Making a Fairy Part 2: The Dress

For the fairy dress, I had a fair bit of white satin leftover from a wedding gown I'd done last year, so I made the fairy dress out of that. I double-layered it on the body part of the dress so it wouldn't be see through, and fortunately satin is still light enough to wear to a summer Ren Fest.

For the gold trim on the pointed sleeves and the collar I found a polyester fabric that worked great. The dress has a zippered back. The costume was finished off with a pair of pointed ears, like the elf's. Glittery makeup, a flute, and a greenery wreath for the head also make excellent fairy embellishments.

My Top 3 Cures for Insomnia

I'm a person who never watches television. I like a good movie on Saturday night or while I'm stripping flowers for the market, but as far as actual television, forget it. When you live out in the boonies with 3 channels, your choices are basically reality shows, medical, cop, or lawyer; none of which appeal. So basically I never watched TV...at least until I found out it could cure insomnia.

I've always been a nightowl. Even as a two-year-old I knew what "Here's Johnny" meant. My body is just naturally geared toward the evening and my energy level kicks into gear in the late afternoon. Unfortunately most of the normal world is geared toward the day, so needless to say, I've had problems with insomnia for years.

I've tried every trick in the book; leaving the lights low for an hour before bed, taking a bath before bed, playing music, drinking milk, socks on, socks off, leaving the window open, Chinese herbs, you name it. So a couple years ago, I decided to try watching a little bit of a movie before bed to see if it would relax me so I could go to sleep. Granted anything I had ever read advised against that very thing, saying instead that a person should turn off electronic lights, televisions and computers an hour before bed to regulate the sleep hormones. But in my case, been there, done that and it hadn't worked, so I decided to give the movie idea a try.

The hitch was, trying to follow a movie when you only watch a few minutes a night really isn't that great. However, around the time I'd decided to try a movie before bed, I stumbled across a fantasy show that actually looked like something I might be into called "Legend of the Seeker" on hulu. It was perfect.

Unlike a movie, a television episode is shorter, designed to have break points in it for commercials. I found I could watch 10 minutes of an episode each night on hulu (basically through a commercial break each night), and make a single episode last almost a whole week. Since it's online, I can just pick up right where I left off the previous night and I sleep great. I'm still a night owl going to bed around 2am, but I'm no longer lying in bed until the sun rises due to insomnia.

For me that simple little ten minutes of an episode each night relaxes me and allows me to easily fall asleep. I'm able to just leave all the baggage of the day behind, turn off my own life for ten minutes and become immersed in someone else's world. And after that, I'm able to sleep.

One thing I noticed, however, is that whatever the pre-bedtime 10 minutes are, they can't be comedy. It can be a serious show with comedy in it, but it can't be full out comedy or I end up just watching it, instead getting lost in it. The getting lost is the key, I think comedy is too light to draw a person in. You have to able to get lost in another world and leave yours behind in order to fall asleep. (And if you like to be kept guessing, stretching a 1-hour show out over an entire week really increases the suspense factor!)

So here are my top three insomnia cures. Unfortunately the type of shows I'm attracted to usually don't last more that a season or two. They're often more like an extended movie than a TV series, being plot heavy, and usually not the type of show that a person can just drop into the middle of, which is probably why they work so well for my insomnia. They're so easy to get lost in. In any event, these are three that work well for me:

#1: Legend of the Seeker
I guess the first love really is the best. I actually found this show because I saw a picture that looked like Lord of the Rings type fantasy (actually that single picture inspired an entire novel I've been working on). This show has it all, swords, adventure, magic, great costumes, and humor mixed into the drama. Sadly, Legend of the Seeker was not renewed for a season three (at least not yet, the Save Our Seeker campaign is currently fighting for exactly that). I never had to worry about trouble sleeping if I watched 10 minutes of this before bed and I loved it so much that I ended up watching both seasons several times (in ten minute segments of course)

