooden or metal crucifixes. So we can either have accurately beaded 5 decade rosaries that are too short or we can have 36" long necklaces that aren't accurately beaded that we could attach crucifixes to. Either way we're going to need 8 for the Friars and 21 for the nuns, plus a tiny one for the puppet and I can't afford to blow the whole budget on rosaries. After consultation with the director, we went with shorter but correctly beaded rosaries. I still need to be a crucifix necklace for Mother Superior.
First Production Meeting Dec. 9: I got Joe to agree to cut the idea of making 9 more nun habits for the boys, so now we're down to making 9 monks and 9 nuns plus 4 frozen nuns and that's it. I still need to find a Flying Nun habit for one bit.
Fransican Friars
How to Wear a Habit
THe Build
Friday Nov. 14: pulled the black and brown jail fabric out of the scene shop and had it carted over to the costume shop. I already had the bolt of white.
Tuesday Nov. 18: Made a nun habit pattern based off the Nunsense You Tube video above with two piece tunic and sleeves, scapular, 2 piece wimple, guimpe, and two piece veil. I also patterned a friar robe pattern based off of the one Matt Smith made for me for the Fat Friar for Puffs. I measured out 5 yard lengths of the brown fabric and serged the cut edges so it could be washed. I did the same with the white fabric for the wimple, guimpe, and veil.
Wed Nov 19: measured out the black fabric in 5 yards lengths and serged and washed it. Ordered the white rope for the friars, and talked to Joe about the length of the rosaries and ordered those.
Thurs Nov. 20 continued washing all the fabric and ironing it. Ordered more black, white, and brown serger thread
Fri Nov 21 continued washing all the fabric and ironing it. Ordered more black and brown dual duty thread.
Sat Nov 22 continued washing all the fabric and ironing it.
Mon Dec. 1: Auditions. 6-10pm Only 7 women showed up to audition and Joe had wanted to cast nine women. Only three boys who came to auditions didn't get cast. The white rope was too large in diameter and too bright white. I'll have to order smaller, less pristine white rope.
Tues Dec. 2: 11-5 finished ironing the rest of the black fabric. Figured out that we have two different dye lots of black and not enough brown of either color. Asked William and Jason if they had any more, William gave me another 20 yards of the dark brown, which I still need to serge and wash. Pulled all our character and jazz shoes for the company.
Wed. Dec 3: 9:30-4 Got a cast list. Joe has added an extra boy to the friar ensemble due to there being one less female in the nun ensemble. Tried five different layout positions to get all the pieces out of the same 5 yards of fabric to make a prototype. Figured out the orphan piece was only 4.5 yards and didn't match either dye lot. Laid out the front on the selvage and the back on the fold but upside down from each other. The veil wouldn't fit after I cut the two sleeves and the two sides of the scapular. I was OK with that because the broadcloth is too heavy weight for veils. Serged and stitched all the black pieces together and left the CF open 18" for a zipper. Then I cut a white wimple and veil from the whitest dye lot of the scrap that I had for Leo and serged and stitched that together. It's OK, but I feel that when I made the rest of the wimples, I will cut it on the bias. I also cut the collar out of the same scrap, but it was too lightweight. THat's OK because the rest of the white dye lot is the jail fabric and it is much heavier. So I probably still need to buy lighter weight black for the veils. I also went home and ordered the leotards and tights for the nuns and a crucifix for Mother Superior and more smaller diameter rope for the frairs' belts, that was off-white instead of pure white.
Tuesday Nov. 18: Made a nun habit pattern based off the Nunsense You Tube video above with two piece tunic and sleeves, scapular, 2 piece wimple, guimpe, and two piece veil. I also patterned a friar robe pattern based off of the one Matt Smith made for me for the Fat Friar for Puffs. I measured out 5 yard lengths of the brown fabric and serged the cut edges so it could be washed. I did the same with the white fabric for the wimple, guimpe, and veil.
Wed Nov 19: measured out the black fabric in 5 yards lengths and serged and washed it. Ordered the white rope for the friars, and talked to Joe about the length of the rosaries and ordered those.
