Fairy Wings

I finally got to work on my Halloween costume today! I’m going as an Autumnal hippie fairy and today I made my wings. I love them and just have to show them off 🙂

They’re made from clothes hangers (not the kind you buy but the kind that skirts hang off in some stores), hose, silk flowers, and a LOT of hot glue (I burned my fingers twice, OUCH!).

Anyway, here’s some in-progress shots:

And here are my finished wings!

Now I’ve just got to crochet my belt and practice applying my glittery eye makeup, I might just have everything ready by Halloween!

Fashion Feature: Crochet

Okay, I’m kind of taking the easy way out on this fashion feature because if there is one thing I don’t have to research or look for pictures for it’s crocheted clothing and accessories. There is really nothing I like better, and one of my favorite things to do is crochet. The dresses and other clothing you’re about to see? Basically my dream wardrobe.

Sadly, it can be difficult to find dress patterns in English. Crochet dress making seems to be more of thing for Japanese and Russian designers, although sometimes you can find a chart for the dress you’re eyeing, then of course you have to translate the symbols. But none of the dresses here had links to patterns so these are just to look at, there are some patterns at the bottom of the page for little touches of crochet.

So, no one is quite sure how crochet got it’s start, there are several different theories and all of them are worth a read if you’re interested in textile history. Historic pieces of crochet do exist but I won’t be sharing any today, for this one I’m sticking with some modern day examples of gorgeousness 🙂

Click on any image for a larger picture.

Sadly, I can’t find any info on the creator of this lovely dress.

No details on this one either. But I love the drape of the pineapple skirt and have seen plenty of charts that would mimic it.

This lovely dress was designed by Vanessa Montoro; a designer with some truly gorgeous crocheted dresses, you can check out her website here: http://www.vanessamontoro.com/en/

This is one of my personal favorites (and one I’m going to try and recreate some time, it is just so me!) this dress was crocheted by Anastasia Kuznetsova.

This seems to be Russian in origins though I’m not sure of the designer.

Also appears to be Russian, gorgeous lace flower motifs make up this pretty dress.

This poncho was crocheted by Jeanette of LutterIdyl and you can find her website here: http://www.lutteridyl.dk/

Love this wrapped lace skirt!

Another of my personal favorites; this rainbow vest was designed and crocheted by Mariana Rodriguez Segat.

If you’re looking for a more subtle touch of crochet in your own wardrobe you might be interested in some of these ideas:

Click on any image for a larger picture.

From a Russian blog: Use a Tee shirt, slit the sleeve and edge with crochet or tatted lace.

You could try this super easy necklace designed by Rhonda of Oombawka Design, here is a link to the Ravelry page where you can pick up the free pattern: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/simply-easy-necklace

You can get the tutorial for this lovely top at: http://handykitty.tumblr.com/post/51389986887/have-you-got-an-old-scarf-laying-around-an-odd

Diagnosed

I had so many plans for this blog that totally didn’t involve my health (or lack thereof), I have ideas and even a few posts that just need a bit of tidying up. But sometimes life just sucks. Not that I’m really surprised, I’ve been looking at all the possibilities since December of last year and wondering which it would be, but finally getting diagnosed is just a bit… well… final, and it’s also kind of scary. Honestly I was hoping for osteoarthritis because, hey, at least it’s not an autoimmune disease. But instead I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and I’m left wondering where I’m going now. I’m not big on taking medicine but apparently that is my only option to actually slow the disease. Damn.

I am also starting on an anti-inflammatory diet and a new exercise routine. The next couple of months should be interesting. I just… I’m scared but I don’t really want people to know that, I don’t want my loved ones to worry any more than they already are. I have a lot to think about and it’s overwhelming me a bit.

I fully intend to keep this blog going, including my fashion feature posts (even though I skipped last week’s, sorry!), but I think the focus may shift a bit as obviously my current focus has to be my health while I work out what this means for me now and in the future. Also, hand pain makes typing difficult which is the main reason I’ve been silent lately but hopefully my doctor and I will get that under control soon.

So… yeah, that’s what is going on with me. I’ll be back with something else soon I think, although the Lily Munster dress experiment has been put on hold for a bit so I won’t be posting about that for a while. I am making myself a fairy costume for Halloween that doesn’t require any sewing so once I finish up the wings I’ll share some pictures 🙂

Fashion Feature: Unusual Suspects

For this Fashion Feature I want to take a look at some really unique and interesting clothing creations, ones that aren’t made out of the normal fabrics and such. No, these are made from things like real live flowers, candy wrappers, and teacups! Gracious, I can’t even imagine the design process on some of these, not to mention actually making them! Or wearing them for that matter, although some of these may not have been made to wear, on the other hand some of them obviously were.

I found quite a few unique, weird, pretty, and artistic dresses while I was researching this blog post. It was an odd rabbit hole to fall into but I’m kind of hooked 🙂

Click on any image for a larger picture.

Sadly I can’t find any information on the creator of this lovely and unique (but I’m assuming completely unwearable?) tea cup dress.

Scallions, Brussels Sprouts and Cabbage dress by Sarah Illenberger.