#2: Firefly
This show I found because it was similar to something I was writing at the time.  I love almost anything that falls into the Western genre, and had in fact at the time been writing a filmscript for a western. The problem was, I knew that I could never film the movie anywhere near my home because I don't live in the west, so I'd come up with the idea of doing it as a cowboy movie in space on some distant planet that was like the wild west. That was about the time I learned about Firefly. I'd heard of this show a few times, but as far as I knew, it was just another space show, so I wasn't interested in it until I learned it was actually a space western. When I heard that, I knew I had to watch it because I was writing something similar. Firefly was beautifully done. The western element was very prominent, it had a strong plot, and a few ongoing subplots, as well a bit of humor mixed in. Unfortunately this show only lasted one season, but there was a continuation a few years later in the form a movie after the fan kicked up ruckus about the show's cancellation.

#3: Roar
This was the shortest lived show on my list, not even lasting an entire season, but it certainly was good while it lasted. I found this one while I was doing research for a Celtic warrior costume. I had a picture in my head of what I wanted it to look like, and then I saw a picture of one of this show's characters wearing something similar to the picture in my head, so I decided to look it up. I've always had this interest in the Celts (some of my ancestors were Celts, so maybe that's where it comes from), so this show instantly resonated with me. Roar involved the last of the Celtic tribes fighting off the invasion of the Romans 400 years after the death of Christ. A subplot throughout the show involved one of the main villains who was cursed to live forever because he had been the one to kill Christ. Roar didn't have as much of a central plot as Legend of the Seeker and Firefly, and sometimes had trouble following its own story line (they've yet to explain how Molly ended up alone with no family, but then goes home to visit her mother), but it held its own. Perhaps the ironic thing is that the two leading actors were Heath Ledger and Vera Farmiga, who at the time no one had heard of, but now often draw people to the show.

Making a Fairy Part 1: The Wings

It has to be said that wings are the most important part of a fairy costume. The wings are what really prompt the fairy response. Working off the sketch I was given, I fashioned the wings in four sections out of electric cow fence wire (yeah, I know, me using anything other than bailing wire, what are the odds? But hey, fence wire is pretty close). Since it was to be a water fairy, I set out to find an apporpriate blue material to cover the wing frame with. I found this sheer blue material with a wavy pattern on it, which seemed to hit the mark because when I brought it home, my sister commented that the fabric looked like water. Perfect!

I cut the fabric to fit the wingshapes and sewed them to the frames by hand all the way around the edges. (That's the way I've always done it, but I've got to find an easier way, because this way just takes much too long). Then I wrapped a few paint stirring sticks with the elftover blue material and sewed them to all 4 sections to attached them to one another and provide stability.

Since the fairy dress will be white, the ties are white satin ribbon to go aroud the shoulders and tie in the back. There's also and option set of ribbons at the waist.

The Simple Pleasures Project

"An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth" ~ Bonnie Friedman

This year, the unthinkable happened; I missed the spring pumpkin planting. The planting of the pumpkins is one of my favorite parts of the farming year, something I always look forward to, something I'd be heartbroken to miss, and this year that is exactly what happened.

My hours at my office job had double this year, and it felt like I was racing all the time. I'd blow through chores in the morning as fast as I could, run off to work, then run home and try and get something done on the farm with the short time before nightfall, only to do the same thing all over again. I was feeling like I hit the ground running every morning, and I was missing out on the life I really loved, the life of the farm. It's difficult to enjoy working 40 hours a week at an indoor desk job, when your heart longs for the outdoor world of the farm. I was missing everything I loved and it made me feel like Geroge Baily "cooped up in some shabby little office." I knew I couldn't live like that, because what's the point of living if you're not enjoying life right? Something had to change.

