An eight-year-old child comes home from her arts camp on the second-to-last day and says to her mother, “Peggy says I need to wear jeans tomorrow.”
The mother, who knows that (a) the girl has no jeans and (b) the girl doesn’t like jeans, asks, “Why?”
The girl says, “Because I need them for my costume.”
Ah, yes, the last day of camp is filled with the performances and art shows the children have been preparing in the intense five-week session.
The mother offers to alter her own jeans skirt.
The girl refuses it. “Mama, my character is a man. So I can’t wear a skirt.”
The jeans make sense; now the mother remembers that the girl plays Frank, whoever he is, in Annie Get Your Gun.
So, mother and daughter head to the fabric store and buy stretchy, denim-like fabric (that’s not denim!), a “quick sew” pattern, and notions. We come home, eat dinner, and get through the evening activities, including girl’s bedtime.
And here’s a picture of the mother, at 10:30pm, about 12 hours before the curtain goes up.
Costume Department
Photograph is by girl’s father.
leaf stitch word 
I’m pretty sure that Frank is one of the leads. Sings “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”
Unless this is Little Orphan Annie Get Your Gun, in which case I don’t know.
Although daugter doesn’t like jeans, she will wear them proudly for her play. Did you french seam the jeans, or leave raw edges? Just wondering.
Admirable as your undertaking was, um, er, why not just buy jeans…Old Navy is right near JoAnne’s. Just one more thing that makes me love you. And be in awe of you.
J3, Frank *is* one of the leads, and yet Grace didn’t actually play that role, as I realized today. She was Man in Hotel, or something like that. Frank was the role she *wanted*. She had some good lines, though, and a few solos on song verses.
EE, she did wear them proudly. And while they looked like jeans, they had an elastic waist and no zipper — that’s what Grace does not like about jeans, feeling so constrained by them. While I did seam and finish them nicely, I did not french seam them.
JLR, you must have noticed Grace’s great love for yoga pants. She loves them as much as you love jeans. So, I had to make yoga pants that looked like jeans, and, from a distance, they did. It helped that the gingham cowboy shirt she wore hung over the waistband, concealing a lack of belt loops, belt, and zipper.
I liked reading this imagining you were people I did not know – a “mother” and a “girl.” I liked you both in this. The girl is loved and the mother is a “mom.”