Thurs Nov. 20 continued washing all the fabric and ironing it. Ordered more black, white, and brown serger thread
Fri Nov 21 continued washing all the fabric and ironing it. Ordered more black and brown dual duty thread.
Sat Nov 22 continued washing all the fabric and ironing it.
Mon Dec. 1: Auditions. 6-10pm Only 7 women showed up to audition and Joe had wanted to cast nine women. Only three boys who came to auditions didn't get cast. The white rope was too large in diameter and too bright white. I'll have to order smaller, less pristine white rope.
Tues Dec. 2: 11-5 finished ironing the rest of the black fabric. Figured out that we have two different dye lots of black and not enough brown of either color. Asked William and Jason if they had any more, William gave me another 20 yards of the dark brown, which I still need to serge and wash. Pulled all our character and jazz shoes for the company.
Wed. Dec 3: 9:30-4 Got a cast list. Joe has added an extra boy to the friar ensemble due to there being one less female in the nun ensemble. Tried five different layout positions to get all the pieces out of the same 5 yards of fabric to make a prototype. Figured out the orphan piece was only 4.5 yards and didn't match either dye lot. Laid out the front on the selvage and the back on the fold but upside down from each other. The veil wouldn't fit after I cut the two sleeves and the two sides of the scapular. I was OK with that because the broadcloth is too heavy weight for veils. Serged and stitched all the black pieces together and left the CF open 18" for a zipper. Then I cut a white wimple and veil from the whitest dye lot of the scrap that I had for Leo and serged and stitched that together. It's OK, but I feel that when I made the rest of the wimples, I will cut it on the bias. I also cut the collar out of the same scrap, but it was too lightweight. THat's OK because the rest of the white dye lot is the jail fabric and it is much heavier. So I probably still need to buy lighter weight black for the veils. I also went home and ordered the leotards and tights for the nuns and a crucifix for Mother Superior and more smaller diameter rope for the frairs' belts, that was off-white instead of pure white.
J :Thurs Dec. 4: While I was washing and drying and ironing and folding the extra 20 yards of brown fabric that William and Jason gave me, I took a pattern off of the Puffs Fat Friar costume and adjusted it for the much larger and taller actors. There's a front, back, sleeves, collar, and hood. I cut a prototype out of the darkest brown fabric, serged all the pieces and stitched them together. Luckily the actor playing Father Virgil was still around when I got done at 4 and came in for a fitting. It's perfect! That only took me 3 hours.
Wed. Dec. 10: I spent the morning testing out the new Wimple pattern I downloaded from a hijab underscarf on Amazon, that my friend Heather had directed me to. The first version was too small even with it being cut on the bias it didn't have enough stretch to get over a styro head. So I enlarged it and that was no better. I added back in the CF strip from my old pattern, also cut on the bias and that was much better. I had to cut down to curve of the crown and cut off most of the neck covering but it worked much better that the previous pattern did. I also cut it out of the heavier weight fabric and cut a new collar too. Melissa came in and we did a fitting on Kelly Palmer at 11, then finished hemming all her pieces and adding a zipper to her tunic. The only thing she needs now is snaps to connect her scapular to her tunic at the shoulder seams and velcro to attach her veil to her wimple. Which reminds me, I still need to order 13 yds of light weight black broadcloth for the veils. Then we hemmed all Hayden's pieces. We still need to add snaps to the hood to attach it to the shoulders of his tunic and I"m still waiting for the rope for the belts to arrive. After lunch, we spent the rest of the day cutting all the pieces for the other eight monk costumes out and serging them, adjusting for height and weight. We'll have five of the darker brown and four of the medium brown. We had just enough fabric to get all the monks cut out. We made a plan for coming in over break to start cutting out all the nun habits. The next day we can both be there is next Wednesday.