I took a leap of faith, and knew I either had to get my hours at work lessened or go out on my own. I was prepared to do either, and it all worked out in the end. I got my office hours lessened, and now I get to enjoy that as well as enjoying my time on the farm. Now I actually feel like I have time to breathe, and it's made me realize just how much I really was missing. Too often we're so hurried in life that we don't have time to "stop and smell the roses," we neglect to notice the simple pleasures in life, and those simple pleasures are what really matter

So I've begun a little experiment I'm calling the Simple Pleaures Project, taking time to slow down enough each day to notice and enjoy something simple. 365 days of simple pleasures. I'm sure it's boring as all heck for anyone else to read, but it's something fun to do on your on own. Here's the link if you feel inspired to start your own such project for your life: The Simple Pleasures Project

Making an Elvin Archer Part 6: The Shirt

For shirt I used light green broadcloth, double-layered on the torso part, and single-layered on the sleeves. It's one of the Renaissance style, large shirts. I kept it fairly short so there wouldn't be a lot to stuff into the corset. The collar was a two inch wide piece of fabric that I did a running stitch on, and pulled it up tight, then I sewed it between the two layers of the shirt. To make the sleeves poofy, I cut them in a shape sort of like a half moon, and sewed the curved edge to the body of the shirt. The flat edges I made sure to cut on the bias so I wouldn't have to hem them. Then to enhance the "poof" I sewed some half-inch brown ribbon onto the sleeve-bottoms, sewing only at the very edges which left a tunnel in between. Through the tunnel, I ran a thinner piece of brown ribbon so the sleeves can be pulled up tight for added "poofyness" and a good fit on the arms. The olive green piece of cloth at the bottom is a sash/belt that goes around the waist.
The costume was finished off with a pair of latex elf ears.

Making an Elvin Archer Part 5: The Shorts

To make the shorts, I took a pair of brown pants, kinda like sweatpants, but not quite so thick, and cut them off below the knee. Then I rolled the bottoms up a couple inches and sewed the roll in place. The pants had pockets in them, so instead of sewing them out, I left them in, figuring they might be convienent. And since the skirt will go over them, they won't show anyway. I cut the slits in the sides about an inch wide and sewed the seams wit keep them from unravelling. I didn't use metal lacing holes for these, I just did the whipstitch holes as I was afraid the metal might be uncomfortable on bare skin. The ribbon lacing is the same 1/4 inch thick satin brown I used for the the cloak closure. The waist is drawstring again, like the skirt, to ensure good fit.

Making an Elvin Archer Part 4: The Skirt

For the skirt, I had enough faux suede left over from the cloak to make the skirt from that. This is probably the simplest part of the costume. I just cut the front section, and the back section (the longer part), sitched the two together at the sides, then cut the slits in both front and back. Because the faux suede frays easily, I zig-zag stiched all around the entire edge of each slit with my sewing machine to make sure it doesn't come unravelled. The waistband I made drawstring to be sure for a perfect fit.

Making an Elvin Archer Part 3: The Corset

Since this elvin archer is female, we needed a corset. I made this out of the same faux leather stuff as the bracers, but instead of putting fabric stiffener inside, I used two layers of denim. I had to give it a light "boning" without it being uncomfortable (battle elves needing to be able to move around quckly after all), so instead of metal or plastic boning, I lined the front of the corset with some vertical nylon strings. Actually, to be specific, the nylon strings are bailing twine (not just for use on haybails), to allow for plenty of flexibility, while still providing support. It's a front-lacing corset, so I used metal lacing holes on this, which I've done never before. Usually I just whipstitch around a cut to make a lacing hole, same as a button, but in this case, since it'd be seen from the front, I wanted it to look a bit fancier. I think I'll be using them for any corset I make from now on. They're not too difficult to work with and they look great!

Canandaigua Farmers Market

Market opens tomorrow and runs every Saturday, through the last week of October.
Canandaigua Farmers Market

Making an Elvin Archer Part 2: The Bracers

Here are the archer bracers. They look like leather, but they're not (I love animals, I rarely use real leather). It's actually a polyester fabric, that kinda squeaks like leather, sewn around a stiffener to give them the leather feel. These have laceholes and a buckle on each bracer. I found the metal part of the buckles in the pursemaking section of a craft shop. The straps I made from more of the fake leather.