Kathleen Cheetham wearing Petite Plus Patterns #250 Swing Coat shown here
backstage at the 2010 International Textiles Expo in Las Vegas
Kathleen Cheetham is known for her fit expertise and for producing Petite Plus
Patterns, a line of patterns designed especially to fit full-figured petites from size
12-24. She teaches classes on fitting, tailoring and design and has worked on
film sets, in the factory and in ready to wear.
What does Kathleen work on when she's looking for a change?
Last summer, Kathleen was contracted to create children's costumes for the
Quatse Salmon Stewardship Centre in Port Hardy, British Columbia. This beautiful centre
includes an interpretive area, a salmon hatchery and an educational facility. The
centre plays an important role in the Fisheries and Oceans' Salmonids in the
Classroom program. Students participate in egg takes during September and
October. The centre incubates and raises the eggs to an eyed stage, after which
the young growing fish are raised in aquaria for several months before being
released to their home stream in the spring. The program director planned to
enhance the educational component of the centre by incorporating a special
story and skit component to the curriculum for 3 to 10 year olds. She believes
there's a lot to be learned by acting out the life of an animal and asked for
costumes.
It was required that the costumes be cartoon-like with exaggerated anatomical
details. The costumes had to be sturdy enough for active little boys, washable,
non-toxic, comfortable, and quick and easy to put on any size of child.
After poring through books and photos, visiting web sites and aquarium to collect
information, Kathleen proposed depicting the life cycle of coho salmon. She
decided to use applique and attach the fish characteristics to a basic hooded
vest. With open sides, this garment could easily be popped over the head and
worn by different-sized children.
Here's her account of the project.
The first costume I made was an alevin -- the newly hatched baby fish, so young it
still carries a yolk sac. Kids are quite amused with this tiny salmon, referring to its
yolk sac as a lunch bucket.
Head, tail and body sections were constructed separately. Here, the CB seam of
the hood is only partially sewn so that it can be laid flat. The eyes were made
using four layers of fabric - polar fleece, poly metallic and poly moire. I wanted
the eyes to be as large as possible and to bulge. The layers were machine sewn
one on top of the other, then hand stitched to the hood. A little poly batting was
stuffed in behind the eye as well for the bulge factor.
Simple strips of orange polar fleece were zigzagged onto the throat of the hood
for gills.
Taking a break, I thought this fish head might make a pretty cute bustier. Charlie,
our standard poodle appears to question my logic!
The dorsal fin and the tail were interlined, sewn face to face, turned and, stitched
for detail, then gathered slightly. The blood line was zigzagged onto each side of
the long body. Then the tail and dorsal fin were sandwiched between the long
body pieces.
The use of polar fleece made for simple seam treatments, eliminating bulky
seams. Note here how the body sections are simply stitched wrong sides
together.
The long body of the alevin was stuffed with lightweight, hypoallergenic, nonflammable
material. I discovered that stuffing is an exercise in patience. You
have to take your time with the little narrow parts or they'll look lumpy!
Stuffing completed, the alevin's body was first hand basted on to the back of the
vest, then it was zigzagged by machine. It's not visible here, but a separate
reinforcing layer of fabric was attached to the underside of the vest. I wanted to
be sure that a child tugging on this fish tail wouldn't create tears in the vest back.
The yoke sac, also known as the lunch bucket, began as a large circular piece of
polar fleece. It was gathered up to create the pooch, hand basted onto the vest
front, then zigzagged by machine. A small section was left open for stuffing and
later stitched in place.
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Here's the finished coho alevin. Note that there is buttonhole elastic and buttons
at the sides for custom fitting. After some neighborhood kids tried on the
costume, I decided to remove the elastic and buttons. The costume "worked"
better without them.
The alevin was the first costume delivered to the centre. In projects such as this,
you can expect to have your work critiqued closely. Should it have a longer tail
section, a bigger yoke sac? What about the color? Alevins are not really that
color.
It was an interesting exercise fielding these questions, not being offended but
discussing why I'd chosen the detail sizes and colors.
My responses went something like this:
First, we give the "message" of the anatomy. Based on the responses I received
here in my neighborhood, the kids "got the body parts". I cautioned about size -- a
tail too long becomes a swinging apparatus and a tummy too big becomes a
punching bag for rambunctious little boys. Costumes can only be made so
resilient before they become heavy and tank-like. Plus, this costume is meant to
be worn by different sized kids. What's a small yoke sac on one child is
overwhelming on another. So the size of tail and yoke sac was deemed to be ok.
The color had to be defended by the fact that alevins are translucent. That's why
I chose the blue -- it's watery. As there was no expert willing to make further color
suggestions, we stayed with the color I'd chosen.
Continuing with stages in the salmon's life cycle, more of the costumes follow.
Here are the coho fingerlings.
I bought this shimmery vest fabric from the drapery department of Fabricland.
The silver fingerlings are tubes made from bathing suit fabric. One long tube was
filled with grey polar fleece, machine stitched down the center then cut to short
lengths. The fingerlings' eyes are large black sequins.
The ocean-going coho was the prettiest fish.
Most of the fabrics came either from my stash or the stash of friends. Memories
of previous school plays and dance competitions abounded as people brought in
bits of this and that. Each piece was tested for washing and durability.
Here is the body of the spawning coho.
It looks nice here with its red tummy and ultra-suede tail. But wait. Not done yet.
To make it look as authentic as possible, the spawning coho had to be
distressed. The tail was slashed, black paint was smudged on and white-out was
streaked -- all to simulate a fish that's battled its way up river to spawn and die.
For me, this project was an exciting change from the usual ladies' wear. And I
love to hear that the kids really have fun wearing the costumes as they perform
skits and hear stories at the interpretive center.
This is Erin Wright, Educational Programs Coordinator holding the marine coho
costume at Quatse Salmon Stewardship Centre.
You may visit their web site at www.thesalmoncentre.org.
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(04/29/10)