Wed. Dec. 17 Melissa and I came in and worked for six hours over break. We cut all the habits out for all the real nuns and frozen nuns with the exception of Sister Mary Wilhelm, who I don't have measurements for yet. We chose to cut the tunics out of the heavier weight fabric. We had exactly enough yardage to do all 13 tunics of the heavier weight stuff. The lighter weight stuff is a slightly different dye lot and looks darker compared to the heavier weight stuff. I decided it was lightweight enough to make the veils out of and would then make it look like a more deliberate choice if both the scapular and veils were the same darker dye lot and weight. So then we cut the scapular and veils out of the lighter weight fabric and we still have plenty left of that. Melissa cut all the collars, wimples, and veil inings out of the white and got all that done before I was even half way done with the tunics, so then she switched over to cut the scapulars and veils. I adjusted the tunic pattern based on height. Four of the nuns were tall, 5'8" and up, so those were the longest ones. Then I shortened the pattern by taking out some length between the waist and hip area for my next three tallest girls 5''6", who both had long legs, but shorter torsos. The last four were my shortest actresses 5'3" and under, so I took out more length for them in the same place. I wanted to leave the hem as wide as possible for ease of dancing, and the tunics get wider the further down they go. We then sorted all the pieces to make sure we had cut one of everything for all 12 nuns, which we discovered we'd missed one scapular, one sleeve, and a veil, so we went back and did that. Then we started serging the pieces after everything was cut but we barely made a dent before our backs gave out. I believe Melissa got halfway through the sets of white pieces and I only did four sets of the black pieces. So they next time we come in, we'll have to finish serging. Also, the leotards and tights arrived in the mail, as well as the new thinner and less white rope for the friar belts. Next time I will have to unbox and unwrap all the leos and tights and assign them by size to the actor they were purchased for. My friend Shara is coming to Waco for the holidays to see her family and she has promised me that she will come in and help one day over Christmas while Melissa is out of state visiting her relatives for the holidays. Shara gets into town this weekend, so maybe Monday.
Thurs. Dec. 19: My son and husband were playing rock and roll this afternoon, so I went into work to save my hearing. LOL. I finished serging everything and cut the rope into pieces for the Friar belts. I worked 5 hours and Haleigh came to help me. She serged all the scapulars. The leotards and tights had arrived so she unboxed them and distributed them to the actors that they were purchased for.
Wed. Jan. 7: Melissa, Joe and I came in and put in all the zippers in the Nun tunic fronts and built all the wimples. We left the wimples unhemmed because we hadn't done any fittings yet. It took 2.5 hours, which was quicker than we expected, so we left at noon for lunch. The shoelaces came in for ties for the wimples, and the other leo and tights for Becky, as well as the muslin for the shop. The crucifix for Mother Superior was a no show, so I declared it lost and Amazon refunded my money so I could order another one. I will be ordering tap shoes for the four freezer nuns as well as Sister Robert Anne, for starters and then Joe will let me know who else can do the tap dancing required by the second week of school, so I have time to order more pairs.
Thurs. Jan 8: After our division meeting, I started the process of patterning the Flying Nun cornette. That took 3 hours. I also ordered the 5 pairs of tap shoes which will be jazz flats and will be here Monday. I then cut the fabric pieces to make the inside pockets for the scapulars. I will leave the serging to the students once school starts Monday. I decided to not put pockets into the frozen nun's costumes because they won't need it.
Mon. Jan 12: Austan came back this spring and showed up to work on the first day of class. I handed him the four frozen nun habits to assemble. He finished Chuckie's. The tap shoes arrived.
Tues Jan 13: Austan came in the morning and finished Alex's habit. I showed the class the video of Dan Goggin dressing Sister Mary Leo so they would all understand how the habits are worn and how each piece closes. That's when I noticed that the guimpe (collar) also has a collar. Luckily when Melissa cut out all the wimple pieces she cut two of the strip that goes down the middle which we can cut in half and use to make the collars for the guimpes. AT the production meeting we discussed having a Carmen Miranda headdress for Reverend Mother, as well as a death cloack, although none of us remember who wears it.
Wed. Jan 14: Melissa, Austan, and I got all four of the frozen nuns costumes built so that they are ready for fittings tomorrow. We also looked for Andrews Sisters envelope hats and didn't find any, so I'll have to order those. Randy ordered the Carmen Miranda headpiece.
