Thursday, December 24, 2009

Santa Claus is coming to town

It's Christmas, it's Christmas! OK, it's not quite yet, but it's Christmas eve, and every kid know that today is the day that Santa comes! And since I'm a big kid at heart...

Two years ago, I was asked to make a Santa Claus and Mother Claus costume for
Troupe Fantasia's Christmas play. While I went with a traditional cookie baking look for Mother Claus (a red dress with a frill on the hem of the skirt and lace at the neckline and cuffs, paired with a frilly apron), The art director and I agreed on a more Victorian looking Santa, inspired by Nicolas Noël, The real Santa Claus' look. I therefore made a waistcoat, which Santa wears over a red shirt and pants he got elsewhere, a fur trimmed, deep red velvet robe, belted with a gold cord, and of course, a hat.

Note: The following pictures are a courtesy of Troupe Fantasia. I only made the Santa Claus and Mother Claus costumes. The others were made by other seamstresses over the years.

Santa Claus on his throne

Mother Claus and Santa Claus with a couple of children

Santa's home!

Mother Claus and Santa Claus with Rudolph

The Claus go South!

For those interested, here are the patterns I used. for the Mother Claus costume, I used Butterick 6816; for Santa's waistcoat, I used Simplicity 8910; Santa's robe and hat were made using Butterick 3648. As for materials, the Mother Claus costume as well as Santa's waistcoat were made out of Christmas quilter's cotton, and as previously mentioned, Santa Claus' robe is made of expensive velvet and good quality faux-fur (the Troupe will be using this costume for the next 20 years, so it is well worth the price).

Merry Christmas everyone! Watch out for Santa tonight (I like to keep track of him with the Official NORAD Santa Tracker).

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