Papier Couture – Paper Dress by Lia Griffith.

Another paper dress by Lia Griffith – She has several pretty paper dresses that you can check out at https://liagriffith.com/new-post-here/

Chive dress by Yeonju Sung

Flower Dress by Vashti Cassinelli

Skittles Riddles Candy Wrapper Dress! Made by Candyality

The skirt of this pretty dress is made from Lindor truffles and Swarovski crystals – By Lindka Cierach

This dress is made entirely of plastic bags and was designed by Jolene Vuong.

Fashion Feature Part Three: 1500s

Examples of dress from the 1500s:

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Elizabeth Tudor ascended the throne in 1558

Mary Tudor – sister of Henry VIII

Leather Jerkin, circa 1550-1600 (Museum of London) Via: The Pragmatic Costumer

Cape, 16th century – may have been male or female

Believed to be from 1560, this is called the “Red Dress of Pisa.” It is a Florentine gown from the sixteenth century – it was found on a wooden effigy at San Matteo. It is housed at the Palazzo Reale di Pisa (Museum Nazionale).

circa 1520

Dress of Queen Mary of Habsburg – made between 1520-1530, in the Hungarian National Museum

Marguerite de Valois (1553-1615). Said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world at that time.

Doublet

Part One Here

and

Part Two Here

There is a lot more I could explore throughout these eras, I mean I don’t even consider this scratching the surface! So definitely expect more history and pictures in a future Fashion Feature.

Fashion Feature Part Two: 1300s and 1400s

Not a lot of real examples here, paintings and reproductions are the order of the day when we’re going so far back in time.

Examples of dress from the 1300s:

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Reproduction costume is inspired by Codex Mannese (1300-1320). Cloak is made of orange silk green wool underlaid. Clothing is fastened by two brass fibulas connected by silk tie.

Reproduction of servant’s garb.

Sideless Surcote—A woman’s over-gown cut away at the sides from under the arms to the hips to show the cote-hardie or kirtle underneath; it was usually worn with a plastron at the front of the figure.

This bird shoe is dated ca 1300-1350… it is not known whether this was a shoe for men or women.

Men of high fashion in later periods began to wear shoes called Crakows or poulaines. They were long pointed shoes that are said to have come from Poland. They became fashionable in the 1300s. While they were worn by women, they were more of a man’s shoe and could reach impractical lengths, some even had toes held up by gold chains attached to the knee!

German – 1300s

Examples of dress from the 1400s:

Click on any image for a larger picture.

Brocade giornea (overdress) reproduction by rebelshaven.

Reproduction lady’s Italian Renaissance Blue brocade gamurra and gold giornea according to Italian fashion (1485).

Lady Margaret Plantagenet Crown worn at her wedding on 9th July 1468 to Charles the Bold of Bruges, it bears her name and the white roses of York in coloured enamel and is encrusted with pearls

French – 1400s

‘Maria Magdalena’ (1480) by Italian Renaissance painter Carlo Crivelli (1435-1495). Tempera on panel, 49 x 152 cm. via the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Reproduction of clothes worn in the Burgundian court in the second half of 15th century.

Original Golden Gown of Queen Margareta – carbon dating has shown that the cloth was very probably woven during the period 1403-1439. In other words, the gown could very well have been made during the lifetime of Margareta, Queen of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

Reproduction of the Golden Gown of Queen Margareta – for more information see http://www.durantextiles.com/newsletter/documents/news_3be_10.asp

Part One Here

And

Part Three Here

Fashion Feature: 1300s, 1400s and 1500s

Bit of a broad scope here with three hundred years of fashion, but I was doing some research and ran into an old friend; also known as Sumptuary Laws, these pesky little laws were meant to impede the extravagance of dress so as to restrict lavishness and to make clear the distinctions between levels of society (sumptuary laws weren’t just about clothing either, they included such things as food and furniture but we won’t get into that here). Sumptuary laws are very popular throughout history and date back to ancient Rome, for some reason the ones from the 1300s through the 1500s are my favorites to read about.  For more about Elizabethan sumptuary laws involving clothing (as well as horses and swords), including links to the statutes with updated language and punctuation, you can check out this page at elizabethan.org. Although sumptuary laws are actually really fun to read about, I’d definitely rebel if anyone tried to pass them into law now. Anyway, I got so lost in sumptuary laws that I ended up getting a bit far away from my original topic of 1400s and 1500s by going too far into the 1300s so I just decided to throw the 1300s in here too, mostly because I fully plan to expand on these eras in future posts so I’m using this post as a bit of a starting point.

Getting Dressed: Not an easy thing when you have so much to put on. Here are we have a couple of ladies showing us just how fun this can be (well depending on your definition of “fun” I think I’d probably enjoy it, until I had to do it every single day). On the left we have a Renaissance dress and on the right we have a Tudor dress. And just below are illustrations of both men’s and women’s dress in early Tudor costume and late Tudor costume.

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Early Tudor

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Late Tudor

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Because this post was getting pretty picture heavy, I’m splitting it into a total of three parts. For more see:

Part Two Here

and

Part Three Here