Thurs. Jan 15: I finished off the flying nun headdress with velcro to attach to the wimple. Leo's ballet slippers arrived as well as Reverend Mother's replacement silver crucifix. We also completed fittings on the four frozen nuns today, as well as started on their alterations. I also ordered hijab underscarves for all the nuns, that I shoud have had from the beginning.
Fri. Jan 16: My two workstudy students made one nun and one friar costume and then started on another friar costume while I finished all the machine sewing alterations for the four frozen nuns. We also got the Andrew Sisters envelope hats in the mail as well as the new cutting mats I ordered.
Tues. Jan. 20: The Carmen Miranda headpiece that Randy ordered from Amazon came in and is too little and cheap looking, so I will have to make one after all. Also, four of the wimples that I ordered arrived too.
Wed. Jan 21: I ordered the supplies for the Carmen Miranda hat this morning. Everything should be here by Monday next week. Assuming the state doesn't shut down again due to the blizzard. Melissa and I built two more Nun habits for Sofia and Meg, before lunch, and after lunch made two more monk robes for Alex and Chuckie. Caleb came in for his fitting.
Thurs. Jan 22: The white and silver glitter spray paint arrived today, as well as the wicker basket and plastic fruit and silk flowers for the Carmen Miranda hat. Both the basket and the pineapple were smaller than expected, so I cut a piece of styro to raise the level of the pineapple. Then I used some red plastidip to paint the styro. I did fittings on Sofia and Chuckie and completed the alterations on Caleb. I also pulled black leather belts for the nuns and had to order another one for Mother Superior.
Fri. Jan 23: After load in ended at 1, everyone came over and sewed on snaps. I finally got the last nun measured and her tunic cut out.
Mon. Jan 26 School closed
Tues Jan 27 School closed
Wed. Jan 28 School opening at 11:10. Melissa and I put the last three costumes together. Hannah came in and started on her tunic. The Foundation wants to do headshots of the five leads for the Gala fundraiser, so I started making sure that all the wimples and veils were complete for next weeks photos.
Thurs. Jan 29: We did 5 fittings: Meg, Conan, Sarah, Becky, and Colton. Jasper came in and hot glued the fruit to the basket. The styro wreath arrived after he went to class, so I painted it red with plasti-dip.
Fri. Jan 30: Jasper came in and sewed the ribbon to the wreath and glued the wreath to the basket.
Tues Feb. 3: Everyone worked on their costumes during class and then Sarah came in and finished her alterations on her scapular and put the pocket in. Austan finished Becky's alterations. I had to order replacement wimples because Amazon lost the first 9 I ordered.
Wed Feb. 4: Today we will begin the freezing process on the dead nuns. Then at 5, the leads and the puppet are getting their portraits taken for the gala.
Thurs. Feb. 5: Sam came in to put his sleeves in his tunic. We had a production meeting.
Fri. Feb 6: Nathan and Austan worked on sewing snaps onto the rest of the monks, Sam finished his hood and started on his alterations. Cormac came in for a fitting, Jasper started on the two book covers we need for Baking with the Blessed Virgin Mary and The Understudy. The white acrylic paint came in the mail, so we had a painting party outside.
Mon Feb. 9: Sarah and I took the frozen nuns outside and applied the sand/glitter mixture with adhesive spray to the costumes. Kelly Palmer came in for a fitting so we could get the Carmen Miranda headdress to stay on. We decided to sew it into an extra veil we made accidentally, so that it's permenantly fixed to it. I ordered the black and white makeup for the frozen nuns as well as some silver glitter makeup.
Tues Feb. 10: Jasper finished the cook book cover. Sarah sprayed the frozen nuns with silver glitter spray paint. I had to order another pair of tap shoes for Flynn and another larger pair of jazz shoes for Nate.
Wed. Feb 11: Everyone came back for lab hours today. Sam finished his costume. I ordered a pair of fuzzy pink house slippers for Leo and pulled her the fuzzy pink robe we had in stock. We did a fitting on Finn and got Sister Julia a chef's hat.
