costume fitting

morgana had her dancers try their costumes on this evening . . 

they all seem to fit very well . . 

which is good!

costume dyeing

most of the week has been spent dyeing chiffon scarves and nylon unitards for morgana's dance for her modern alumni concert in two weeks.

green, yellow and orange (which was supposed to be gold) hanging to dry.

the sixth and final unitard sits in a pot of scarlet dye.

 ironing the purple which has been my favorite, though i hear it looks a bit too much like lavender beneath the lights.

colors don't always come out, not only with the camera, but also with the dyes on the fabric. i tried mixing the scarlet with a little golden brown to make it more of a brick red, but it just kept turning more orange.

off to rehearsal, and a consultation with the lighting designer.

errands, hot chocolate, and fabric dyeing

today was such a beautiful day with blue skies . . the end of december and january are often very grey so i'm always appreciative of the sunshine.

 earl grey tea this morning . . (we received a few walnut boat candles for christmas from a friend) . . 

 and fresh homemade sour dough bread.

 morgana and i walked downtown to aljo, the dye store ellen always recommends.

 it's time to dye the costumes for the group dance she's doing for ellen's alumni concert in three weeks. she chose turquoise, military green, 

 golden yellow, magenta and scarlet. hmmm . . . i think she's doing lemon yellow also. she has six dancers who will be wearing unitards and a chiffon scarf.

 inside aljo . . 

 and then a hot chocolate with homemade marshmallows from baked, a coffee shop in tribeca.

 it was very good and very filling so morgana was lucky that i couldn't finish all of it.

i'm glad it was such a nice day on which to run errands.

in the evening at astor place where the cube is finally out again.

 i met morgana at the rod rodgers dance studio after her babysitting job to see the solo piece she was thinking of doing for ellen's show.

 it's very last minute though . . only three weeks until the concert, so it's not definite that it'll go in.

she's been so busy that it's been difficult to find the time to rehearse.

 dyeing two of the unitards . . 

 it was a long tiring process . . can you see madeline's head peeking out on the top left?

they're always hopeful that i'll feed them whenever i'm in the kitchen.

saturday morning berries & friday night costume dyeing

i met chanda after her acting class and we picked up fresh local berries from the green market for lunch today. it was a quiet day at home and then i went with her to a dances patrelle audition for francis' production of macbeth that will start rehearsal in august and go up the third week of september. it felt great to see everyone there again, and chanda met another homeschooler who she knows from mutual friends. they had both heard about each other, but had never met. chanda said it felt so nice to be back with the patrelle family. she hasn't been able to dance with them these past few years, being so busy with joffrey, and has missed them greatly.

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yesterday night i finally tackled dyeing the unitard. chanda is hoping to wear it for her duncan dance teacher's recital on sunday. it's very humid out and so is taking a long time to dry, but should be alright.

she would like it to be a darker green so i'll have to try re-dyeing it, but not until after the recital sunday evening.

sinfonia rehearsal and dyeing chanda's costume

 the sinfonia orchestra has been rehearsing for their concert a week from today.

 it was incredibly warm on the way home so we couldn't resist stopping for an ice cream at "amorino."

 you can have as many flavors as you like. they shape the scoops into a flower on the cone. i chose chocolate, coffee and pistachio. chanda had coffee, pistachio and lemon.

the wisteria was in bloom today.

 after chanda's acting class, we began dyeing her costume. first we did the pants in royal blue and dark green.

 the dark green rinsed out well with hardly any bleeding.

back breaking work!  i was happy to let her do the honors.

 then we overlapped the royal blue . . 

 we used a bit more powder and over saturated the pants a bit with this color. she just had to wash it out longer.

after dyeing the pants (which were polyester), we dyed the cotton leotard. the cotton takes the color better and is a bit brighter. i was a little worried while the garments were hanging up, drying. the leotard looked too bright.

 but after everything dried, it looked alright together. the elastic on the pants needs to be tightened and taken up an inch.

dyeing c's dance costume

i'm dyeing c's dance costume today, with aljo dyes. the color is alizarene blue. they're located on walker street and ellen robbins, c's dance teacher, has been going to them for years for her costumes. it's helpful to talk with the woman about the fabric and the dye process, and the colors are full and rich. i'm always very nervous when beginning the process, but then i could dye our whole wardrobe. the material is a 12 mm silk, with an over tunic of 4.5 mm silk chiffon. the over tunic was supposed to be dyed a pearl grey . . but the pearl grey looked too smokey on the chiffon, so we're leaving it plain for now. (we only saw the pearl grey on regular silk . . they didn't have a chiffon sample.) c's dance is called secret water, and she is a sea spirit.
while i dyed the material, m worked on her guitar and math, and c . . well, she worked on knitting the pouches for the birthday party this coming monday, while listening to a book on tape (magic treehouse). she made a nice fort for herself. !