Project: Blue foam hatblocks for Fosshape millinery

We're in full swing with production on The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, the largest show our theatre has ever produced. If you've been reading labricoleuse for a while, you know that it's a huge deal around here--we've gotten a big NEA grant for all the work we're doing above and beyond the show itself under the auspices of the Dickens Initiative via partnerships with our regional libraries, book clubs, businesses, and so forth.

I've been restricting most of my "NickNick-related" blogging about it to our official production blog, Nicholas Nickleby: Page to Stage, which is aggregated on LJ as nicknickleby, but those posts have been more for a general audience. This one marks the beginning of a two-part series strictly for y'all here, as it's a lot more technical in its focus.

One of the hats i'm making for the show is a fairly unusual bonnet form, for a character called "Rich Lady," a demanding customer in Madame Mantalini's Millinery salon.

( click for photos and more text )