Thurs. Feb 12: Sarah and Sam put the hot glue icicles on the collars and veils. Finn finished their costume and so did Savannah. Jasper finished the Understudy book. Nate came in and did his sleeve hems.
Fri. Feb. 13: I finished Nate's hem and sewed on his snaps and Hannah's snaps and moved the racks over to the BPAC.
Wed. Dec. 10: I spent the morning testing out the new Wimple pattern I downloaded from a hijab underscarf on Amazon, that my friend Heather had directed me to. The first version was too small even with it being cut on the bias it didn't have enough stretch to get over a styro head. So I enlarged it and that was no better. I added back in the CF strip from my old pattern, also cut on the bias and that was much better. I had to cut down to curve of the crown and cut off most of the neck covering but it worked much better that the previous pattern did. I also cut it out of the heavier weight fabric and cut a new collar too. Melissa came in and we did a fitting on Kelly Palmer at 11, then finished hemming all her pieces and adding a zipper to her tunic. The only thing she needs now is snaps to connect her scapular to her tunic at the shoulder seams and velcro to attach her veil to her wimple. Which reminds me, I still need to order 13 yds of light weight black broadcloth for the veils. Then we hemmed all Hayden's pieces. We still need to add snaps to the hood to attach it to the shoulders of his tunic and I"m still waiting for the rope for the belts to arrive. After lunch, we spent the rest of the day cutting all the pieces for the other eight monk costumes out and serging them, adjusting for height and weight. We'll have five of the darker brown and four of the medium brown. We had just enough fabric to get all the monks cut out. We made a plan for coming in over break to start cutting out all the nun habits. The next day we can both be there is next Wednesday.
Wed. Dec. 17 Melissa and I came in and worked for six hours over break. We cut all the habits out for all the real nuns and frozen nuns with the exception of Sister Mary Wilhelm, who I don't have measurements for yet. We chose to cut the tunics out of the heavier weight fabric. We had exactly enough yardage to do all 13 tunics of the heavier weight stuff. The lighter weight stuff is a slightly different dye lot and looks darker compared to the heavier weight stuff. I decided it was lightweight enough to make the veils out of and would then make it look like a more deliberate choice if both the scapular and veils were the same darker dye lot and weight. So then we cut the scapular and veils out of the lighter weight fabric and we still have plenty left of that. Melissa cut all the collars, wimples, and veil inings out of the white and got all that done before I was even half way done with the tunics, so then she switched over to cut the scapulars and veils. I adjusted the tunic pattern based on height. Four of the nuns were tall, 5'8" and up, so those were the longest ones. Then I shortened the pattern by taking out some length between the waist and hip area for my next three tallest girls 5''6", who both had long legs, but shorter torsos. The last four were my shortest actresses 5'3" and under, so I took out more length for them in the same place. I wanted to leave the hem as wide as possible for ease of dancing, and the tunics get wider the further down they go. We then sorted all the pieces to make sure we had cut one of everything for all 12 nuns, which we discovered we'd missed one scapular, one sleeve, and a veil, so we went back and did that. Then we started serging the pieces after everything was cut but we barely made a dent before our backs gave out. I believe Melissa got halfway through the sets of white pieces and I only did four sets of the black pieces. So they next time we come in, we'll have to finish serging. Also, the leotards and tights arrived in the mail, as well as the new thinner and less white rope for the friar belts. Next time I will have to unbox and unwrap all the leos and tights and assign them by size to the actor they were purchased for. My friend Shara is coming to Waco for the holidays to see her family and she has promised me that she will come in and help one day over Christmas while Melissa is out of state visiting her relatives for the holidays. Shara gets into town this weekend, so maybe Monday.
Thurs. Dec. 19: My son and husband were playing rock and roll this afternoon, so I went into work to save my hearing. LOL. I finished serging everything and cut the rope into pieces for the Friar belts. I worked 5 hours and Haleigh came to help me. She serged all the scapulars. The leotards and tights had arrived so she unboxed them and distributed them to the actors that they were purchased for.
