Progress So Far The orphans are almost finished, thanks to Amelia's mom and grandmother. Their swatches are on the left. The color value is poor on the bottom one, it is more yellow, less green. My helpers put patches on them of the co-ordinating fabrics, one of which is the top sample. I threw the muslin items, along with half of the Gang shirts, into a tan dye bath, with a little grey added. I'm adding plackets at the front opening of some, closed with one of the antique buttons from our trip to the Hill Country (where Fagin's patches came from, as well.)
Some of the orphans may get jackets of the second from the bottom swatch- we'll see.

The swatches on the right are for the Artful Dodger. From bottom to top, they are: trousers, vest, coat, coat collar and pocket flaps, and hat. I wanted to keep them in the same color family- I don't like the Artful Dodger as Clown look, where they make him the Cat in the Hat. These look quite sharp and dapper now, but they will all be distressed.

We worry that Joan will be perturbed when we take a paintbrush to her wonderful creations for Nancy and Bet, but they must be in character and we're not planning to re-use them for anything else. She does the most wonderful work- I'm making V. buy me my own camera, so I can take photos of the processes and the finished product.

Her Mrs. Sowerberry is genius- a great concoction of all types of black textures.
We discussed ideas for the women street vendors for 'Who Will Buy' and she found perfect calicos and solids for them: a yellow and rose print for the Rose Seller's skirt over a yellow underdress, a spring green and pink overskirt over a strawberry pink for the Strawberry Seller and almost a white and blue toile with a blue skirt for the dairymaid. What a picture they will make on stage together.

My other volunteer mom did an excellent and imaginative job on the circus girls and has offered to put together the Strongman, if I will kit it up for her. The little girls have a longer dance than we had originally thought and I'm glad they're fairly gaudy.

One of our Gang suffered a tae kwan do injury- a sprained ankle. His mother, who's also in the cast, thinks he will be recovered by the time we open. I suggested having the set crew make him one of those Tiny Tim crutches, just in case, and he could be the Crippled Beggar Pickpocket.

V. ordered me David Lean's 1948 Oliver Twist, which I've been watching in snatches on YouTube. There are wonderful ideas in it, but we can't go quite that dark. I assured Connie, the set painter, that he had used almost the same view of the London skyline that she had chosen- great minds, etc.
V. has been working on the set crew and finds it fascinating, especially the part where Robert appears, announces "We need to do something different with this" and begins to splash black paint on a perfectly painted piece of furniture. I explained that that happens more often than you might think- Oliver's pants are a good example.

In the "You're killin' me, Smalls!" dept.- Oliver must be wearing his street clothes, except for the jacket, under a nightshirt. So the nightshirt must be opaque enough for his lovely plaid pants not to show through. The little gal at the Hobby Lobby found this an interesting problem and helped me decide on a white-on-white calico.

Today is Bill Sikes Day and I should go sew.