Wed. Jan. 7: Melissa, Joe and I came in and put in all the zippers in the Nun tunic fronts and built all the wimples. We left the wimples unhemmed because we hadn't done any fittings yet. It took 2.5 hours, which was quicker than we expected, so we left at noon for lunch. The shoelaces came in for ties for the wimples, and the other leo and tights for Becky, as well as the muslin for the shop. The crucifix for Mother Superior was a no show, so I declared it lost and Amazon refunded my money so I could order another one. I will be ordering tap shoes for the four freezer nuns as well as Sister Robert Anne, for starters and then Joe will let me know who else can do the tap dancing required by the second week of school, so I have time to order more pairs.
Thurs. Jan 8: After our division meeting, I started the process of patterning the Flying Nun cornette. That took 3 hours. I also ordered the 5 pairs of tap shoes which will be jazz flats and will be here Monday. I then cut the fabric pieces to make the inside pockets for the scapulars. I will leave the serging to the students once school starts Monday. I decided to not put pockets into the frozen nun's costumes because they won't need it.
Mon. Jan 12: Austan came back this spring and showed up to work on the first day of class. I handed him the four frozen nun habits to assemble. He finished Chuckie's. The tap shoes arrived.
Tues Jan 13: Austan came in the morning and finished Alex's habit. I showed the class the video of Dan Goggin dressing Sister Mary Leo so they would all understand how the habits are worn and how each piece closes. That's when I noticed that the guimpe (collar) also has a collar. Luckily when Melissa cut out all the wimple pieces she cut two of the strip that goes down the middle which we can cut in half and use to make the collars for the guimpes. AT the production meeting we discussed having a Carmen Miranda headdress for Reverend Mother, as well as a death cloack, although none of us remember who wears it.
Wed. Jan 14: Melissa, Austan, and I got all four of the frozen nuns costumes built so that they are ready for fittings tomorrow. We also looked for Andrews Sisters envelope hats and didn't find any, so I'll have to order those. Randy ordered the Carmen Miranda headpiece.
Thurs. Jan 15: I finished off the flying nun headdress with velcro to attach to the wimple. Leo's ballet slippers arrived as well as Reverend Mother's replacement silver crucifix. We also completed fittings on the four frozen nuns today, as well as started on their alterations. I also ordered hijab underscarves for all the nuns, that I shoud have had from the beginning.
Fri. Jan 16: My two workstudy students made one nun and one friar costume and then started on another friar costume while I finished all the machine sewing alterations for the four frozen nuns. We also got the Andrew Sisters envelope hats in the mail as well as the new cutting mats I ordered.
Tues. Jan. 20: The Carmen Miranda headpiece that Randy ordered from Amazon came in and is too little and cheap looking, so I will have to make one after all. Also, four of the wimples that I ordered arrived too.
Wed. Jan 21: I ordered the supplies for the Carmen Miranda hat this morning. Everything should be here by Monday next week. Assuming the state doesn't shut down again due to the blizzard. Melissa and I built two more Nun habits for Sofia and Meg, before lunch, and after lunch made two more monk robes for Alex and Chuckie. Caleb came in for his fitting.
Thurs. Jan 22: The white and silver glitter spray paint arrived today, as well as the wicker basket and plastic fruit and silk flowers for the Carmen Miranda hat. Both the basket and the pineapple were smaller than expected, so I cut a piece of styro to raise the level of the pineapple. Then I used some red plastidip to paint the styro. I did fittings on Sofia and Chuckie and completed the alterations on Caleb. I also pulled black leather belts for the nuns and had to order another one for Mother Superior.
Fri. Jan 23: After load in ended at 1, everyone came over and sewed on snaps. I finally got the last nun measured and her tunic cut out.
Mon. Jan 26 School closed
Tues Jan 27 School closed
Wed. Jan 28 School opening at 11:10. Melissa and I put the last three costumes together. Hannah came in and started on her tunic. The Foundation wants to do headshots of the five leads for the Gala fundraiser, so I started making sure that all the wimples and veils were complete for next weeks photos.
Thurs. Jan 29: We did 5 fittings: Meg, Conan, Sarah, Becky, and Colton. Jasper came in and hot glued the fruit to the basket. The styro wreath arrived after he went to class, so I painted it red with plasti-dip.
Fri. Jan 30: Jasper came in and sewed the ribbon to the wreath and glued the wreath to the basket.
Tues Feb. 3: Everyone worked on their costumes during class and then Sarah came in and finished her alterations on her scapular and put the pocket in. Austan finished Becky's alterations. I had to order replacement wimples because Amazon lost the first 9 I ordered.
Wed Feb. 4: Today we will begin the freezing process on the dead nuns. Then at 5, the leads and the puppet are getting their portraits taken for the gala.
Thurs. Feb. 5: Sam came in to put his sleeves in his tunic. We had a production meeting.
Fri. Feb 6: Nathan and Austan worked on sewing snaps onto the rest of the monks, Sam finished his hood and started on his alterations. Cormac came in for a fitting, Jasper started on the two book covers we need for Baking with the Blessed Virgin Mary and The Understudy. The white acrylic paint came in the mail, so we had a painting party outside.
Mon Feb. 9: Sarah and I took the frozen nuns outside and applied the sand/glitter mixture with adhesive spray to the costumes. Kelly Palmer came in for a fitting so we could get the Carmen Miranda headdress to stay on. We decided to sew it into an extra veil we made accidentally, so that it's permenantly fixed to it. I ordered the black and white makeup for the frozen nuns as well as some silver glitter makeup.
Tues Feb. 10: Jasper finished the cook book cover. Sarah sprayed the frozen nuns with silver glitter spray paint. I had to order another pair of tap shoes for Flynn and another larger pair of jazz shoes for Nate.
Wed. Feb 11: Everyone came back for lab hours today. Sam finished his costume. I ordered a pair of fuzzy pink house slippers for Leo and pulled her the fuzzy pink robe we had in stock. We did a fitting on Finn and got Sister Julia a chef's hat.
Thurs. Feb 12: Sarah and Sam put the hot glue icicles on the collars and veils. Finn finished their costume and so did Savannah. Jasper finished the Understudy book. Nate came in and did his sleeve hems.
Fri. Feb. 13: I finished Nate's hem and sewed on his snaps and Hannah's snaps and moved the racks over to the BPAC.
Fittings
Sally field's flying nun headdress: the cornette
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The cornette was retained as a distinctive piece of clothing into modern times by the Daughters of Charity, a society of apostolic life founded by St. Vincent de Paul in the mid-17th century. The founder wanted to have a community of women that tended to the sick and poor, and were not required to remain in the papal enclosure as nuns do, resemble ordinary middle-class women as much as possible in their clothing, including the wearing of the cornette.
After the cornette generally fell into disuse, it became a distinctive feature of the Daughters of Charity, making theirs one of the most widely recognized religious habits. Because of the cornette, they were known in Ireland as the "butterfly nuns". In the United States, the Daughters of Charity wore wide, white cornettes for 114 years, from 1850 to 1964. |
I couldn't find any source for a pattern for the type of cornette that Sally Field wore in The Flying Nun. However, I did find this extensive tutorial on how to make the Sisters of Plentitude cornette from Doctor Who.
I followed the tutorial and drafted out the pattern as given, then did all the folding tab A into slot B to come up with the shape that the cosplayer was trying to recreate, which is the Sisters of Plentitude cornette from Doctor Who. Once I got to this point all I had to do was reshape the front and sides to get a better flying nun shape. I extended the overall width from 23" to 38" and gave it a pronouced curved heart shape. The final result is different from the Sally Field hat, and much closer to the 1994 Broadway version, which resembles more of a butterfly wing shape and due to its longer width, has a much flappier effect once on the head. I used leftover thin craft foam as the base and will bag line it with the same white fabric that we used for the collars and wimples. Once complete it will velcro to Sister Leo's wimple in place of her veil.
The velcro step was not fun. I added multiple rows of velcro on the inside and matched it to the velcro I placed on the back of the wimple. I matched the velcro at the front of the wimple that attaches to the veil, to another piece I added on the front of the cornette. I used stitch witchery to glue the velcro down first so it would be easier to sew and I wouldn't have to use pins. I also used heavy duty thread because velcro loves to break regular thread. It was frustrating and my thread still broke several times, but I managed it without injury to myself, my machine or the hat. Yay!
The velcro step was not fun. I added multiple rows of velcro on the inside and matched it to the velcro I placed on the back of the wimple. I matched the velcro at the front of the wimple that attaches to the veil, to another piece I added on the front of the cornette. I used stitch witchery to glue the velcro down first so it would be easier to sew and I wouldn't have to use pins. I also used heavy duty thread because velcro loves to break regular thread. It was frustrating and my thread still broke several times, but I managed it without injury to myself, my machine or the hat. Yay!
Carmen Miranda "Tutti frutti hat"
Mother Superior comes out near the end of Act I in a Carmen Miranda hat with a pair of maracas. After watching the tutorial, I decided the way it was made wouldn't work for our purposes, since Mother Superior will be wearing it over her wimple (and possibly veil) and thus there will not be a bun or ponytail of hair to secure it to. So, instead of going with the styro cone, we went with a wreath insead and will be setting a basket in it to put the fruit in. There will be a big pineapple in the center, surrounded by bananas, green and purple grapes, and flowers. I will still use the turban for a base.
Supplies
I already had the turbans from a previous show. I bought a small circular styro wreath diameter 7.5 inches. Then I bought a shallow basket 8 inches in diameter. I already had green and red grapes, so I just bought a pineapple, four bananas, and a variety pack of silk flowers. I will wrap the wreath in fabric and hot glue the basket on top. I'll glue the pineapple in first in the middle of the basket and surround it with the four bananas, then add the grapes and flowers. Once the plastc fruit arrived I realized that the pineapple was much smaller than anticipated. So I cut a block of styro and painted it in red plastidip and that gives me a stable base to attach the rest of the fruit. The wreath arrived after the ice storm (finally) so I also painted it with red plastidip. I pulled a yarn ribbon to cover it. Jasper came in and hot glued all the fruit to the styro block.
Total spent on Carmen Miranda hat: $58.36 (not including glue sticks)
Total spent on Carmen Miranda hat: $58.36 (not including glue sticks)
I spent a whole Wednesday researching how to make clothing look frozen and found this great cosplay tutorial for a Terminator 2 cosplay. I ordered spray starch, white acrylic spray paint, white acrylic paint (for spattering), spray adhesive, coarse hermit crab sand, loose glitter, silver glitter spray paint, and hot glue (for icicles).
The first step was to spray starch each of the pieces starting from the innermost layer and building up layers of garments on the mannequins. We let the garments dry in the outside breeze about 30 minutes between each coat of starch.
Then I used a whole can of white acrylic spray paint to "grey down" the blackness of the fabric. I didn't bother doing the collars or the wimples because they were already white.
The third step is to spatter paint them with more white acrylic paint, but in bigger drips, which we did Friday. Monday we did the mixture of hermit crab sand and glitter with spray adhesive. I ordered three cans of spray adhesive which was enough, but only 5 pounds of hermit crab sand, which wasn't quite enough, in that we had to be super careful and do it on shower curtains and then collect all the sand that shook off and reuse it.
Tuesday we'll do the spray glitter step and Wednesday the hot glue icicles.
Total cost on making four nuns look frozen: $112.75 Plus $52.52 for frozen nun makeup.
Then I used a whole can of white acrylic spray paint to "grey down" the blackness of the fabric. I didn't bother doing the collars or the wimples because they were already white.
The third step is to spatter paint them with more white acrylic paint, but in bigger drips, which we did Friday. Monday we did the mixture of hermit crab sand and glitter with spray adhesive. I ordered three cans of spray adhesive which was enough, but only 5 pounds of hermit crab sand, which wasn't quite enough, in that we had to be super careful and do it on shower curtains and then collect all the sand that shook off and reuse it.
Tuesday we'll do the spray glitter step and Wednesday the hot glue icicles.
Total cost on making four nuns look frozen: $112.75 Plus $52.52 for frozen nun makeup.
Total Spent
$845.26 on mostly leotards, tights, and dance shoes.